The solution is good old pipe cleaners (a.k.a. chenille stems). Just twist a loop in the end of a pipe cleaner and you’ve got an instant bubble wand that’s cheap, easy to hold, long enough to not fall in the bottle, and best of all — holds so much liquid you won’t believe how many bubbles you can blow without having to re-dip! You can even bend the loop into fun shapes for extra cuteness.

I decided it would be a good idea to enter all of those handwritten lists into one, easy to print out document, for my use as well as to share with you. I admit, I don’t camp a lot so I enlisted Chica’s help to fill out that section for you; she enjoys communing with the great outdoors. I also tried to make the items fairly general so that you can customize them easily. I find it best to update the list as soon as you return home, noting which items were used, which were not, and what you wish you had remembered to pack. This way, the next time you print out your list for a trip, you will be one step closer to taking just the true essentials with you.

Downloadable packing lists for general trips, ski vacations,
beach trips, camping and traveling with kids.

I hope you find these lists useful and please share with us in the comments section any travel essentials that you just can’t leave home without. Also, a few items might not be easy to find so just leave me a comment and I can tell you where I found them. Now…it’s off to start planning our next adventure!

Related post: Make your flight easier with an airline travel kit

Gather the supplies

If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably already got a ton of corks you’ve been saving, and you’ll need several hundred of them for this project, depending on the size of your basket (Fig 1). If your collection is still growing, though, and you need some ideas for how to get more corks in a hurry, here are some suggestions:

• Ask managers at local restaurants or bars - Restaurants go through plenty of wine in a day, so ask nicely and they’ll probably be more than happy to save some for you. This is a great way to get a wide variety of corks, too.
• Visit local wineries or tasting shops - Depending on where you live, you might have several wineries in your area. If they offer tasting parties to visitors, they’ll go through a lot of wine corks and would probably be glad to save them for you for a fun project.
• Believe it or not, nursing homes and assisted living facilities are great resources for corks. According to a good friend of mine, they drink a lot of wine there!

As for the basket, pick something with smooth sides that’s very plain and ordinary (so that you won’t feel bad about covering it). I chose a pretty standard wood basket (Fig 2) that I picked up at a farmer’s market, full of veggies. It is very lightweight but sturdy. This basket worked well because the sides are flat and smooth, it has a nice wide opening and the handle is wide and flat. It also helped that the corners were slightly rounded.

You’ll also need glue gun and a LOT of hot glue. If you want to line the basket, you’ll need some fabric and ribbon.

Start with the top edge of the basket

My basket had a very thin top edge that was rather ugly, and I wanted to cover it with a nice row of corks. Getting a round cork to stick to the edge wasn’t going to work, though, so I used a utility knife to cut a groove out of the cork (Fig 3).

Once you have a piece cut, dry fit it to make sure it will work, then squirt some hot glue into the groove (Fig 4) and then place it on the top edge of the basket and hold it in place a few seconds until the glue dries. Keep working your way around the edge until it’s covered (Fig 5).

Note that when you get to the corners of the basket, you’ll get a more streamlined look and a better fit it you cut the ends of the corks off at an angle, and mitre them against each other (Fig 6).

Cover the sides and bottom

With the top edge finished, you can start applying more corks to the side. Start right under the row you already have (Fig 7), and use a liberal amount of hot glue so that the corks have plenty of sticking power.

Continue covering the sides, row by row (Fig 8). When the sides are completely covered, turn the basket on its side (Fig 9) and take a look at the bottom. Depending on the basket you chose, you may or may not want to cover the exposed bottom with something. Since my basket was so thin, I decided to cover the bottom with sheets of cork board tiles, which matched the theme. I just hot-glued them in place (Fig 10).

Note that we have not glued anything on to the handle yet - we’re using the handle a lot to hold the basket, so let’s save it for last.

Line the basket

You may want to line your basket to make it even prettier. I got a piece of cute red and white gingham fabric and sewed the corners up to make a rectangular lining that fit my basket. I secured the bottom of the lining in place with a dab of glue in each corner, then liberally applied glue around the top edge, securing the cut end of the lining to the basket (Fig 11).

I then used some red grosgrain ribbon (again, applied with hot glue) to cover the edge of the fabric, making sure that the ribbon was right next to the corks. I also glue some ribbon to the underside and sides of the handle, to make it match.

Cover the handle

For the final touch, I glued some corks along the flat handle of the basket. This may not be possible with all basket types, but it worked for mine and I loved the effect (Fig 12).

Oh, one more thing… Now that you’ve hot-glued to your heart’s content, you might find that your project is covered with those spider webby hot glue threads that take forever to pick off. Be sure to check out my post about how to get rid of them!

Other uses and ideas

What I’ve created here is an adorable basket that looks great displayed on a shelf or also makes an incredibly charming picnic basket for a romantic evening. This technique could be applied to lots of different styles of baskets, though, such as:

• Cover small baskets with corks and use them to hold flower arrangements for table centerpieces at a vineyard wedding reception.
• Fill a cork-covered basket with wine, cheese, and bread and give it as a housewarming gift for a wine-loving friend
• Hosting a wine tasting in your home? Cover a shallow basket with corks and use it to hold things like name tags, wine charms, wine review tags, corkscrews, or even used corks!
• Decorate your kitchen with a cork-covered basket that can hold your fruit, veggies, keys, or change.

I found a slack hanger that had the added benefit of being padded so that things would not slide off the bar. The bars swing open and you can easily drape the tissue paper over the arm and then swing it back into place. I organized my entire stack of tissue paper in less than five minutes! I did alternate which side the paper fell down onto when I draped them over just to make it easier to swing the arm open to remove the paper. Now, I can see all of my tissue paper colors at a glance and it makes it easier to grab the color I want. I am going to get another hanger to handle all of my Christmas-themed tissue paper.

The whole process with Superior Labels was quick and simple. We first picked out the size of stamps we wanted: the large image block stamp is 3″x3″, the URL one stamped below the image is 3″x1/2″ and the other URL is 4″x1″. For the first two, we uploaded our own image files to the site for the stamps. For the larger URL stamp, we used their included fonts to create the design. The interface was easy to use and it took less than 10 minutes to complete our order. What was more amazing though was the time it took Superior Labels to create our stamps. Within two days, I had an email stating they had been made and within three days, they were in my mailbox! Custom made stamps in less than a week? Wow! So, you are thinking, the quality must be sub-par if they did them that quickly but you would be WRONG! The quality was impeccable and the stamps work just as well as any other decorative stamp you might own.

We are using ours for customizing things for this site but I can easily see ordering more for other reasons. For example, a bride could have a custom monogram made up for her correspondence or an image of her wedding site made. You could create all sorts of cute images for baby showers or perhaps ordering one to commemorate a special birthday, graduation or anniversary. My friend is ordering one with her daughter’s name on it to label items for the upcoming school year. If you use permanent ink, you can easily stamp onto fabrics as well. I know that more custom rubber stamps will be in my future!

Please let us know if you order some for a creative purpose. We would love to hear your ideas!

When I think back to the wedding receptions I’ve attended, and I think about the dancing and the DJs, a few thoughts come to mind. I remember the obnoxious DJ who singled out (and embarrassed) the guests who weren’t dancing. I remember the fun DJ who had hats ready for guests to wear when “YMCA” was playing. I remember the fun dance songs and the weird ones, and I knew I wanted to make sure that MY wedding reception was exactly the way I wanted it… and most of all, I wanted to make sure that he would NOT be playing “The Chicken Dance”!

So I came up with a worksheet / checklist to give my DJ. Jo and I have brainstormed on a few new things to add to it, and we think it’s a pretty useful tool:
      Click here to download our free Wedding DJ Worksheet

As you go through this worksheet and customize it, here are a few major points to remember:

• The most important thing you can convey to your DJ is the tone you want for your reception. Do you want him to be quiet or loud? Subtle or obnoxious? By checking which of the DJ behaviors you like or dislike in the worksheet, your DJ will get a feel for the tone you’re after.
• Don’t nitpick. Assuming you picked an experienced and reputable service, your DJ has been through this many times and knows what he or she is doing. You don’t have to list every single song you want played. Just give some firm, general guidelines to follow and let him fill in the rest.
• Be sure to list the songs you really love or really hate. For instance, I wanted to make sure my Mom’s favorite song got played during the reception (”Old Time Rock and Roll” by Bob Seger) but I also wanted to make sure “The Chicken Dance” didn’t get played. Put them on the list and your DJ will know.
• Make it clear exactly how you want the DJ to announce you to your guests when you enter the reception. There’s nothing worse than having your first introduction as husband and wife be worded in a way you don’t like (”Mr. and Mrs. John Doe” versus “John and Jane Doe”, etc).

Related posts: Wedding photographer worksheet and checklist, Wedding reception guest baskets for the bathroom, Unique wedding favor or shower invitation, Protect your cake at an outdoor wedding reception

While I am not a big fan of mobile DVD systems, long car trips are rough on little kids without some form of entertainment to occupy them. When we bought our Honda Pilot, we were simply unwilling to pay an extra $1500 for a built-in system. We didn’t think we’d use it that much and we figured we could buy a portable setup for a lot less.

As Christmas travel approached, we started looking at the various cases that you can buy to strap a DVD player to the back of your car seat. None of them seemed like a good choice because they were either too bulky or didn’t fit the player well. We borrowed one from some friends that opens at 90 degrees as if you might use it sitting on your lap. I could strap it to the back of the seat but my daughter loves to push buttons, so having the bottom half of the player folded out right in front of her like a shelf with fun things to push wasn’t going to work. I began looking for a way to mount the unit to the seat while opened flat.

A couple months earlier, I had bought a set of Kwik Twists at Lowes. I am a total junkie when it comes to shop tools and organizational goodies, so I can’t make a trip to Lowes without buying something. Kwik Twists are like long, thick, foamy twist ties. They have a metal wire inside to help them keep their shape when you bend them, but they are all foamy on the outside so you can pull them tight without scratching stuff. They just happened to be hanging in the aisle with organizational items and shelving and I couldn’t resist them. I paid just under $10 for the set of two.

I was sitting in the back seat of the Pilot with the DVD player and the borrowed case trying to think of a way to make it work. I just happened to look up at my workbench in the garage and saw the Kwik Twists hanging there. The idea popped in my head that I could use the twists to strap the player to the seat (Fig.1)!

I love it when a plan comes together. It took me all of about five minutes to make this one work. Once you get the hang of it, you can install the player in even less time. Here are the steps to install your portable DVD player into your car using a pair of Kwik Twists.

First, take a twist and put it around the head rest in front of you like you are going to strangle the person in the seat. Pull it back snugly between the seat and the head rest, then bend the ends straight down. Bend the very tips back up to form little hooks. The edge of the player will sit down in these hooks (Fig.2).

Next, open your DVD player flat and sit the bottom down in the hooks that you formed with the twists (Fig 3). Our DVD player will not open flat with the battery attached so we have to use the power adapter when we rig this up, but that’s OK! Be sure that the hooks don’t obstruct the door or the buttons - just spread them out to make room. And be careful here as you’ll probably have to keep a hand or an elbow on the player if it won’t stand up in the hooks by itself.

Now, take the second twist and wrap it the other way, bracing the center of the player with it and folding the ends around the head rest in front of you (Fig 4). The head rests on the Pilot are fixed, so I can just tuck the ends between the head rest and the seat for a snug fit. I bend the excess back around to keep it from poking the person who will be sitting in this seat (Fig 5).

I’ve done this setup in our Accord, too, where the head rests move and do not sit so firmly against the seat. In that case, you might have to fold the ends of the twist around to the front of the seat and actually tie them together to stay in place. With a little effort, you can find a way to tie them and shove them up between the head rest and the seat so that they are out of the way of the passenger in front.

Now comes the best part. Since the twists are flexible, you can grab the sides of the DVD player and move it around a little to get it lined up straight. It seems like I never get the hooks on the first twist in exactly the same shape, so I have to push the player down on one side or the other to straighten it up. But, the twists happily assume the new shape that you push them into, so all is well!

Finally, pick out one of your favorite DVDs and load it up. Finding Nemo, Cinderella, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse are all suitable candidates. Strap your child in and let the good times roll! If they can handle headphones, you might even get to listen to your own music instead of the movie. Hand the remote control to your spouse and have them practice the patented aim-around-the-back-and-hit-play move. Most importantly, when you pass a huge Suburban or Sequoia on the road with the built in DVD system that the owner paid big bucks for, slide right up next to them so they can see your custom rig and get all jealous.

I was fiddling through my fabric stash for inspiration and settled upon an old pair of jeans. My last project with old jeans (”Recycle old jeans into a fun quilt“) went so well that I knew I had the perfect material for a cute, easy, and inexpensive water bottle holder.

My water bottle holder design even has a cute little pocket on it that’s fantastic for holding little packets of drink mix (Jo never goes anywhere without her Crystal Light packets!). It’s really easy to make, too, and a great project for a beginner sewer.

Cut pieces from the jeans

The first thing to do is go dig in your closet and find some old jeans that need a new life. We’re going to be using the legs of the jeans, so before you start cutting, check the inseam to make sure you’ve got a double-stitched seam (not all jeans have this) down the leg. Cut the leg off the jeans and then cut as close as you can along that seam, on the folded side (Fig 1). You now have a large flat piece of fabric to work with.

Cut a 7″ x 10.5″ rectangle out of the denim, being sure to avoid the seams (Fig 2). For straight cuts like this, I love to use a rotary fabric cutter, a metal ruler, and a self-healing mat (If you don’t have any of these things yet, a 3-piece beginner’s quilting kit is a great way to get started.)

Now make a little template for your pocket. Print out our free pattern template and cut out the shape. If you want a sturdier template, you can trace the pattern onto cardboard and then cut it out.

Go back to your denim and find the double-stitched seam that we cut against earlier. This seam will end up the top edge of your pocket. Put the denim face down and position the template with the top aligned with the seam edge. Use a pen to trace around the template (Fig 3 and 4) and cut it out, giving you a cute little handmade pocket shape (Fig 5).

A word about thread

Let me talk a bit about the thread you should be using for this project. I have a perfectly ordinary sewing machine that can handle perfectly ordinary fabrics, but when it comes to sewing several layers of thick denim, my machine is strained and I find that my thread breaks repeatedly as I sew. So before I started this project, I talked to the experts at my local fabric store and they gave me a perfect solution. It turns out they make special thread just for sewing blue jeans! Not only is this thread the strongest thread I’ve ever seen (I was unable to break it with my hands), but it matches perfectly with the top-stitching on the old jeans I’m working with, which makes it look that much better. I strongly recommend you pick up some of this stuff if you’re working with denim.

Sew the top edge and attach the pocket

Fold the long side of your rectangle down 1/2″ and pin in place (Fig 6). Sew it down, giving you a finished top edge.

Flip the fabric face up and position your pocket about 1″ from the top edge, and centered left to right. Pin in place (Fig 7).

Use your sewing machine, sew along the sides and bottom of the pocket, about 1/4″ from the edge (Fig 8). Start at one top corner and move around to the other top corner, then come back around and put a second row of stitching about 1/4″ inside the first one (Fig 9).

This double row of stitching will make your pocket look authentic and will also make the edges more secure (Fig 10).

Now take a straight pin and use it to unravel the edges of the pocket, making a cool frayed edge (Fig 11). The frayed edges are my favorite part of this whole project, I think (Fig 12).

Form the pouch

Fold the fabric in half cross-wise (Fig 13), with the wrong side out, and pin in place. Sew along the side where the two ends meet, resulting in a tube.

Now adjust your tube of fabric so that your new seam is running down the middle of the top layer, instead of along the side (Fig 14). Pin the unfinished edges together and sew in place.

You’ve got a giant pocket now, but the bottom isn’t very round, and it won’t look right if we stick a water bottle in it now. To fix this, we’re going to sew the corners a bit. Start by sticking your hand inside the pouch and opening it up (Fig 15). Grab the two corners that stick out of the bottom and flatten them into two triangles. Put a pin about 1.5″ from each point (Fig 16). Sew where you’ve pinned (Fig 17), resulting in a squared-off bottom (Fig 18).

Flip the pouch inside out and note the nice square bottom (Fig 19) that you have now that you sewed those corners. What a cute little pouch (Fig 20) you’ve got now!

Attach the clip

As cute as the pouch is, it’s no good unless it’s got some way to attach it to yourself so you don’t have to carry it. We’re going to attach a clip to it, but first we need to add an eyelet for strength.

Start by punching a 1/8″ hole in the pouch, near the top edge, about 1″ from the back seam. You can use any sort of punching device you have, and I used one that came with an old grommet kit I had. Don’t try to poke or cut a hole in the denim — you’ll end up with a frayed hole or it’ll be too big or too small. It’s easier to just use a metal punch and bang it with a hammer, which leaves a nice clean hole (Fig 21).

With the hole punched, it’s time to add an eyelet. I used 5/32″ two-piece fashion eyelets (Fig 22). I used the little tool that came with them and followed the instructions.

The last step is to attach a clip. I used a cute little plastic key chain clip but I found that the key ring was a bit weak for a heavy bottle of water, so I replaced it with a stronger split-ring key chain I had around the house (Fig 23). I made some more holders later using caribiner key chains, which were super cute.

The finished product

I put a bottle of water into my holder and popped a drink packet into the little pocket (Fig 24) and I was ready to go. Now I can attach the holder to my belt loop (Fig 25) whenever I go out and I have hands-free refreshment.

Related posts: Recycle old jeans into a fun quilt