Sofa Armrest Organizer

October 14, 2019October 14, 2019 / Yen-Van Tran / Leave a comment

10.14.19

0600

Materials:

Two Curtains at 5′-10″ in length

Tools:

Sewing Machine
Sewing Kit

I have an extra set of curtains, which I didn’t want to use anymore. I decided to create a sofa armrest organizer with both curtain pieces. Both curtain pieces were 5 foot 10 in length, and 27 inches wide.

I wanted my sofa armrest organizer to sit at a certain height off the ground, but I also wanted the top half to also tuck underneath the couch cushion. I first measured how high off the ground I wanted my couch armrest organizer. Since I needed to hang it over the sofa armrest and then wrap back over the arm to tuck underneath the cushion, that left about 47 inches to tuck underneath the cushion.

I wanted to store books in the first organizer, which would be fairly heavy, so I needed a lot of the material to tuck under the seat cushion to hold it in place. I actually wanted the top part of the organizer to tuck underneath an entire sofa cushion width, due to the weight that would be applied.

FIRST SOFA ARMREST ORGANIZER:

When I measured out my first design, I wanted the pockets for my books to be 14 inches in height. I first hemmed all of the edges and then I folded one edge to create the 14″ tall pockets. I sewed around the edge of the folded piece (yellow arrows) and then divided the pocket in half, and sewed a dividing line down the center to create two tall pockets (red arrow). These pockets will be able to hold my books and paperwork that I’m currently working on. I wanted my pockets to be a bit taller than the standard paper size (8.5″ x 11″), due to the fact that I knew the width of the pocket might eat up some of the height. I also wanted to be able to hide my books and paperwork, so my pockets wouldn’t look like they were overflowing with paper.

To attach the sofa armrest organizer, I removed the couch cushion on the side of the couch, located how high I wanted to hang the organizer, and then replaced the couch cushion. Since the top half of the fabric organizer is tucked under the couch cushion, it stayed in place.

SECOND SOFA ARMREST ORGANIZER:

I also wanted to create a second design, which would have smaller pockets for smaller items. My second design would have 10 inches in height for the books, and 6 inches for smaller objects.

Using the same sewing method as the first design, I hemmed all of the edges of the fabric material, and then measured 16″ of material at one end. I folded up the 16″ material, sewed along the outside edges of the tall pocket (yellow arrows), which created a giant 16″ tall pocket.

I then took the bottom 6″ of the pocket and folded it up, to create a shorter 6″ pocket at the bottom. This 6″ tall pocket also helped create the 10″ pocket behind the smaller pockets. I then sewed on both of the side edges of the fabric piece (red arrows) and then sewed a dividing line (blue arrow) to create a total of four pockets for this design. I sewed the edges of this design, all the way to the top of the pocket to reinforce the side edges.

Using the same method as the first sofa armrest organizer, I located where I wanted the organizer to hang on my armrest and I tucked the top half of it under the couch cushion on the end.

Since these sofa armchair organizers are made of fabric material, I can toss them into the washing machine and wash them easily. I can also fold them up and put them away if I don’t need to use them. Fabric is my favorite material to work with since it can be taken apart and reused multiple times. I love that it is a very flexible medium and I was able to put my old curtains to good use.

Car Floor Mat Towel Sleeves

April 1, 2019September 1, 2019 / Yen-Van Tran / 3 Comments

04.01.2019

0600

Materials:

2 Bath Towels
4 Hand Towels
Sewing Kit
White Fabric Pencil

Tools:

Sewing Kit
Sewing Machine

It’s interesting how we pick up habits from our parents or other figures in our lives. When the rain season comes, my mother has always wrapped an old towel across her car mats to absorb the extra water that would get dragged in by everyday use. To this day, I’ll see her break out the towels around the middle of October.

As for me, I never cared for my floor mats in my car. I honestly never liked my car. The car was bought without my input and I was stuck with it thereafter. But recently I did get new car mats, along with a new car, and since I didn’t want to drag a bunch of water into my car, I too, wrapped my car mats in towels. But I soon realized that the towels would get tugged and moved around from the daily use of them. I had to solve this issue. I didn’t want to constantly re-tuck the towels under my car mats, because sometimes they were already dirty and wet.

The front floor mats were a large size and I knew that bath towels would be a perfect fit. I decided to make some towel sleeves for my car mats. Since my carpet in my car is black, I knew I had to find black towels to create my towel sleeves. With the towels sleeves, it would be easier to catch the dirt and rocks that would be brought into my car, and the towels would be easy to clean, since all I had to do was take off the sleeves and throw them into the washing machine.

I found two bath towels that were 52″ long by 30″ wide. Since my front floor mats are about 31″ long and 21″ wide, I only needed the width of the floor mat sleeves to be about 22″ wide. the size of these bath towels would give me 26″ width. I didn’t mind if the towel wasn’t long enough to cover the length of my floor mat because the mat could stick out a little bit.

I folded the towel in half, length-wise and pinned the edges together, to prepare for the sewing process.

I wanted to leave one of the shorter edges open, so I could slide my floor mats in and out easily. In one continuous line, I sewed along the yellow arrows (in the picture below). For the corners of the towel, where the material was thicker, I angled the long sew line and continued on. I then went back and hand stitched the corners, so they would stay together better.

As you can see, the folded towel was still large enough to fit over my floor mat, and there was still extra room.

In order for the sleeves to fit to the car mats better, I sewed rough outlines of the shape of each mat on each of the sleeves. First, I flipped the car mats over, onto the back of the car sleeve. Then, using my white fabric pencil, I drew rough outlines of each mat. I did this because I didn’t want the white washable pencil to show, when I fit the sleeve over the car mat.

I only outlined the rough outline of the car mats, because I still needed to remove them easily. I created the outlines about 3/4″ from the actual edge of the car mats. I left a bit of a boarder, for the fact that the towel might shrink in the washing machine and also, I wanted the sleeves to slip off easily, when needed. Towards the closed end of the car sleeve, I tightened the outline a bit, but in general, I kept the outline lines straight in from the open edge.

I placed each of the front floor mats into my car, and folded the edges underneath the floor mats accordingly. You don’t have to fold them under, but I chose to.

For the rear seat floor mats, I found eight hand towels to create the set in my car. My rear seat floor mats are 24″ long, by 16″ wide, so I found hand towels that were 26″ long and 16″ wide. The sewing process for these floor mat sleeves follows the previous steps for the front seat floor mat sleeves.

I stacked two hand towels on top of each other, making sure that the tag was facing inwards for both towels. I then sewed along the yellow arrows around the towels. I left one of the long edges open because I wanted to slide the floor mat in easily. For the corners of the hand towel sleeves, I angled the long, linear sew line to complete the stitch, and then I went back to each corner and stitched them together carefully. My machine doesn’t like it when the material gets too thick, because it can’t pass under the needle easily.

These rear seat floor mats had a lot of extra room around the edges, so I knew that I might have extra floor coverage.

This size hand towel seems to accommodate different car brands and the mats still fit really well within the parameters.

Now, when I need to clean my floors, I’ll just remove the floor mats from the towel sleeves and either wash them or shake them out. I might have to vacuum the edges, but that doesn’t take long at all. These towel sleeves makes my life a bit easier, by allowing me to keep my floor mats clean, and that’s always a good perk.

Upcycling A Shoe Organizer

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / Leave a comment

10.02.2018

0600

Materials:

One over the door shoe organizer
X-acto blade
Cutting mat (or cardboard, plywood, some type of surface you’re willing to cut into and can damage just a little bit)
4 Safety Pins

Tools:

Sewing machine
Sewing Kit

So I’ve owned an over the door shoe organizer for awhile. I didn’t use it a lot because I didn’t have many pairs of shoes. When I started to declutter my life and minimize my possessions, I kept it because I still liked the design and I knew I could use the material to create something else.

Because I’m not a fan of keeping items out in the open, much less hanging them out in the open, I knew I wanted to upcycle this shoe organizer into smaller organizers. I personally like things to be put away. My minimalist, zero waste lifestyle lends my living space towards clean surfaces and minimal decor. So I wanted to create two smaller organizers which could be hung up in the closets.

The goal was to create two separate organizers that were each 2 pockets across by 3 pockets vertically on each side of the smaller organizer. So each side of the hanger would hold a grid of pockets that was 2 pockets across by 3 pockets vertical.

First I cut the shoe organizer in half.

I then folded each organizer in half (vertically) to find out where I wanted to locate the hangers.

I then placed each hanger on each organizer, as I wanted them to sit. I wanted to place each hanger so that the top bars of the hangers would still be protected by the fabric. I only wanted the neck of the hanger to stick up and out of the fabric so the fabric organizer would sit higher on the hanger. The hanger would have more control of the overall weight of the items inside each pocket when it was hung up.

I placed the hangers where I wanted each hanger to be located on each organizer and then marked the location of the bottom bar. I needed to make a mark at those locations, because that’s where the bottom of the openings for the hangers would pass through.

Using the X-acto blade, on the folded edge, I carefully cut a straight line of where the hanger would stick out. I cut along the mid line of the fabric grid pattern and only cut enough for the hanger to fit. You can sew the edges of these openings if you want a clean and sturdy structure around the edge of the opening. I suggest using a running stitch to do that, if you choose to.

Using the bottom of opening as a location marker, I sewed both sides of each organizer together. I wanted the backs folded and sewed to one another to create a more sturdy central structure. I sewed from the bottom of each opening, around and up to the other side, making sure I stopped at the other marker.

The idea was that I wanted to seal the two flaps of pockets to each other, but leave enough room for the hanger to slide in and out of the design.

Once the hanger is slid into place, the flap should allow the user to remove the hanger if necessary. I used a hem stitch to secure the top of the opening on the folded edge (see below). I did this because I know that the weight of the the organizer will tear the opening over time. I wanted to secure the top of the opening and reinforce the structure.

I stitched an extra line above the hanger (towards the folded side of each hanger), but underneath the pocket flaps, to reinforce extra support for the organizer.

Using a safety pin, I pinned the opened edge approximately where the top of the hanger was located on the opposite side. This way, the hanger can be removed easily when it comes time to wash it or put it away. The safety pin will act as a closing mechanism to hold the hanger in place.

So there you have it, this is how I upcycled my over the door shoe organizer. Although, I technically only created smaller shoe organizers, I had the idea that I could use these smaller organizer to store smaller items such as jewelry, scarfs, socks, etc., that can get lost in a closet. Basically, anything you might store in the top drawer of your dresser, you might use this for. I don’t use a dresser, so this product can be useful for me. Right now I actually use a few of the pockets to keep some running and workout items organized. I like this design for the fact that it’s double sided and it can be folded up and put away if it’s not being used. Hopefully this post might spark some organizational ideas for your life.

Until next time!

Quick T-Shirt Pocket

September 11, 2018September 26, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / Leave a comment

09.07.2018

0600

Materials:

One T-shirt (or two, but definitely at least one)

Tools:

Sewing machine
Sewing Kit

Living a Zero Waste life means that I create simple solutions for simple problems since I don’t want to go buy anything new or seek out another possession to take care of.

So I usually carry my phone around with me when I’m doing certain types of household tasks. These tasks don’t require a lot of vigorous movement, but I’m definitely moving around. A lot of the time it’s annoying to remember to carry the phone from one place to another when I’m running around the house and if my hands are dirty, I really don’t want to touch my phone. I needed a quick solution where I could carry the phone along with my keys without much hassle. I didn’t want to go out and buy a separate cell phone holder strap that would wrap around my arm. I have one for workouts, and that strap holds down my cell phone securely since I’m running. But I just needed a quick solution where I could carry around my phone and my keys easily for a few hours.

My quick solution was to see my t-shirt sleeve in half and create a pocket. my t-shirt sleeves are usually longer than I need them to be. This gave me the extra material to work with. I simply folded my sleeve in half and pinned the sleeve all the way around.

Depending on the width of your cell phone, measure that distance out on the top of the sleeve. Just make sure you divide the width of your phone in half and center the opening on the top of the sleeve.

For the other sleeve, I made the opening just about the same size since I knew I was going to use the other pocket for keys or my credit card.

Then just sew the sleeve from the front to the back or back to the front, making sure you still leave enough room for your cell phone. Then tie off the open thread ends.

If you put smaller items in the short pockets, they tend to fall towards the bottom of the sleeve. This can be annoying for some but for me it gives me a sense of security knowing my items won’t fall out. I just need to go fishing for my keys at the end of the day.

So there you have it. My quick and dirty solution to built in t-shirt pockets. I like to move the pockets towards the front of my body for easier access to my cell phone, but that’s simply more comfortable for me. I also will sometimes secure the t-shirt using a binder clip, that I’ll use to clip my t-shirt to my bra.

Created Slim Hanging Organizers

August 1, 2017August 15, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / Leave a comment

08.01.2017

0600

Materials:

Three 7 inch-8 centimeter, white zippers (for one pillowcase design)
Two 12 inch, pink zippers (for the second pillowcase design)
Two Velvet Hangers

Tools:

Sewing Machine or sew by hand

I always try to take up less space than necessary when it comes to my home. It’s not that I dont’ have the room to spread out, but I personally don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t like my items and possessions spread out over a large space because it takes more energy to find things and living a more compact lifestyle helps me keep my possessions to a minimum. As a designer, it’s an interesting challenge to minimize the space that I take up.

So I decided to create a slim organizer for my closet. I had a hanging closet shelf but I wanted to get rid of it. In order to get rid of it, I still needed some type of organizer in its place. The items that I needed to organize were small clothing items as well as small accessories. This slim organizer only needed to hold the weight of those items. I did move some stuff out of the original hanging shelf to other areas of the house, so what you see in the images below isn’t a direct transfer of items to the new slim organizer.

Hanging organizers actually already do exist in stores, but from what I’ve seen, these organizers tend to have the user access the pockets from the front of the organizer. It would be easier for a person who has a walk-in closet to use those organizers, but I wanted to make a slim organizer which I could access from the side.

So in the end, this organizer helped me reduce my space by half:

Here is what I did…

I gathered my pillowcases and designated one of the pillowcases to be divided into three sections and the other pillowcase would be divided into two sections.

I took one pillowcase and hemmed the open end of the pillowcase. I then folded the pillow case into thirds and marked the lines using sewing pins. This pillowcase would have the three 7 inch-8 centimeter, white zippers sewed to it.

I sewed along the lines to close off the three separate sections, then I placed my zippers down to mark the location of the zippers. Depending on how I wanted to access my slim organizer in the closet, I had to choose which side of the pillowcase to attach the zippers. Since I wanted this slim organizer to be on the right side of my closet, I wanted the openings on the right side of the pillowcase so that when it was hanging up, I could access the slots easier. I also left about an inch margin between the zipper and the edge of the pillowcase because the items inside will create a bulge that I had to take into consideration.

I used an ink pen to make tiny dots at each end of the zipper. I actually marked the dots in between the zipper teeth at each end, this way, it also centered the location of the zipper. I connected each set of dots to create the cut lines in order to fit my zippers into the pillowcase. I just used scissors to cut these lines.

After I cut the lines, I inserted the hanger into the opening that was on the end of the pillowcase that was originally closed. I folded the pillowcase in half (vertically) to find the center and pretty much wedged the metal hook through the pillowcase. I chose to place my hanger on the original closed end of the pillowcase because if I used the hemmed end of the pillowcase for the hanger, the weight of the items in the organizer might weaken the that end of the pillowcase over time. I had to consider the weight of each pocket that was created, so I constantly thought about the overall weight that would pull on the material itself.

Once I placed my zippers into each slot that was made, I folded the edges of the pillowcase down to the zippers and pinned them together with sewing pins. Then I hand sewed the zippers to the pillowcase (making sure I sewed both the hemmed layer and the top layer of the pillowcase to the zipper).

Once I was done, I used the same process to create the double pocket slim organizer. The triple pocket slim hanging organizer will be used for small items and the double pocket slim organizer will be used for some extra pieces of clothing items.

I don’t know if this is a favored design, but I personally like how much less space it takes up. this design works for me and, my space. Hopefully this design may jog some space organizing ideas for you as well.