My New Craft Room!

It was a long time in the making that's for sure ~ but I wanted to share some pictures of my new craft room.  I've moved into the house from the sun room, which let me tell you is kind of nice.  I don't have all the nice daylight but I do have heat and air :) and after last night with the temperature of 10 degrees I'm very thankful!!

I do have some more things to do with the room.  I want to add some lettering to the walls and hang up a few things.  I have a really cool project that I need hubby to work with me on for one of the walls but that probably won't happen til spring or summer.  So ready?  Take a peek!!

 This is what you see as you walk into the room.  This is my craft area and this wall has my punches on curtain rods.  No, they are not the ones from Ikea - I wanted those...  But our Ikea is a little over an hour away and at the time I was in too much of a hurry to put things up ;) 

 This area to the left is Danielle's area.  I know it is smaller but she is really not in here all the time with me. 

 I have NO idea why the camera took a picture and it came out yellow like that around the window!  The room is actually a mint green.  It's very pale in color, pretty.  But yellow?  Hmmm...  Think this is a reason for a new camera...

 This is some of the storage I have.  I've got all of my unmounted stamps on the top shelf in those five boxes.  The shelf right below that is all my SU! clear stamp sets (they are behind the pictures that I forgot to take down).  The middle shelf has 12x12 paper in the Iris containers and the loose 12x12 paper is what I use for paper piecing, that's off to the left each in it's own envelope put away in a Cropper Hopper file rack.  The fourth shelf has SU! wood stamp sets and the last shelf has all the rest of my 12x12 paper.  Holiday, solids, SU! DSP collections...  It was the heavy stuff I needed to put on the bottom.

You can also peek in the closet and see my wood drawer cabinet.  That holds all my loose wood stamps.  I've got one of my old Iris carts with pens (sharpies, dot pens...), post it's, clear stamps, office supplies (stapler, postage stamps, address labels), 3D embellies and a tubby with envelopes.  I've also got boxes on the closet shelf with little pieces and parts, small punches, chipboard, scissors and little items that I don't use all the time.  I've got my brass stencils, glitter and light box up there and my Bind It All and Carl Tozzicle and binding rings I don't use nearly enough.  Yes, that's a step ladder too!  With all the shelves my hubby put in there are a few items on the top shelves that I can not reach.  I call it vertically challenged!

Last but not least, and yes I am very OCD.  The filing cabinet in my room has alterables and such but the middle two drawers are filled with my 8 1/2 x 11 paper.  Oh but not just put in hanging folders mind you.  If you click on the picture you will see.  I've got each color labeled and if it is retired or in the current catty.  I also have the RGB code in case I need to print out something in that specific color.  It also allows me to keep the scraps together with the paper and it helps me to see how much I have of a specific color and if I need to order more.

No my room is not done by any means.  The work areas were made with counter tops that we purchased at Lowe's.  We will have another little piece that needs to be made.  If you see to the left of the closet there is a black Iris cart.  That has by glue and tape, hot glue gun, label maker...  all the items I do use and they really didn't take up a whole box to fill.  I've got my paper shredder next to it and my scrap books (in progress) on top of it.  Hubby still has a counter top that he is going to make me a table right there.  I'm going to put my Big Shot on it and a shelf above it for my dies and embossing folders.  He made the tables and put up all the shelves for me.  He painted the legs to match the room too! 

I'm so very happy with my room and I'm glad that you stopped by today to take a peek!  If you have any questions don't hesitate to leave a comment and I'll get back to you!!  See you tomorrow :)

Thanks for being patient with me

Thanks for being patient with me, I really appreciate it.  The past couple of weeks have me just beat!  I knew that getting a new puppy would be work ~ it's not that.  We had the craft fair weekend before last.  That was Saturday and Sunday.  Then you come home and if you are not lucky enough to have everything sold then you've got to put it away. 

My craft room was a disaster for a few days.  I really did not want to touch anything in there.  But I finally put it all away for safe keeping till November when we said that we'd do it all over again!  This time it is inside.

This was taken actually at the end of the fair.  We had to put up the sides on the tent because there was rain on Saturday ~ but Sunday brought the winds.  Then the fair organizer's brought hay around for those who needed it because of the mud.  Of course we had to buy it too!  This is 2 bales of hay.  It was very muddy.  I lost one tin because it dropped and got all covered with mud.  Some of my cards fell too in the wind, but they were ok because I had the clear plastic jackets on them.

This was my table.  Cool rack huh?  We found that at the local Peddler's Mall for only $5.00!!  I was so excited!!  We brought it home and Ricky put these little boards on there and wire them down so I could put my cards on it.  He had to tie little strings across it so the wind would not catch the cards and blow them away.

This was Betty's table.  Look at all the coasters that she did.  They turned out really great!!  Lot's of great stuff, huh?!

We did get some pointers from another lady who was at the festival.  She and her family were so nice.  They kept coming back with more to say and some really great suggestions.  Not to mention that their booth was polka dotted (I loved it!!!).

Then last weekend Dixie decided to give us a scare.  She went out potty in the middle of the night and when she came back in she was not herself.  She kept scratching at her ears and shaking her head.  We stayed up with her and then finally about 3:30 in the morning we ended up calling the vet and going on a midnight run to Lexington.  They don't know if it is allergies or if a spider bit her ~ but her eyes and muzzle started to swell up.  They gave her a shot and she's on benadryl for a few days.  Knock on wood she seems better.  I had plans on Sunday posting here - but the lack of sleep caught up with me.  I'm no spring chicken, remember...

This is a few days old.  She's actually grown so much in the 2 weeks that we've had her.  She went from 4 pounds to 9.8 in 2 weeks.  So much for the little dog I wanted.  But I will cherish her anyway.

I am going to be working in the craft room today to get things completely put away and actually move a few things.  I do have a couple of things that I can post that I've not posted yet.  But I promise that tomorrow you will have something craft related and none of my blah blah blah...

Thanks again!  Have a great day!

I just had to share a few little things with you today.


I wanted to post some pictures of my craft room. Now, it's not the greatest ~ but at least I have one. When we were house hunting I wanted to make sure that there was a place for all my "stuff". This place had a sun room built on, how cool is that? Well COLD not cool! The room is right off the house as you can see - and with all the windows it gets cold in the winter, and actually not too bad in the summer. But it is my little space that I can create in and have my "little" fur baby at my feet.

And no, I normally keep the blind down so the ribbon does not get faded. I learned that with my paper the first year that I was here...

This is my space where I sit to create. I get lots of light from the windows which is nice. The one good thing about not having too much room is you keep your stuff more organized than you would if you have a larger space.

In California we had converted the garage into a room - that was our craft room. I can say that this little space is more organized than the other was. I had stuff spread out everyplace. Here, it goes back after I use it.

This is Mom's area. Yes, she's going to kill me for posting this. "Joani, my hair looks awful ~ it's not curled". Yes Mom, I know. You just washed it and can't do a thing with it. If she was a little bit more technologically savvy she'd get me back, but I don't have to worry about that :)

Notice the punch rack? Hubby just put that up for me not too long ago. That was another couple of drawers that I got to clean out. I love having them hanging up. The Mega & Giga punches are a little awkward on there but they fit.

This bookshelf is where most of my stamps are kept. The 7 boxes hold all of my SU! sets. Before I UM them they were on the 3 shelves stacked 2 deep. If you wanted to find something you had to move them around, stack on the floor and look. Now they are in the boxes by category and alphabetized. It's the OCD talking, sorry ;)

Now on to some creative stuff!

You can't imagine the look on my face when I got some mail the other day and opened the package. My dear friend Gabby sent this to me. Isn't i beautiful!! I could not believe my eyes. She is one amazing and awesome crafter. One of the most talented I've seen! And this was for me! Of course when I opened it I mentioned to hubby that she made this out of coasters and that a trip to Ruby Tuesday's was in order. Last year we went there for lunch and our waitress gave me a stack of coasters, I seriously scored big with those. So, when we went for lunch I asked the waitress for some coasters & she brought them to me with our drinks ~ they were round!!! Ok, that's fine. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth right? But now I'm going to have to make a few changes if I want to try this.

If you want to try this take a peek over at Gabby's blog and her wonderful tutorial! She makes everything look so easy.

Well of course my DD had to get her mitts on it and check it out. I told her that it was "mine, mine MINE" so she had to go make one. The kid can sit down and create a card in just a few minutes ~ it takes me all day. Well, that's the OCD again. If it's anyplace near crooked or if it has a little mark - or if it's just not right I start over.... But little missy sat down and made 4 of these! She has that ability. Me, I print of directions and read over them a couple times before I start on something.

Well, she made these and asked if I would take a picture like I do with my stuff. Of course I will. So, I had to show her creation off too...

Enough said for today ~ I will (hopefully) be back tomorrow with more. Have a great day!