Hi Idea Room readers – it’s Becky from the Clean Mama blog and Clean Mama Printables. Today’s Organizational Tip is to make a Fridge Pocket to hold pens, a small notepad, and anything else you need to keep handy in the kitchen. I needed a little something to store pens and such on the side of the fridge. I looked through my fabric stash and found some leftover oilcloth – perfect!
You could easily use regular fabric that was heavily starched or with some fusible webbing with similar results.
I simply started with two pieces of oilcloth – one cut to about 16 inches x 6 inches and one cut to 10 inches x 4 inches (these dimensions can be changed to accommodate your own pocket and how much or how little you want to store in them).
Then I folded the smaller piece of oilcloth in half (with the wrong side out) and stitched along the bottom of each piece of oilcloth – like this. Word to the wise – oilcloth is MUCH thicker than regular fabric, so tread slowly and carefully with your sewing machine.
Then I stitched all the way up one side and a little over half way up the other side – like a pillow.
Carefully turn it right side out and fold in the side that didn’t get stitched up – you should hand stitch this closed, but I opted for pinning and holding it together until I sewed it on the larger piece.
Position the pocket onto the larger piece of fabric and sew down the bottom and sides, leaving the the top open for your pens and such. (This picture is before I sewed it down.)
Turn the larger piece inside out and stitch along the bottom edge like this.
I then turned the piece right-side out, folded the seams in and stitched up both sides – probably not proper stitchery, but it worked for me.
Once the sides were stitched up, I attached a 4 x 6 inch magnet sticker to the back.
And now I have this handy little fridge friend/pocket to keep these little tools close by.
Whaou, that’s something I never saw before. A great idee !!
This is a terrific idea! I love having something functional turn into something lovely!
xoxo,
Amy
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Love this! I have been looking for hip oil cloth! Where/what is your source?
fabricworm has great oil cloth, but they are out of this one now….
This is such a good idea!
Love this idea Becky! Love that you can totally personalize it to and have those small items you need right when you need them. My trick is to remember to put them back :)
Thanks for the great idea! I’m always searching for pens and this is the perfect solution.