The Dollar Bin

I want to start off this post with a HUGE thank you to everyone who came to the launch party for my book. I also need to thank my husband and kids and my friend Judy for making all of the food and drinks the night before. Everyone took a recipe to make while Judy, who owns a cooking school, kept us all on task. (Judy, I promise I will take your next knife skills class.) The kids did great serving the party-goers, and I'm sure the guests appreciated knowing that the food was good because they saw the kids sneaking in a few bites.

Several of my book contributors attended the event this past weekend. I was glad to be able to formally thank them for their tremendous help with the research, ideas and photos. They are the same gals as I listed in the acknowledgements page of the book. One of those gals pinged me after the party to let me know what she found in the dollar bin at her local Target store.

These metal tins come in black or white with clear lids and measure about 3-1/2
inches across. My hope is that they are also magnetic, and I'll find out for myself when I can get to Target this week. Use them in groups to hold just about anything small, from buttons to pom-pons to googly eyes to thimbles. In groups, the matching tins help those little things look harmonious, which is pleasing to the eye. The clear lids prevent you from forgetting what's inside.

Send me pics to post and share about how you used tins like these in your sewing room.

5 Must-Have Organizing Classes

I read an awesome article last week about writing story headlines. What was so brilliant was that her whole lesson in headline-writing was ripped from Cosmo's table of contents. She grabbed me right from the start with her alluring promise of 5 tips for writing the sexiest, most stimulating headlines EVER! So when I was writing up my typical class topics to submit for the Arizona Quilters Guild traveling teacher program tonight, I decided to try all 5 of her tips. We'll see what the guild says about whether or not I hit the mark.

My toughest challenge in headlining was the same top challenge for some of my clients. UFOs. Ugh. UFOs are so much more than unfinished objects. They are objects of guilt. Objects of wishful thinking. Objects that collect dust. Objects that clutter. I had to find a way to make my UFO class sound less like detention and more like...a Cosmo article. So in quintessential Cosmo style, I titled one of my classes for AQG 10 Easy Strategies for Turning UFOs into ESPs. I'm calling ESPs entirely sewn projects.

For those of you done with your blog reading for today, I'll send you off for more fun and frolic in the makeup and beauty tips section of Cosmopolitan online. Having seen the home page with today's position of the day, I'm just not sure we know each other quite well enough yet for me to send you there. And I'll hold my questions about how they find the creative inspiration for 365 of those every year.