Fabric Door Stoppers

I have door stoppers all over the house. Only 1 or 2 are nice. The others are those ugly plastic thingies.

We need door stoppers. Rudy and I often get up or go to bed at different times. Whoever is still in bed would prefer the door almost shut. Why not all the way shut? Because cats hate closed doors. No matter which side they are on, they will scratch and scratch to get the door opened so they can have access to the other side.

Another reason we need door stoppers is because we have doors at each end of our house. These doors open up onto screened porches. When weather permits I love to open both doors. It's fabulous. When the breezes blow, it's like being in Hawaii (without the beach). If it gets too breezy, doors start slamming shut all over the house. Hence, nice heavy door stoppers are a must.

Since our floors are actually just painted plywood, our doors are an inch or so up from the floor.

I saw an ad on TV for draft stoppers with foam tubes on both sides of the door. That got me thinking. I could make a double sided draft stopper weighted with rice or beans or popcorn to serve as our door stopper.

I decided to start out by making one for our guest bedroom.

First I looked all over the internet for pictures and tips for draft stoppers. The Paper Pony had a pretty one for a window. Her post also had some good info on making them. The ones on Fabulously French are so pretty, they almost make you wish your house was drafty!

My first attempt at anything almost always leaves me with a list of things to do different next time. In this case, I underestimated how wide to make the tube. I ended up having to cut a second piece.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the white strip at the bottom is a plastic tube filled with rice. In my internet browsing, I found a good tip about making an inside waterproof tube to put the filler in. If the tube gets damp you don't have to worry about soggy rice.

Spooky was proud to pose with the finished product. He is one of the charter members of the Cats Against Closed Doors club.

I adjusted the measurements several time and decreased the space between the tubes until it fit right. I must say, it works great for our purposes. As soon as I get more rice (or popcorn or beans) I'll make some more.

I suppose these are a little on the tacky side, but they certainly are useful.

More Holiday Decorating

Over the past week I've been putting out Christmas kitsch around the house. I have a few favorite places to display things. Several spots are up high so our mischievous kitties won't be able to wreak havoc on them.

First up, is a cabinet in the kitchen. I changed the quote on my chalkboard to the one from The Grinch. I didn't want a serious quote. I am feeling the need to surround myself with all things happy and light these days. Dr. Seuss is a genius at combining happy with profound.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?

My most favorite spot to decorate at Christmas is under the glass on our table. Every Christmas we get special cards with Christmas photos of people we love. I used to put them in my photo albums but I now I keep them together to put at our table. It's such fun to look through them each year. I now have so many that editing is a must. Some years I have put out so many photos that the table doesn't even show. I edited like crazy this year. I mixed old and recent photos.

Another favorite spot to decorate is atop the wardrobe in my foyer. I have a box of toys from when I was around 4 or 5. They are all in pretty good shape. I also have a few favorite childhood books and some of my Barbies. I put the toys around the tree and instantly feel like a kid again.
I might even pull down a few books to read again... as if they aren't already memorized from reading them over and over long ago.

I switched out my autumn wreath. This wreath is a yard sale find. I didn't change it a bit. It's simple and the colors are nice and I knew it suited me the minute I laid eyes on it. In this photo, it looks rather small, but it's not. Maybe I've just gotten used to my autumn wreath, which was humongous.
Last, but not least, the spot in my house that I seem to look at more than any other - the window sill by my kitchen sink. I am not satisfied with this area. I remember being more pleased with it last year. I really need to see if I took photos of it then to see what I did then. Maybe last year I didn't keep out things that were useful. I'm afraid I've gotten rather settled about having functional pieces there, too.

There's lots of room for improvement, which is nice. I really enjoy the process of making things better. I especially like finding my improvements at yard sales or thrift stores or making them myself. Buying something new feels like cheating somehow.