The Ultimate Teacher's Utility Caddy - Part 1

Wow!  A new craft blog for me!  Cause, you know, the internet needs more craft blogs.

I already have a blog over at Food By Carrie, which almost never gets updated anymore.  I mean, moving to Seattle and homeschooling both girls right now really takes up all my time.  But, when ever I do have the urge to make something, and if Pintrest and the internet at large don't have exactly what I want, and if I feel obligated to post my cool idea - if all those things are true, I wouldn't want to post on my Food Blog, now would I?

So, I submit to you, my occasional craft blog.  IF I feel the need to write up something crafty (and I warn you, those will be few and far between) I'll do it here.  Hopefully with pictures.  Maybe someone will even find and pin it!!!  Squeee!

The Ultimate Teacher's Utility Caddy - Part 1

If any of my friends wander over to this blog, you'll know that I am also launching into a new season of Directing a community for Classical Conversations.  I'm super excited, and I've been poring over ideas of what I want my community to look like, things I want to do, etc.  One thing I've been praying for is the space to store our weekly items in whatever church we meet in. (ending a sentence with a preposition, AGGGGGHHHHH!!)  If we get some space, I'd like to have easily-accessible totes where the tutors can store their weekly supplies.

In my last community, we had a large shelf where we picked up our crayons, drawing paper, dry erase markers, maps - all the things that we needed each week.  It was great; the only things I brought from home were the things I actually prepared for class - my supplies were stored in the building.  In my current community, we have some storage but everything has to be kept in a tote.  Which is still much better than toting the tote back and forth from home, but not as nice as just picking out the things you need from a cabinet.  All of my supplies are in zippered bags down in my tote, and I'm constantly digging them up from the bottom.

So what's a new Director to do?  If I have the space, I'd love to provide my tutors with a caddy that they can just pick up and bring to their room.  All their writing and art utensils, paper, maps, etc - everything that they need each week - would be available in one location, and (ideally) in only one or 2 containers.  Oh, and being cute, sturdy and reusable year-after-year is a must.

Amazon wasn't helpful with exactly what I wanted, and what I found that was close was pretty expensive (I need 6 of these things!) I found this post for a simple DIY utensil holder and that got me thinking.  Then I found this little guy at IKEA, which is also close to what I want.  I wondered about combining them into a single carry-all for both paper and utensils.

I began to envision a paper holder of some sort at the center, with cans of different sizes around the sides to hold the different supplies.  I thought of duct tape to cover everything, but it's fairly expensive and can be difficult to work with, and not super cute.  Spray paint would be the cheapest, but I wanted my project to look nicer.  I settled on fabric to cover everything.  The fabric should protect the edges of the file from wear, and can re-done if it gets dirty after a couple of years.

On a quick trip to Walmart, I picked up some supplies.  Of course, the fabric will be cheaper cut off the bolt from a fabric store, but this was just for the prototype.  And this is way easier than matching your own fabrics if you only want to make one or 2 for yourself!

Supplies for Magazine file covering, and can coverings:

• Magazine file - a sturdy one, not folding cardboard
• pack of "fat quarters" (18"x 23" coordinating fabrics) (makes 2)
• 1yd of coordinating fabric (makes 2)
• Permanent spray adhesive
• 2 8oz cans (tomato sauce sized)
• 6 14 oz cans (standard tomatoes/corn/etc sized)
• 2 large soup/spaghetti sauce cans (I forgot to check the ounces before ripping the label off)

There is no need to wash the fabric, as you'll never wash it during use.  Also, the sizing they have on it will help keep it smooth and square as you work with it.

I used this project as a starting point for how to cover my magazine file.  Except instead of measuring, I just laid my file down and traced around it.  There is no need to know how long or wide anything is, as long as it fits.  I also traced the width of my ruler around all the edges to give fold-over space, and it was plenty.  I left 2.5 inches to cover the bottom.

I covered my table with an old sheet before getting out the spray glue.  Outside on a large piece of cardboard would be the best.  Be sure to open windows if you use the adhesive inside.  I misted one section of the fabric at a time, pressed the file onto it, flipped it over, then squeegeed out the wrinkles with a credit card.  The card gets super gummed up, so use something without a magnetic stripe, like a rewards card.  I'm sure alcohol would take off the glue, but I didn't want to risk it.

I worked around the box, making slits at the corners for folding/wrapping when necessary.  The 2.5" at the bottom was all crunched up by the time I got around to finishing it, but it was easy to unstick.  The glue takes a while to fully dry.

I am really impressed with the result!  Super cute and it took be about 30 minutes from layout to finished.

For covering the cans, I did measure so I could easily cut all my fabric at the same time.  You can cover all 10 cans using just 2 of the fat quarters if you are careful.  Cut the 23" length down to about 11" long (the pieces won't be exactly 23", so 11" is probably all you'll get)  You'll now have 4 pieces in 2 colors.  Re-fold the pieces to be 18" long, and cut one into 3 pieces, each 6".  Do this again with your other color = 6 pieces 6x11", in 2 colors.  These 6 pieces will cover your 6 standard cans.

You now have one piece in each color left.  Fold to 18" long and cut off a 4" piece from each one and those will cover your small cans.  The remaining larger piece will cover your large can. Tada!

A note about the cans.  I have one of those awesome can openers that unrolls the edge of the lid instead of cutting through the metal.  It is slightly harder to operate, but the edges of the can are perfectly smooth, since nothing was actually cut.  I'm not sure if the fabric alone would be enough to protect fingers and hands from the sharp edge of a regular can opener.  Maybe a 1/2 width strip of duct tape first?  Quick hit with a rough file?  You'll have to experiment.

Covering the cans is fairly straightforward.  Mist the fabric.  Lay the can on, roll and smooth with your hand as you go.  The extra at the top should be re-misted then allowed to set-up for about 30 seconds before folding over towards the inside of the can.  Make your spray hit both the fabric and the inside edge of the can in quick bursts - you don't want the fabric to get wet.  Letting it set up makes for a more permanent bond.  Then just fold the fabric down all the way around and press.  The glue is super forgiving and you can peel up and re-stick as much as needed until it's as smooth as you want.

For the bottom, make slits in the fabric about every inch around the bottom.  Mist again, as above, allow to set up, then fold down one tab at a time around the bottom, (start at the inner layer at the seam) pressing the fabric into the rings of the can as much as possible.  Where your fabric overlaps at the seam, you can give the second layer of tabs and the seam another quick mist (blow on it for a quick second) at the end before pressing down. Try not to soak the fabric though - if it's wet it won't stick to anything until it dries a bit.

By now, your hands are absolutely covered in gummy glue and bits of string that have peeled off the edges of the fabric, especially if you covered all 10 of your cans.  My sheet was so sticky that the fabric strips were sticking to it before I even applied my glue.  It all worked out anyway.  By the end, I was peeling up my misted can-strip and laying it on the can in my hands, and holding it while rolling - I think it worked better this way.  When you're all done, you can clean up your hands and scissors with a cotton ball and rubbing alcohol.  For reference, the can feels like I used about 1/4 of it for all this.

Rejoice in all your cute fabric-covered parts!!

Whew!  I think it took me about 2 hours for all this cutting and gluing.  Not bad for an afternoon project.  I had my kids help me to stretch out my sticky sheet and lay it over the patio table to dry overnight, but it's cool and damp here right now and I don't think it's dry yet.  I'm sure it will never wash out - permanent crafting cloth!!

For Part 2: Configuring the caddy, changing my mind on the design, cutting & dying the clothesline, braiding handles.

The Ultimate Teacher's Utility Caddy - Part 2

Welcome Back!  I hope you came here from Part 1, 'cause here we go with the next steps!

I had a specific layout in mind when I began this project - using 12 cans - and it looked roughly like this (without the clothesline):

But then I decided that it looked super bulky and cluttered, and decided to drop 2 of the cans, like this:

Which made me happier.  But, even with all the cuteness, it still looks rather massive and possibly not as functional as I had anticipated.  So, in the end, I decided to make 2 caddies:  The cute magazine rack would stand alone, with all the utensils together in their own caddy.  I think the 2 complementary caddies are each really cute, and work well together without having one huge item to leave on the work surface all the time.  I think it will serve my tutors better.

With all that said, now I had a problem.  All my cans weren't perfectly colored in the right order to make everything symmetrical.  Also, the utensil caddy doesn't have any fabric to match the magazine file - and I really want these to match, at least a little.  So I ripped off the fabric from one large can and the 2 small ones, and re-covered them with leftover cloth from the file.  NOW they coordinate! Time for the clothesline.

Supplies:

• Cotton Clothesline
• Rit Dye (preferably liquid)
• Gloves
• Strong dishsoap (like dawn) or laundry detergent

 I wanted each of my caddies to have a handle.  The file could be gripped with one or both hands, but the tutors are usually quite busy with set-up in the mornings, and will want to grab many things at once without worrying about dropping their file and scattering the contents everywhere.  I decided to try my hand at some 4 strand flat AND round braiding, and see how far I could get.  Turns out that 4 strand braids are ridiculously easy!  And the round one is actually a cheaters braid - not a real braid at all.  I'm OK with that.

I cut all my lengths of cotton clothesline first, then dyed just what I needed, so I could save the rest and use a different color later.  Both my handles will be about the same length, so I cut 8 strands x 40" each.  A rough estimate is to take your desired length of handle, add 1/3, then add some for tying the knots at each end.  Make your handles as long as you want!

For the can-wrap, I decided that 6 wraps would look nice and be narrow enough to look good on the shortest can.  The point of the rope, of course, is to tightly hold the cans together so they stay together as a unit.  We will use some hot-glue later for positioning, but the rope will be doing most of the work.  Set your cans up in their general position, then loosely wrap the clothesline as many times as you want it.  Give yourself another foot of extra, then cut.

Follow the directions of your bottle or packet of dye.  The bottle was all I could find at Walmart, and you actually have more options for making small batches - obviously we only need to make a very small amount of dye for this amount of rope.

I weighed my sections of rope on my kitchen scale, and it only weighs 3oz all together - just under 1/4 pound.  Below is the "recipe" I used to dye.

8C  hottest possible tap water
1/4C salt (if you're using cotton rope - use white vinegar for synthetic)
2 oz liquid dye (1/4C)
3ish oz cotton clothesline/rope (8 pieces 40" long and one piece around 12' long for the cans)

1. Fill glass bowl with 8C hot water.  Dunk the rope and allow to soak until soaked through.  Remove rope and squeeze water back into bowl.  
2. Stir salt into hot water until dissolved, add dye and stir with something you don't mind getting stained.  Replace the rope and stir around.  
3. Supposedly, you should stir constantly for 30-60 minutes.  Yeah, right.  The point is to agitate so that the rope absorbs the dye evenly.  I gave it a whirl every few minutes.  Definitely use gloves if you plan to touch it while wet.
4. Rinse off an end in cool water to check the color.  When you're happy, rinse the rope until the water is clear.  Remember to squeeze the rope to get the dye out of the core.  Add a squirt of strong dish soap (Dawn), fill bowl with warm water and wash the rope (you don't want dye coming off on damp palms or onto clothing!)  Rinse again.  Repeat if necessary until no more dye runs out.  
5. I tied an overhand knot at each end of the ropes, then threw them into the drier on medium heat for about 30 minutes.  If it's hot outside, I'm sure it would be faster to hang them in the sun, but it's cool and misty here in Seattle...

If I ever get around to doing 5 more of these, I think I'll bind the very ends of about a dozen strands together with a thin rubber band, then put them into a very loose braid.  Anyone who remembers tie-dying will recall that anything tight will resist the dye, but a loose braid should not only keep the ends neat, but also keep them from getting tangled with all the stirring and squeezing.

My blue came out pretty light and a tad dull.  I think that's because I used natural-tone clothesline instead of bleached-white, and I could have added a couple more oz. dye for a richer color.  In future, I might just get white rope and skip all this dying... it's kind of a lot of work.  But, if I did it outside in a bucket, on a clear summer day - it might be more fun.

Braiding Time!

Let's start with the cheaters-round-braid.  I watched the tutorial here, but I'll add my own anyway.

1. Start by untying the knots in one end of 4 of the 40" strands.  Secure them together with a stout rubberband and hook them to a chair or doorknob.  Think about the strands as front/back and left/right.
2. First swap the positions of the front/back strands.  Then cross the left/right strands beneath them. Cinch everything up nice and tight.
3. Repeat ad naseum.  Not even kidding!  Just keep crossing the front/back strands, then the left/right strands over and over again, tightening as you go!  I know that there are far more complicated (and beautiful!) lacing techniques used with leather and cord for jewelry, but for this project I am completely satisfied with this extremely simple 'braid'.  
4. I put a rubber band on the other end - we'll finish the ends after putting it together.  The overall length is about 30" - exactly what it should be!

Now for the flat braid.  It is a tiny bit more complex, but still just the same 2 moves over and over!!

1. Untie your ends and add a rubberband.  Think about your 4 strands as 2 pairs, left pair and right pair.
2. In each side pair, cross the left over the right.
3. Then think about a middle pair and cross the right over left.
4. Repeat
5. That's it!  Side pairs - left over right.  Middle pair, right over left  Once you get a rhythm going you can do it all in one motion, twisting your wrists clockwise, then exchanging in the center.  It's like making a twist with each pair, but swapping strands to keep them together in the middle.  I think it's brilliant!  Final length about 31".

Mine turned out a bit tight and the whole thing wants to twist around.  Maybe I should braid a bit looser next time.

For Part 3: We put it all together!

The Ultimate Teacher's Utility Caddy - Part 3

Now it's time to put the whole thing together!  What?  You don't know what I'm talking about? Check out Part 1 and Part 2, then come back for the finale!

Supplies:

• braided handles
• scissors
• power drill & bits (see notes)
• button thread (regular if that's all you have)
• Hot glue gun

We'll start by finishing the ends of the round braid, which will be the handle for the file.  After we finish the ends, we'll know how big to make the holes in the file sides.

Start by securing your handle to a chair. Now, the goal here is to remove the core for the last several inches, then keep braiding.  It should get much thinner and need a smaller hole in the sides.  Also - with the core gone - we can tie a nice knot in the end and have cute tassels hanging on the sides.  The core is not cute when unraveled.

If you still have knots in one end, untie them.  Un-braid back about 7 inches from your shortest piece. Place a rubberband here so it won't back out any further.

Now, grab the core in one hand and slide the cotton up to the rubberband - it will bunch up and won't go all the way, and that's fine.  About 4-5" is all we really need to get.  Cut the core off, and repeat with all 4 ends.

Now pull the cotton back down, figure out where your front/back and left/right strands are and keep braiding down as far as you can.  It will be much harder without that nice stiff core to hold it all up.

Lay your thinner part over a ruler to see about how thick it is.  Mine is between 1/4 and 3/8 (otherwise known as 5/16)

You'll need to find the balance point in the sides of your file so it will hang straight from your handle and not at an angle.  I just pinched the sides with my fingertips and lifted the file up.  It was pretty easy to find the point where it felt balanced.  Make it at least 1" down from the edge for strength.  Mark one side, then measure and mark the other side to match.  Mine was 2.5" down from the flat top edge, then 1" towards the angled side.

Drill a hole in each side at your balance point.  The trick for NOT tearing up your fabric is to let the drill spin fast, but to press down very slowly/lightly, allowing it to cut slowly and not snag or rip your fabric.  I used the 1/4" bit and 3 out of 4 strands fit through, but it was just too tight for the last strand.  I couldn't find a 5/16" so I just reamed out the hole by tilting the 1/4" bit around in the hole.  Not a very elegant solution, but it works.  Put your tapered ends through the hole from the inside.  Now, tie an overhand knot, trim the ends, unbraid the cotton to make a pretty tassel, and this side is done!  Now repeat everything for the other side.  (in hindsight, the blue matches my fabric perfectly!  I couldn't have done that on purpose if I tried!)

The file is done!! If you want to make your caddy like my original idea - with cans all around the file - all of this will be the same.  But I hope you already decided that and cut your wrapping rope accordingly!

On to the handle for the utensil caddy!  I actually unbraided my handle since it was so badly twisted and re-did it, much more loosely.  It still has a single twist, but I can deal with that.  We are going to whip the ends of these braids, since we don't want a huge knot at the bottom.  I'm not going to try to teach that here, so here's a link.  While you're at it, go ahead and whip just one end of your long rope to go around your cans (make this whipping as neat as possible, since it will be visible).  I used polyester sewing thread for my whipping, and each end took me less than 2 minutes.  If I had been able to find it, my thicker button thread would have been better, but this is fine.  We're about to glue it down anyway.

Go ahead and start to heat your glue gun.  We want it nice and hot and liquid-y for this project so it will seep into both the cloth and the rope and harden there.  I think sometimes hot glue comes apart because we use it too cold!  Now, take your large central can.  We need to divide it into 4 equal parts - the quilters clear ruler is super helpful here, but I think eyeballing it is probably fine.  One easy line is the fabric seam, then just make marks (near the bottom) to divide it into 4 - they will be completely covered so it doesn't matter what you make them with.  The seam and it's opposite will be for attaching 2 of the cans.  The other 2 are for the handles - extend these lines all the way up to near the top.

Pick which side of your rope to glue down.  Mine had an obvious side that curved down and one that bumped out.  Put a thick line of hot glue on one of your long lines, to about 1" from the bottom but all the way to the top.  Press your rope down, and hold for a good long time - your utensils are depending on this join!!  Hopefully some glue will come up between the spaces in your braid.  You won't see the bottom 2 inches, so I put some more on the sides.

Now flip your can over to the opposite line, add another thick line of glue, then straighten out your handle to make sure there is no twist before pressing it down.  Handle done!  If the top of the handle starts to peel back over time, it will be a cinch to squirt more hot glue in and press it down again.

Now for the rest of the cans.  You may want to lay them out in order so you place the right color in the right position.  Start with the cans that belong on the other 2 lines.  Put your stripe of glue on the seam of the small can then press into place - keeping the bottoms flat on the table so everything stays level.  Keep the glue about 1/2" away from the bottom so it won't stick to the table.

Each side will have 3 cans together, but they won't touch all the way around.  To find your next glue line, place the next can with the seam against the center can, and also touching it's neighbor.  Draw a line up the joint with your pencil, then make a glue line about 1/4" inside your new pencil line before pressing into place.  You can make a little X on the side where your glue should go in case you forget.

The space between each group of 3 cans should line up exactly where your handles are. It's easy to guess how to add the small cans to join both sides together.  If you want more stability you can flip the whole thing over and add a blob of glue between each inner joint to reinforce it.

Now, finally, the last few steps.  Cut off any glue-blobs that might make your caddy sit crooked.  I hope you wrote down how many wraps you were going to use around the outside!  Fold your rope to show that many wraps and place it on your smallest can to center it.  Mark the bottom of the bottom rope, where we'll start the wrapping.  Measure and transfer this bottom mark all the way around the cans - make sure the marks are on the outer curve of the can where the straight and tight rope will touch.  This is the only time we will need to do this.  I also put the mark on the small can near the joint with the next can - this is where our tail will start.

First just put glue between the 2 lines on the small can, and press the rope tightly into place.  Let cool a bit before adding glue and stretching to the next can.  Each side can will get about 3/4" of contact with the rope, so make your glue line about that long.  It's important to get this first row straight and fairly snug, but the next rows will be much easier to make tight.  Now just wrap your rope above each previous line, adding a bead of glue before pressing down, and stretching the rope very tight.  Smear down any oversqueeze after it cools for a second.

When you get to the end of your rope, just give it a tuck to decide where the end should be.  You can cut off most of your length, whip the end, then trim close.  I measured it to terminate all the way around this can, then decided at the last minute to tuck it down.  Either way would work.

And there you have it!  It was kind of a lot of work.  Will I still make 5 more for tutors?  I certainly hope so.  Would it be worth it to just make one for myself or as a gift?  Absolutely!!  Happy crafting!  If I have loads of energy, I might have to make some of these in the blue and green to match... he, he, he...