Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Day 287 of 365

My great-grandfather used to have a collection of postcards he kept in a desk drawer in his living room. As a little kid I used to go through those post cards whenever I visited.

When I visited my grandmother who lived next door to us, I used to go through something in a drawer of hers, too. Something of great interest to me. In her kitchen one of her drawers was a designated junk drawer. Pens, pencils, matches, screws, magnets, papers, and lots of other little things were in that drawer. For a girl who liked to organize (me), sorting through the junk drawer was quite fun.

We have our own junk drawer here at home, too. Typically the bulk of the drawer is made up of screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer, nails, screws, glues, candles, and such. We haven't cleaned it out in a long time so if you were to open the drawer today you'd also find a pair of gloves, some weatherstripping, a school bus candle holder, razor blades, washers, a sprinkler repair tool, garden labels, a flashlight, a watermelon plaque, and dozens of other little bits of pieces of things. It's in desperate need of some organization. I made three trips to that drawer today but not to organize it.

I intended to put together what should have been a quick and easy project today. When my daughter was home last week, I had her help me put a cork bulletin board in my sewing room. It used to be her board through high school and college and had bits and pieces of stickers around the frame.

My first trip to the junk drawer was to fetch the Goo Gone, which turned out to not be in there. Sometimes I use it in my sewing room, but after checking there I came up empty. (I think I probably took it to school and forgot to bring it back.) The second trip to the junk drawer was to get the paint scraper to help get the stickers off.

With a clean frame, I used some fabric to cover the bulletin board. Sprayed some basting spray on the cork board and applied the fabric. After some wrangling and re-cutting and re-piecing I was able to use up every available inch of the fabric piece to get it to fit on every available inch of the board. Then I began to staple the fabric down around the edges.

On my first press of the stapler, my stapler broke. I grabbed another stapler (not like we don't have others around), but this particular stapler wouldn't go all the way into the cork. Hence, the next trip to the junk drawer to get the hammer so I could slowly tap, tap, tap the staples in.

The bulletin board is finished and my junk drawer is still a mess.