WOW - Have I been Gone Or What?!

WARNING - This might be a long post to catch up!

A friend reminded me tonight (HI KATIE!) that she had seen my scrapbook room on my blog! I have been so busy since my last post that I haven't had time for my blog but I plan to change that right now!! I am going to dedicate one day a week to keeping this updated!!! PROMISE!!

SO what have I been doing that I couldn't update this thing? Well, for one thing the cancer has kept me down a lot this year.  And the other thing I've been up to is Rubber Stamping! Lots of it!  I signed up as a Stampin' Up Demonstrator and kind of been in a whole with all of that.  BUT  I seriously need to devote time to my scrapbooking, my scrapbooking room and my life outside of SU.  If you're interested in my Stampin' Up Facebook Page you can find it here:  www.facebook.com/stampingwithscrapthis

I'm not going to make this blog a Stampin' Up Blog because I enjoy so many other crafting things.  Plus that's what my Facebook page is for.  If you do check out my page, please be sure to like it to stay updated tho.

I have also been working some more on my scrapbook and I'll be adding more pictures of that in another post.  I'll also add some pictures of some of the fun things I made for a craft show that I wasn't able to attend, due to coming down with an acute viral infection that has last two weeks and that I'm just getting over! This is some serious crud! It started with a sore throat and I was pretty sure I was going to die before it was all over with! No kidding!

One other thing that I've been up to was another trip to Iowa to the Oncologist at the beginning of November.  It was only a three day trip this time with only bloodwork and talking to my oncologist but it didn't turn out the way I had hoped.  I'll post more about that in another post also.

I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is only one week away! Mike and I will be spending it here at home together.  We could go his family's big dinner at the VFW but I'm greedy and like to have a WHOLE turkey for just us!!! I LOVE turkey!! Then that Saturday I have a friend coming over from Northville to scrapbook with me.  She used to live here and we are besties even thru the distance!  Then that following Monday Mike and I are driving over to Marshall for their annual Christmas Parade.  We wanted to go last year but the weather was horrible so we're hoping it's not a repeat this year.

Oh I remember - one other thing - Mike and I also opened up a vintage booth at a local antique market here in South Haven.  If you're in town, check out Booth #48 at Eagle Street Market Antiques! We opened up mid-August and it's been fun so far! Here's the latest picture they sent to us of our booth.

More Cards From the Monthly Card Cafe

As I've mentioned before, I attend a card cafe at my friend's house each month.  This month we made my favorite cards so far - Easter and Birthday! The Easter cards are so adorable and so fun I just have to share them with you! And I love the birthday cards too - I mean, you can never have too many of those one hand, right?  So without further ado, here they are.  

I hope you enjoy these cards as much as I did making them! I apologize for this being such a short update but it's 2:44am here.

Happy Stamping everyone!
Joyce

Finally Getting Back into the Swing of Things

After seeing the date of my last post to my blog, I am hanging my head in shame.  Although I do have a very good reason for not being able to keep my blog updated, I'm still quite embarrassed.

Recently I joined a wonderful Facebook Group for organizing your craft rooms and it has really given me the incentive and some great ideas to get my scrapbook room back on the right track and .... gasp! It may even be done by the end of March of this year.  At the very latest, I'd say April.  As with everything in my life, deadlines are ruled by my cancer and how I feel each day.  But I've been working very hard on organizing things in my room and would like to share some photos of what has been done so far. It may not look like a lot but the before pictures that I did take look like a hurricane had gone thru my room. So here are some pictures of before and after shots.  

Before:

Back corner of my room

Work Table and Chair (chair from IKEA, table is a vintage 50's formica table)

My room as you walked into it before

These 3 photos are my room at it's worst. I had not idea where I wanted to put things plus my dollhouse collection somehow made it's way into my scrapbook room (they now have a room of their own!)

Paper Rack made by my husband with my Toby Keith Shrine on top of it! LOL!

Recollections organizer from Michael's that has been moved over my cutting station

Cutting station that has an Accu Cut machine, my Hello Kitty Cuttlebug machine and then all of my Cricut cartridges and dies underneath. This uni came from the Container store.

More storage as you enter my room. A storage cupboard, another paper rack made by my DH and them more cubes from Michael's that have been moved to a different area.

The items in the photos above have pretty much stayed the same except for the tower of cubes at the end of the paper rack in the last picture. The 1st photo is my paper storage rack that my husband made and also my Toby Keith "shrine"! LOL!  The Recollections shelf has been moved above my cutting station (picture 3) and in place of that shelf unit, we have added 3 more long shelves. 

I added an over the door rack to store my Washi Tape and some of my larger bottles of things in. I also plan on storing my ribbon in this but I still need to get a few more racks to add to it.

This is my Kallax Unit from IKEA that also ha Recollection cubes from Michael's in it.  The Cubes that were at the end of the picture 2 pictures up are now residing across the top of the Kalax unit.  All of the albums across the top are there just temporarily.

A closer look at how I have arranged things around the Hello Kitty TV.  The clear paper holders will house my Bazzill cardstock in color order.

This is just a regular storage cupboard from Menards.  I have all my Zutter Binder supplies in here.  Plus the tiered racks are actually for spices but I plan on putting wood mounted stamps on them.  I also have my Stampin' Up stamps in here  There is a lot of wasted space in the top so my husband is going to try to figure out how to add more shelves.

And now here are some of the updated things I've done and organized over the last week or so.  Which is quite a bit for that small length of time for me. Once I go going I didn't want to stop!  The following three sets of shelves cover one completely wall that runs the length of my scrapbook room.

These shelves will eventually hold my small Cricut, Xyron machines, my Zutter Binder and any other large items used for scrapping.  The pink OTT light on the bottom shelf will be put on my scrap table eventually

I finished organizing this set of shelves about 1am Sunday. The top shelf has some vintage cameras and a fe photos I have taken and framed (I'm also an amateur photographer). The 2nd level of shelves hold a birdhouse that my niece made for me with Hello Kitt on the ends and zebra stripes on the sides, to represent my cancer. I also added a few photo frames which I have yet to fill. And I found the cute tins that decline in size with the fuzzy tops and bows last year around Valentines's day. The first one has all of my decorative scissors in it, the next size down has my creative memory writing pens, and the next one has Xacto knives, blending stubs etc in it.  The smallest one is still empty - suggestions for that one are welcome :)

This is the last set of shelves on that wall.  The top shelf has containers for small embellishments,which will probably be the last thing I organize since I seem to have them all over the room. The 2nd level I haven't quite decided what will go in all of the baskets.  Right now in the first basket I have my Hello Kitty Smash Book items,  And in the last basket I have handmade cards that are ready to send out. Now to figure out what to store in the large middle basket!  The bottom level I have buttons, flowers and ribbon all stored in glass Ball Canning Jar, arranged by color.  I go this idea from Pinterest (like a lot of ideas I've used)

Next are some misc storage items for the scrap area and also for the Hello Kitty Lounge area (on the other side of the 2nd large paper rack).  The lounge is in case I get tired or start to not feel good so then I can just lay down and rest on the windowless window seat my husband built in that area.

For some reason I'm not able to put captions with the next item so I'll just explain hem here. The first picture is 1 of my 2 Raskog carts from IKEA. I had my husband paint that pink also (in case anyone wonders what shade of pink it's Ballet Slipper and you can find it at Michael's and Hobby Lobby).  This cart is going to be for storing my metal dies, clear stamps and embossing folders.  I just ordered the Avery Elle envelopes that Jennifer McGuire uses (I'm a HUGE fan) and they should be here Friday so you can guess what I'll be doing this weekend!

The 2nd Raskog cart is for my Project life cards.  I did change it up since the photo.  I moved all of my cards to the top two tiers and now on the bottom tier have my Daily December albums and items to go in them, along with the Project Life punches - one square corner and one round corner.

The next photo is of he storage bin I got for Christmas to keep my paper scraps in sorted by color. I love that the handles are colored so it's such a no brainer!

Next is my glitter storage - I saw this on Pinterest and fell in love with the little salt shakers. They take up so much less room and look so elegant. I found mine at Tuesday Morning and also at Wal-Mart.  The Pink polka dot boxes they are in were found at Joann Fabric.

And last is my Copic storage. Before I had too many pens and they were floating all over the place and I was afraid I was going to lose some. This unit is going to be mounted on the wall between the 2nd and 3rd set of shelves on the long wall.  I have them all in numerical order according to their color chart. 

The next few items are things that will be in my Hello Kitty lounge area - more for decoration than anything else.

I got this at Target a couple of years ago as they were taking Valentine candy displays down.  I asked the lady if I could have it and since it didn't have a log on it she said sure. There were quite a few areas where the paper had been torn but I fixed that with some Hello Kitty Duct Tape. It even had attachments still in it to pop it into my pegboard

This is a small pegboard wall just around the corner from the windowless windowseat.  The 2 calendar on the wall are handmade - one was  class I taught and the other was a kit.I found the light up HK letters at Hobby Lobby and HAD to have hem.  And of course my Hello Kitty cuddle pillow!

I found this cute metal board at IKEA and had my husband spray paint it pink to match my pink and brown room.  It just has some mementos and things I've made in the past on it.

So that's it's for this update. Sorry it's so long. I'll be back downstairs organizing tomorrow so hopefully the next update won't be as long or as late.

Happy Scrapping Y'all!

Joyce