Workspace Wednesdays (#4)--Roller Stamps

Back in December 2012, I wrote about my roller date stamps collection.  At that time, I had 9 stamps (and added 2 more shortly after) and stored them in these glass square vases.

But like most of my supplies, this had doubled to 22 (currently) and they no longer fit in the vases.

I found a basket at Michaels in turquoise (my favorite) and they are still easy to reach for on my workspace.

But with 22 stamps, it is hard to remember or search for phrases, so last year, I started to stamp each phrase on an index card and labeling which color handle (and brand) it belongs to.  I also try to remember to write which year the stamps starts.

About a month or so ago, Studio Calico (via Nicole Reaves) posted a picture on Instagram that was similar...I was like hey, I have been doing that too!  Great minds think alike--hahaha.

Even though my current storage works, I would really like an antique stamp holder.

Like this one that Layle Koncar posted.  

If I don't find one, I know that Ranger Inks sells a similar one, but it won't be antique! ha ha ha

Thank you for looking!!

Workspace Wednesday (#1)

Hello!!!  It has been quite a while since I've blogged.  Between my son's last high school baseball season and him graduating, I didn't have too much time to craft.  But this week I started to again :)

I'm not sure if I'll post a picture of my workspace every week, but I have seen other bloggers do this and I love peeking into their space!

Here is my table today:

I am currently working on one of my goals for the year--scrapbooking our 2008 trip to Oahu.  I am using the PL mini album.  I've been waiting to get my hands on one of these mini albums just for this trip, but waited in hopes that I could find one at a Big Box store and use a coupon, but no such luck and I finally bit the bullet and bought it full price (oh the horror!!) ha ha ha.

I did do something I didn't think I'd ever do...I took my PL cards out of the box!  Well I only had 2 boxes--the Amy Tangerine Plus One mini kit and the Maggie Holmes Flea Market kit.  I have a bunch of other cards from various kits.  (I started listing them, but the list became too long--ha ha ha.)

They are actually easier to flip through without having to take the 2 sets out of the box, then putting them back in.  I don't know how the ladies that have every set do it!  I was having a hard enough time going through the 7 sets plus 6 Studio Calico PL kits!!

Thanks for looking into my creative space...hopefully I will be able to be more creative this summer.

My Ever-Changing Craft Room

Last month, I shared one room of our home remodel…our Office/my craft room.

This was the room right after the remodel in 2007--yellow…against my husband's will.  Since then, I have made many changes through out.

Things that I hated about this room...
~yellow walls (yes, my husband warned me I would)
~open shelving on wall

2 years ago, I finally got the chance to pull everything out and paint it white :)  I also pulled everything off the walls because 5 years after I got my craft room, the wall was pretty much full of magazines and lots of paper…it was way too cluttered.

Seriously…who could be creative in this space!

Here was the update, up until last weekend.

But I was still not completely happy because my work area was so small…(this is a mock layout…normally I have more paper and embellishments I try to dig through on my desk)

I didn't have much room to spread everything out.  So I talked my husband into getting me a larger table.

I really wanted a 48 x 84 inch space, but that wouldn't be possible, so I settled for 39 x 79.  It gave me 14 more inches depth wise and 7 additional inches wide wise.

I love all the space I have now!

Here is the before and after side view

I love that my Ikea Raskog Cart now fits behind my desk!  I also have extra storage behind the cabinets for my crop roller cart and other stuff.

Another new addition I was able to add to my table was a Harbor Freight revolving bin that I've seen many crafters on Instagram and in the blogosphere use.

(before and after)

I still have to fill it up!  I may paint it someday, but for right now, black is part of my accent colors, so it will stay black for the time being.

I do love my updated space, but I am still wishing that:

1.  I had a bigger room

2.  I had a bigger window for natural light

3.  The door to the garage wasn't in this room

4.  I could have an Island (impossible because of 1 & 3 above)

5.  I had longer arms because I really can't reach into the corner now or the back wall very easily ha ha ha.

But none of those can be changed, so for now (until we win the lottery) I will be content with my space.  

Thanks for looking!

Ikea Raskog Cart and Organization

As promised, I am sharing my filled up Raskog cart.

But first I have to show the "before" storage pictures.

This picture doesn't even do justice the amount of stickers I had.  They used to be housed in a 3 inch binder that was quite full (kicking myself for not taking a picture of it before).

I went through them all and below is the give away pile.  I'll let my daughter go through them first, then the rest will be donated to a Girl Scout troop.

Next up was my "junk" drawer.  Embellishments used to pour out of this drawer.  I didn't get rid of too much from here.

Both my huge binder of stickers and my "junk" drawer fit nicely in my top basket.  The binder will be recycled and the drawer will now house only Christmas embellishments.  (and I still have some room in this top basket!)

You will notice two of the storage cups are full.  One with my "bling" and the other is just a mishmash of items--we'll call it my "junk" cup :D

The next basket was for my scrap papers.  They used to be housed in this accordion storage.

Now I can easily flip through all my small pieces of paper...I do keep too many small scraps--someday I'll fix that.  I also placed my 4.5 x 6.5 paper pads in this basket.

You will see another cup filled with my wood veneer items :)

At first, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the bottom basket, but I was pulling out my Halloween mini album (hopefully to be posted about on Halloween) and I noticed because where it was stored, some of the letters fell off as well as a flower.  So I figured if I stored them in their own basket they wouldn't be smashed again--hopefully.

 I don't have too many mini albums...the majority in the basket are Christmas cards from previous years that I had bound together years ago.  Hopefully seeing them will remind me to look through them more often.

So far, I love being able to just roll the cart up next to my desk and flip through items to find the right embellishment or paper without having to dig through the drawer and put everything back or flip through the heavy binder of stickers.  Totally worth the investment :D

My weakness for Magazines

These are the piles of magazines and idea books I have compiled over the years.  And these are only the scrapbooking and card making magazines.

So far, here is my organization of magazines.

In this corner, we have my Scrapbooks Etc. (with more space to add to), PaperKuts (RIP), Simple Scrapbooks (RIP), Scrapbook Answers (RIP), and all my various idea books and special ideas magazines.

It would be perfect except for the fact that I still have all these Creating Keepsakes magazines!  These date from June 2003 through April 2010--I have actually been good with this magazine and have stopped buying them.

I also have this pile of Memory Makers (RIP)--I have gotten rid of some of them and I plan on getting rid of all the rest as soon as I look through them again.

All of my Paper Crafts magazines are in a different area of my room (with my card making supplies) along with my Cards magazine and various card making idea books.  I have gotten rid of a year's worth of Card Making magazine--so I know I can edit myself--it is just really hard to toss magazines.

And finally, these were not in the photo of my piles of magazines.  These are my photography magazines and photography books.

My problem with magazines?  I love buying them, especially if the cover pops out at me, but I really don't read them.  I like looking at the pictures and scanning the titles and subtitles, but I rarely read them and sometimes I am so bummed out and disappointed after I bring them home.

Over the years, I have collected Latina magazine and Health magazine--both have been recycled years ago.  I received a free year subscription to Better Homes and Gardens--after the year was up, I gave them to my friend because I had no room for them.  Right now, I am receiving Weight Watchers magazine (it was also free).  I might clip some of the recipes, but those will be toss in the recycle bin soon (I hope).  

I also have a small collection of Crochet Today magazines, some crochet books, and a couple of knitting books (even thought I have yet to learn to knit).

I know that I don't need any more magazines or idea books and I try not to subscribe to any more, but I do have such a weakness.

My purchases after the magazine organization.

I mean who can resist covers like that!!!!

(and just to be fair, my husband has subscribed to Sports Illustrated for over 15 years and we have boxes in the garage of those!  Are we hoarders or what? ha ha ha)

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 :)

Craft Faire goodie

In September, I ordered a crochet hook holder from a seller on Etsy.

(picture from seller's etsy)

I waited about 2 weeks and I hadn't received my item.  So I sent a message through Etsy to the seller.  An automated response came back that the seller was severely ill and if I wanted to wait for my item or request a refund.  I replied that I would wait.  I waited about a month and still nothing.  I went to send another message and the Etsy seller no longer had a shop.  Luckily I "only" spent $12.50 on the item.  I really hope the seller didn't die!  But I did let both Etsy and PayPal know of the non-receipt of the item, just in case the seller just "skipped town" with other people's money!  I let the $12.50 go and didn't go any further with PayPal.  I mean if the seller was severely sick and is in the hospital or going through treatments, I totally wish her the best of luck, but if it was just a scam, then that sucks :(

Anywho...I received an email that there was going to be a Craft Faire in San Jose called Jingle Fest 2011.  I love Craft Faires.  Since it was on Sunday aka husband's football day, I decided to check it out.  It was kinda small, but it was cool to look at all the stuff people make.  There was a bunch of jewelry, that I don't wear, but there were a few booths that sold handmade cards and crochet items.  One booth had the cutest little girl one-of-a-kind dresses.  The one dress I absolutely adored was too small for my youngest niece.

I was about to leave (only stayed about 25 minutes--that is how small it was), when I seen a booth, Firebabe Boutique, that had some crochet hook holders!  Well you can use the case to hold hooks or make-up brushes.  And she even had crayon holders.  Anyway, I picked this one up

I am so excited to finally be able to keep my hooks in order by size!

I left thinking about maybe seeing about selling there next year...if I have a big enough inventory :)