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.

Where I've Been For the Last Week

I'd like to apologize for being MIA the past week. One of our kitties, Busha, got really sick and had to be rushed to the Emergency Vet one week ago Friday night.  Since then, she had visited the vet 4 times and had to be put on Prednisone, a Diuretic and finally an appetite stimulant.  We thought we were over the hump because Wednesday she was like her old self.  She sat in her tent next to my husband in the living room and talked up a storm to him.  She was eating for the first time since her first vet visit, (we gave her Tuna to bribe her), she drank a ton of water and she even got up on the extra bed with her "sister" Hazel and they cuddled like they used to. Fast forward to the next day: she was lethargic, flopping around like a fish out of water, wouldn't even come near food or water and was hiding under the bed again and crying/moaning.  We called the vet and he got us in immediately.  Originally he thought she had water around her heart and lungs but she had lost so much of that along with more weight that he was able to finally find out what was wrong with her. She had a large mass on her liver and declining extremely rapidly. So we made the decision to have her put to sleep as it was so visible how much pain she was in. She was 13 years old, which I guess made her an old cat. Mike and I have cried almost every day until today when we finally got around to doing some much needed things like grocery shopping etc.  Our other kitty, Hazel, is so lost without her sissy. I ended up working on my scrapbook room some more today to get my mind off from missing Busha but it will take quite some time to get over this sudden change.  As a tribute to Busha I made some photos with an app I downloaded to my phone. She is now over the Rainbow Bridge and no longer in pain and is looking down on us as our angel.

As I mentioned above, today I spent most of the day doing more organizing in my scrapbook room.  I was able to get the rest of my clear stamps and embossing folders into clear envelopes and I also got all of my dies onto magnetic pieces and put into clear envelopes also. My room has also had some furniture moved around, which I like much better. I was also able to finally find the 3 missing tins I needed for my Quickutz Mag Pie holder, which has been discontinued for quite a few years. Persistence paid off by checking eBay constantly for the missing tins. I was also able to get all of my extra albums off the top of my IKEA TV unit and they are all now behind closed doors! YAY!!  I'm attaching pictures of what was done this weekend also for you.  Most of my organizing inspiration has come from Jennifer McGuire's blog.  She is my organizing hero!

The TV unit minus all the albums across he top.  We also added doors to all of the cubbies and moved the pull out cubes to the Kallax unit.  As you can see I still need to get one more door.

And here is where all of the albums from the top went - they are now located on the right hand side of the TV unit behind doors.  A much better look!

This is the 4 drawer cube in the TV unit.  It is now home to all of my clear stamps.  I've put each stamp in an Avery Elle clear envelope according to size.  I still need to sort them by theme and then label them in the top left corner with my P-touch. 

I've done the same thing with my embossing folders as I did with my clear stamps. They are now located in the 2 drawer cube on the left side of the TV unit.  As with the stamps, they still need to be sorted by theme and then labeled.

We totally changed the area to the left of the door when you walk into my room. And I still need to get one more pull out box for the bottom right corner. I had Mike take out the huge paper rack and instead now the Kallax unit is in it's place, along with ongoing albums and at the end is a unit for friends to use to scrap at if they come over.  It also has storage inside where I have all of my coloring books and other items.

My Stampin' Up stamps and tiny clear stamps are located in the cupboard to the left when you first come into my room. 

This is my Alex Drawers that I got in Bolingbrook IL.  I'm finally starting to put things away in it.  The top drawer is all the items I used to keep in my tool tote bag that I took to crops. But because I can no longer attend crops due to the cancer, I wanted those items at my fingertips, which they will be when the Alex Drawers are made into my work desk.

This is the 3rd drawer down - it'll contain all of my cutters.  I'm sill not sure how I've accumulated so many. Probably because I wasn't organized and had to buy a new one when I couldn't find one. No more of that!

Right now the next drawer down is holding items I'm not quite sure where I want them to go but I want them protected so they don't get lost or broken.

And finally my Project Life cart (a Raskog IKEA cart that we painted pink).  I thought I had all of my Project Life items organized and then I found the brown bag with pink polka dots full of more Project Life cards! So I'll be doing some more sorting soon.

So that pretty much sums up our live for the last week. Not a great one but I didn't want anyone to think I had given up on my blog like I did before.  

I hope everyone gets some scrapping or stamping done this week.

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