Being Crafty and peeks into my new space

I am finally using my craft room for it's main purpose, to be crafty!

While I am redoing my area, I am trying very hard not to spend that much money to revamp it.

Years ago, I bought 2 cork boards and 2 chalkboards from Target (only 1 of each pictured).

In my yellow room, I used black and white accents.  But I figured in my white room, I wanted a pop of color.  I have seen lots of turquoise rooms and that color just went well with the white walls and the already black items I had, so I decided to use some of the acrylic paints I had on hand (maybe someday I will share that collection of paints!).

First, I took off the hooks on the back and unhinged the cork & chalkboards from the frame.

I painted the cork board turquoise (just the normal "flat" acrylic).  I use foam brushes (cheap and reusable, but disposable).  Depending on the color you want to obtain, you will need to let the first coat dry before applying the next coat.  I used 4 coats to get the color I wanted.

The frame around the cork board was going to stay black, but I added 1 coat of black gloss since it was kind of dulling.  (good thing acrylic paints are water soluble and that will wipe right up from my desk.)

The chalkboard itself is going to stay black, but the frame was painted turquoise.  This frame takes a few coats.  First with 2 or 3 coats of the normal "flat" turquoise, then 1 final coat of a gloss turquoise. (I swear this paint isn't as blue as it is coming out in the pictures!)

The final result

(blah!  The color cast in this room still sucks.  I could have taken out my SLR, but I just took this quicky photo and did a little editing--close enough)

I also took this shoe box out of the recycle bin last week before it was pick up day...

I painted the box black and the lid turquoise.  Each took a few coats of flat acrylic then 2 coats of the gloss.

It now holds all my "Works in Progress"--see I know items will come in handy one day!  My problem is one day never comes ha ha ha.  

I thought I would take a break from showing the stuff I got rid of and do a sneak peek of my new room!

On this episode of Hoarders... (Part 1)

Hello, my name is Linda and I am a Hoarder.  No seriously, I think I am on the verge of being one of those people that keeps everything.  Ok, maybe I won't ever appear on an episode of Hoarders, but I do every so often have to edit myself and unhoard things.

4 years ago, I got my own craft room/office.  The original plan was that it would mostly be a craft room, but there would be a home office desk for my husband--well he didn't use the desk and I pretty much took over.  

Here are the before pictures

Notice the wall shelves and stuff everywhere.  This also is the catch all room.

My Michaels cubes (this door leads to the Garage and a glimpse of my tiny window.

Here is the desk area that is supposed to be for my husband.  In the left hand top corner you can see the ancient fax machine.  The copy paper boxes do not have paper inside.  I take the boxes from work and store things inside...because I have too much stuff!

The garage door again and the corner that has a bunch of boxes--in case I ever have to ship anything...I like to keep boxes from orders I have received.

I hated coming into the room and working in here.  I thought it was the yellow walls (which my husband told me 4 years ago not to paint), so the plan was to remove everything so I could paint it white.  I know so boring, but I have one 35 wide by 58 tall window in this room and I love light!  Even with the 4 can lights and fan light--I hated the color cast.

As I was taking everything out of my room and removing the items from the walls, I realize that it wasn't really the yellow that made the room so dark it was all the clutter!  Well I had to cover up all the holes with putty, so I had to paint the room regardless.  I just went with boring white called Paparazzi--I loved the name!

Well like the title of the post, I am going to show you a bit of my hoarding...I have plenty to share, but I will break it up.

These are 8 4-packs of Starbucks Frappuccino bottles (that is 32 bottles)

I had seen the cutest altered bottles on 2peas and planned to do the same.  A couple of examples can be found here and here.  Well I never altered them and now that I think about it, why would anyone want to eat candy from recycled bottles?  I know I washed them through the dishwasher, but still.

They went into the recycle bin...I suppose if I ever want to do this, I could just go get another 4 pack--my arm doesn't have to be twisted that hard :)

These aren't that bad...only 6 folders, but my kids are now 16 & 15...they have not liked or wanted to use these folders for over 5 years.  Why did I keep them?  A few look new, so I am donating them to Goodwill and tossing only a couple.

Now these...again, I seen the cutest projects on 2peas.

What are they?  Years and years ago, AOL was sending the boxes with trial CDs inside.  Well the talented ladies at 2peas came up with this and this (among others).  I mean look at the inside of these puppies.

I will never alter these and I know that I will never see them in the mail again, but they went into the recycle bin where they should have gone years ago.

Last picture for today.

These are nice sturdy boxes!!!  But for what?  What am I going to do with them?  Toss them into the recycle bin.  I have to.  They are just taking up space.

I don't know if I could ever have anyone help me do this like they do on TV, but I am letting go of a lot of items.  I am taking the "if you haven't used it in 3 years, you don't need it" approach.

I can't wait to share some of my other collections of items :)