How to Keep a Shower Curtain Rod from Falling

Scene: Night. The Condo residents are nestled all snug in their beds.

SFX:Silence except for Blitzkrieg, the 12 pound Pekingese who is snoring louder than a 300 pound man in desperate need of adenoid surgery.

“Klang!”

“Thumpa! Thumpa!”

“Bow-rowr- -rowr- -rowr- -rowr- -rowr- -rowr-!”

"Plink! Plink! Plink!”

Groggily I shuffle to the bathroom. The supposed stay up spring loaded shower curtain rod fell down. I raise my hands to the heavens and wonder how I pissed off the home improvement gods this time? Why must these things always happen in the middle of the night? Why can’t I get a good night’s sleep?

I though I took care of this problem months ago. Once I realized that the el cheapo nontension plastic shower curtain rod that came with the house was held up with nothing more than good intentions, I replaced it with a this exact metal tension shower curtain rod like this one with grippy rubber tips that are supposed to stay in place no matter what. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience. )

Apparently I was wrong about the long term stay uppidness. Time to break out the power tools.

Save this easy and stylish bathroom hack to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

How I Made a Sturdy Stay Up Shower Curtain Rod

Fabkins – Cute Cloth Napkins for Kids!

While I don’t have kids full time, I am lucky enough to have a whole host of nieces and nephews of various ages to
run experiments on 
help me test children’s products. One of these products was Fabkins children’s napkins. Fabkins are cotton cloth napkins that are a little smaller than a full size dinner napkin and made to fit on kid’s laps and in kid’s lunchboxes.


Fabkins founders Joyce Raffo and Paige Rodgers wanted to pack waste free school lunches for their children. The moms had a hard time finding reusable cloth napkins that weren’t too big for a lunch box and that were, well, fun. They decided to make their own and Fabkins was born.

Filing Cabinet Handle Revamp

I got a filing cabinet has a gift to hold all of the papers and whatnots that goes with being a responsible adult. It’s made of flimsy thin metal. I’m sure it was a Wally World (ugh!) special because shortly after we got it the plastic drawer pull snapped off in my hand when I tried to use it to open the drawer.

I looked for a replacement handles at Lowes but I couldn’t find anything that would fit the screw holes that were already drilled in the cabinet drawer front. Husband and I both remarked that we should just go to Staples and get a more substantial filing cabinet and send the cheap-o cabinet to that great metal recycling bin in the sky. OK, not really a recycling bin in the sky, more like the recycling dumpster outside of the fire station around the corner but you get my drift. I was trying to be poetic about refuse.

I was poking around the Habitat Restore and found some hideous brass 1970’s drawer pulls. The only redeeming quality was that these drawer pulls had a back plate that would cover the old screw holes in the drawer front if I needed to drill new ones to install the new handle. Oh, that and the handles were cheap. At fifty cents for the pair I figured that I could do something with them to deuglyfy them and have a more useful filing cabinet once again.

I painted the drawer pulls and back plate with some leftover silver spray paint. Once the silver paint was dry, I painted the interior of the back plate with black paint for interest and to de-70’s the look at bit.

Make a No Slip Stay Put Door Draft Dodger

I installed metal draft blockers on the front and back doors of The Condo. Then I noticed that some areas of The Condo were still cold and a bit drafty – around the doors to my coat closet and pantry, which are both on outside walls. These drafts meant that my heater needs to work a little harder to keep the Condo warm in winter and the air conditioning needs to work a little harder to keep the Condo cool during the summer.

 Pin this idea to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!
 These drafts were wasting energy and costing me money – something I try to avoid. I like to save energy and save money on my heating and cooling bills.

What to do? I needed something to block the drafts on those interior doors. I didn’t think a metal draft plate would work on my wooden hollow core doors. I didn’t like how traditional fabric door draft dodger/door draft blocker/door draft stopper/door draft snake won’t stay in place. So I made a no slip stay put door draft dodger. Here’s how I did it.

Not only is making this no slip door draft blocker quick and easy project, but it is also a great stash buster!

Sew a No Slip Stay Put Door Draft Blocker 

Why Solar Panels Won’t Work Year Round in Central Ohio

Recently I was discussing how to reduce city energy costs on an online forum. A user offered the opinion that once everyone had converted to producing electricity using only solar and wind energy that we would end our dependency on fossil fuels forever. Many others chimed in, everyone agreed solar, and wind for everyone is the way to go.

Great idea until I looked out my window and saw this.

The branches and what's left of leaves on the tree in my front yard are encased in ice from an ice storm

I noticed that the person who offered this opinion was from Costa Rica, where they have sun in abundance.

How to Make a T Shirt Quilt

My mom decided she wanted to declutter her house. Unfortunately, that meant that she was going to clutter up my house with a bunch of boxes of my childhood stuff.

Try as I might I could not convince her that it was a far better use of storage space if she kept those boxes rather than me. No dice.

I eventually went through the boxes and found a ton of old t-shirts. I was in a boatload of clubs, plays, service days, etc. in high school, college, and adulthood. If I wanted to commit a fashion faux pax and wear nothing but those t-shirts every day, I wouldn’t have to do laundry for about, oh, 3 months.

I really needed to thin the t shirt herd. I donated some of the shirts to a thrift store. But, I’m a softie. There were some shirts that I didn’t want to give up even though I wasn’t going to wear them again.

What to do? I decided when life gives you T shirts – make a quilt!

So I did.

I’m not a quilter. In fact, this t-shirt quilt is my first real quilting project.

Note: Please don’t feel intimidated by this project! Some of the quilting sites I checked while researching this project made me feel like there were tons of rules and “you musts” when making a simple t-shirt quilt. Some of those Quiltzillas made me feel like this project was way too hard and I’ve been sewing since I was 5 years old! A t shirt quilt is a good beginning sewing project because it can be as easy or as difficult as you want to make it.

A t-shirt quilt also makes a great graduation gift or a gift for someone who participates in local sports, clubs, or just has lots of t shirts.

Make a T-Shirt Quilt the Easy Way!

You will need:

A 12 x 12 inch piece of paper/plastic/cardboard to use as a template

Rotary cutting wheel & a self healing mat

Pins

Sewing machine

Thread

T-shirts

Backing material (I used a flat jersey top sheet like this one)

Quilt batting or a thin blanket (optional)

Disclosure: I have included affiliate links in this post for your convenience. 

Make it:

1. Center the template on the t shirt design and cut a 12 x 12 inch square from each t-shirt using the scissors or rotary cutter and mat.

• Depending upon the size and design of the shirts you are using you may be able to get two squares from each shirt if you cut a square from both the front and the back of the t shirt.
• If you have some large t shirt scraps leftover you may be able to cut them into squares and use them as dust clothes or hem the edges and make handkerchiefs from them, or cut them into long strips and braid them into dog or cat toys.
• For each size quilt you will need approximately the following number of squares for the following size t shirt quilts.
  - Twin = approximately 45 squares
  - Full = approximately 63 squares
  - Queen = approximately 72 squares
  - King = approximately 81 squares

2. Lay out squares out on the floor and arrange them into columns and row.

• For each size quilt you will need approximately the following number of squares for the following size t shirt quilts.
  - Twin = 5 rows wide x 9 rows long
  - Full = 7 rows wide x 9 rows long
  - Queen = 8 rows wide x 9 rows long
  - King = 9 rows wide x 9 rows long
• To keep the quilt from being too busy I tried to alternate a printed shirt front square with a blank shirt back square.
• Now is the time to get creative! For example, I used red and white t-shirts to make a St. George’s Cross on my quilt.

3. Once you have the t-shirts laid out in the pattern you like. Pin the t-shirt squares together into columns that are nine blocks long.

4. Sew blocks together to form columns.

5. Pin the columns together.

• It’s a good idea to put the pinned together quilt together on a bed to check that it will be the desired size. If not add or subtract rows/blocks as needed.
  
  
  

6. Sew the columns together.

• Press the seams between the squares opened if desired. My mom taught me to always press my seams open when I sewed. So that’s what I do. I think it looks neater and helps me avoid the,”Oh my God Lisa - I taught you better than that!" speech.
• If you don't press your seams open you probably won't get this speech from your mother.

7. Make a quilt sandwich. Pin the top of the quilt to the backing fabric right sides together. If you are using batting, layer the optional batting/thin blanket on top of the backing fabric.


8. Sew all of the layers together along three and a half sides of the quilt.

9. Remove the pins, turn the quilt right side out, and press the seams. Again, because that’s how Mom taught me. And again, it’s a good way to avoid The Speech.

10. Sew the opening closed by either by hand or by machine.

11. Finish the quilt so that the layers will not shift while you’re using it or when you wash it.

• Hand Quilt Method - The easiest way to finish the quilt is to you can tie the layers together at each square with yarn, ribbon, or crochet thread.

• Machine Quilt Method - I sewed down each column and then sewed a crossed each row. I like this look better but it was difficult because I have an older sewing machine that doesn’t have a lot of room around the sewing arm when I was trying to finish the inside of such a big quilt.
• http://www.victorianaquiltdesigns.net/FinishingYourQuilt.htm has more detailed information on how to finish a quilt. This site has great information although I think they make it sound a little more complicated than it was.

Tips/Variations:

• It helps if you wash and iron the t-shirts before you cut them into squares.
• If you find that your sewing machine doesn’t sew t-shirt material easily, you can back each square with interfacing to prevent it from stretching.
• Instead of using interfacing, do what I did and back each square with a second square of t-shirt material with the grain of the material in the opposite direction.
• For a fancier look you can use a contrasting material around each square/the quilt as sashing/border/binding.

If you don’t think you’ll have the time or gumption to finish this project, don’t sew, or just don’t want to make it yourself consider contacting stitch’T. They are a cool company that makes t-shirt quilts using your own t shirts!

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