If you know me or my work by now, you know I enjoy making things that are slightly different. Things that maintain a useful element but also include some sort of twist or unexpected surprise.
Those are the types of things I inherently gravitate towards and get inspired by, so when left to my own devices, they’re also something I like to dream up myself. It’s not always an easy inventing process nor always successful, but when I do land on that perfect balance of whimsy, practical and unexpected all rolled into one, I’m a very happy camper.
On that note, here are four, count ‘em four ways I’ve created to sort random flair collections that many people have (but don’t quite know what to do with) and put those objects to good use while also organizing them at the same time.
Find out all the details of how to make each of these in my guest blog post over on Spoonflower!
And as a fifth bonus, especially for you quilting-types out there, here’s another wallhanging I made, as a surprise gift, that takes standard wonky quilt blocks and puts them to new use in this wall hanging mash-up of custom printing and traditional fabric piecing.
I illustrated a batch of gnome friends, scaled the final size to one that would allow for substantial pockets to put things in, got it printed on my favorite linen substrate and then sewed each of the five wonky crisscross blocks I made in place, so each gnome could ‘carry’ one like a present. Final steps were to sew on a hanging sleeve to the back for easy wall mounting, sandwich the entire thing with batting and backing fabric, sew it up, and then fill each pocket with a surprise mini gift. The last one present pocket above contains Mister Gnome, a little polymer figure I made to match my drawn gnomes.
So whenever you think you have too much stuff, certainly get rid of a lot of it, but then also think about fun ways to display it all so you can actually enjoy your possessions! Because why have them all if you can’t see them!?! And who knows, these wallhanging ideas just might help do the trick!