Stashing the fabric without spending a fortune

As part of the "Use Your Crap Challenge," I needed to be able to see what crap I needed to use.    I cannot show you how the stash looked to begin with because it would take too many pictures--it was all over.  (Not to mention that I would die of shame if I posted pictures of the mess.).  Now, I can show it off!

 and this:

Lessons learned from past attempts are that you HAVE to have dividers or the stacks will fall over as you rummage through.  You also cannot stack things too high.  It makes it sooo difficult to get at the stuff on the bottom.

Taking out the wire closet organizer was not an option--too expensive to replace it right now.  Fabric or plastic cubes would have been nice, but at $5 a pop at the very least, that was not happening.  Instead, I folded large pieces of fabric over hangers, used corrugated storage boxes small enough to fit  between the shelving to hold fabric and serve as dividers, put in a hanging cloth piece meant to hold sweaters, and used plastic containers on the floor. 

Yes, I know the cardboard storage boxes are not acid free. I'm planning on that being encouragement to succeed at the goal of USING the fabric rather than just looking at it.

Let the sewing begin in earnest.

What happens when you mix candles and pin cushions?

I've made a number of pin cushions from simple cloth to the ornate teacups variety.  But I really like the gritty stuffing in the plain old traditional tomato pin cushions.  I am convinced that gritty texture keeps my pins sharp.  Unfortunately the tomato pin cushions are so light weight that picking out a pin sometimes resulted in picking up the entire pin cushion, too.  I also have a near obsession for scented candles, so I had a few left-over glass tops from jar candles sitting around my sewing room.  Hmmmm.....Voila! My new favorite pin cushion was born.

I used a hot glue gun around the rim of the inverted candle top and sat the lovely but lightweight, store-bought pin cushion on top.   It kind of spins if it is sitting on a wood surface, but I like that.  It prevents me from sticking all the pins in one area.  You could put some felt or silicon cushions on the bottom if you didn't want the spinning. 

Wandering into a Yankee Candle shop can be an expensive trip for me.  Their vanilla lime scent is my new favorite.  Adirondack Candles has some amazing scents as well, and they last forever.  Their Adirondack Lodge scented candle is on my permanent wish list. Adirondack candles are harder to find, but you can check them out online here.