My Favorite Craft'n Buddy

Hi Everyone,
I have been nothing but busy for what seems like months.  I turn around and here we are at the end of July.  Really, summer is so O-V-E-R!!  I know what August brings, it's all about back to school and beginning to notice that the sun is setting earlier and earlier each day.  I haven't even spent much time outside this year with all the cleaning an rearranging that went on inside.  When I am not at work I am trying to put the ole' homestead back together in time for the Fall season.  I have been trying to play in the new craft room so that I can get my crafty mojo going in time for Halloween.  New space, new mojo!  I did spend an awesome evening in the craftspace with my all time most favorite craftn't buddy last night.  Oh come on you know it was the dear granddaughter.  What Nonna wouldn't love a chance to play with her #1!  So here is how it went.  My friend Donna who is a major library volunteer has been keeping Rory in books since she has been four years old.  Lots and lots of books!  Donna knows just the right age appropriate book for any given age.  Donna even gets us prepared for the school's summer reading list.  I am telling you Rory's home library is awesome.  Now my friend Donna who is a co-worker is leaving my office (thankfully for bigger and better things) and it was time for Miss Rory to do something a bit more than her normal thank you.  In my conversation with Donna (who is a true book lover) it kind of came around to how much she love bookmarks (I have even made one for her).  It was easy to see that Donna would love and treasure a bookmark that Rory made.  So Rory and I set out to do just that.  Now, I am a self proclaimed control freak (and everyone who knows me knows it) .  So being that seems to be a problem I decided that I would take pictures of Rory making the bookmark so that everyone would know it was all her and I had little to do with it.  I did this because when Samantha (her Mom) was in Kindergarten and she submitted her battery powered motor into the science fair and none of the Judges believed that a 5 year old could make that type of motor herself, they disqualified her submission.  OK, so that was the right thing to do as there were no pictures of Sam making the motor (that would be, because I built it while she was sleeping and I didn't feel the need to wake her when she had to go to school in the morning) Really, I am kidding, well not really OK! Don't judge me, you know you did things like that too!  Enough, here are the pictures of Rory working hard on her gift to Donna.  I swear the only thing I did was plug in the laminator.

And here is her finished gift:

   Came out great and we can't wait to give it to Donna!  Rory is welcome in my craftspace anytime, it is only one door away from her room now and I am glad there is a space in this house that has all kinds of crafty good supplies to inspire someone to create something.  I am also glad I have a friend like Donna who travels through her life inspiring people by handing them a book so that they can take their imagination for a ride.  Thanks Donna, I am going to miss you in the officespace!
Thanks to you all for visiting,
Lysa

Fun With Putty, I Like It!

Hi Everyone,
 So here I am in the new craftspace and I have been itch'n to get my craft on.  Right before I went off grid for the room redo I had bought some "Amazing Mold" putty from Hobby Lobby.  I never really got to play with it because I had to pack up all my supplies for the room change over.  So I thought it only fitting that I pull that off my crafty shelf to give it a try.  This putty is so cool, all you do is take equal part of the two compounds and mix them together.  Then you can press any shape you like into it to create a mold of the item.  There are hundred of youtube videos of  how people use it to create silicone molds of things.  I was fascinated and had to get some for myself.  I am so glad I did. The Amazing Putty was so easy to use and the result was, well AMAZING! It was simple to use, you take the equal parts of the two compounds, 1 part is white and the other is yellow. Just kneed them together until the colors are blended. Make a little mound and press a shape like a charm into the putty. Here are some pictures I took along the way:

 The working time on this putty is about 3 minutes to mix and it takes about 20 minutes to set up once you have pressed your item into it. I used the Stampin' Up simply pressed clay but you can use any air dry clay like Martha Stewart or even crayola clay.  You can even fill these molds with hot things like candle wax or UTEE. I see a lot of crafters use cold cure epoxy resin to make awesome charms and buttons.  Another bonus is that this product is food safe and can be used to mold things like ice, chocolate or butter.  Just be sure not to use the same mold for a food product that you have already used for a craft product.  I dusted my little scully with some perfect pearls and he is just to scary cute.  Next time I try it I will press the metal charm in a bit deeper so that I can get a better impression of the crossbones.  Also I will even off the clay so that I won't have all that extra to trim off.  This is why I love to play with supplies, it all about the playtime!  I found Amazing mold putty at Hobby Lobby for  $19.99, with my 50% coupon it was $10 bucks well spent. I have a feeling I will be carrying a little container of this around with me. I can see me on the beach pressing seashells and such.  Check out Youtube for some great videos and I am sure you will want to play with this putty too.  Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend.
Lysa

More Pictures Of The Craftspace

Hi Everyone,
Box after box, bag after bag, I am hauling supplies in to the new craftspace. I am now finding it funny as I am in the garage rooting through boxes.  I take something from one box, something from another and now all I have is a bunch of half filled boxes.  I am making headway and I have some pictures to share but I am now seeing clearly that all the crafty good stuff from downstairs is not going to fit into this room.  I am not sure how I will deal with the "left overs" yet but I am sure that I now can see what I did right and wrong when I planned this room.  What I did right was easy. I knew I needed a large working counter top. I knew I wanted narrow shelving above it for easy access to supplies I reach for all the time. I knew I wanted the shelving to be tall so that the out of reach area could be used for some decorative things.  I was successful with drawers.  I knew I wanted a lot of drawer storage. My score with the bins from Lowes worked out great.  I even started to label everything and I think the label came out great. Here is a picture:

I still have 11 more to label.  The units are filled I just haven't gotten to them yet. Not to waste any space, look what is hiding behind the 5 shelf unit by the door,

Yup, that's my crafty good mat storage for my digital die cutter.  A simple hook attached to the frame of the shelves with a zip-tie and all my cutting mats are in one place.
The Billy bookcases worked out well too.  I love my paper behind the glass and having everything on a shelf with easy access it just awesome.  They filled up quick and if I only had the space I could have used 2 more!!  Here is what they are looking like now:

Wow, they are maxed out and I still have a lot of crafty good stuff in the garage.  I wanted to keep the top of of the shelf for decorative things but all the drawers, baskets, and cigar boxes are filled with supplies. But I did save room for my camera collection. Here is a shot of that action:

 One would think a person with all these cameras could take some really cool pictures. Oh well, I am working on it.  See my Singer sewing table drawers?  Yup, that leads me to what I have done wrong. I love that table and since I couldn't fit it in the room, I brought in just the drawers. No worries I can re-attach them with ease as they just screw right back on.  The home office worked out and Paul even added a TV.

I love this space because I am away from the craft area.  It worked out just fine and I have a bit more work to do on it.  The other thing I did wrong was that there is no closed closet space.  I traded that for the home office area.  Now you all know some craft supplies are just a hot mess and with no door to hide them behind I am finding that a bit rough.  Also I really could have used a small bookshelf just for books and magazines.  I collect a lot of  media like manuals and such and I forgot to account for them.  Another other thing I missed was my gift wrap storage.  I am a huge gift wrap fanatic and I would have loved a gift wrap area or at least some dedicated storage. All in all I am on cloud 9 and am happy with all the work we put in to the 3 rooms. I know all of us are so happy with our new space and I am going to keep on rolling toward finally getting back to crafting. Thanks for visiting and hope to be back soon with a project instead of room redo pics.
Lysa

Move'n In!

Hi Everyone,
Finally it is time to start moving all my supplies into the new craftspace.  I have been rushing home from work everyday and bringing things in little by little.  I have a lot of cleaning to do along the way as all my boxes got pretty dirty and beat up while being in storage. I just can't believe how fast it all came together.  I have to give Paul most of the credit.  I would say "I need" and he would say "No problem"  He did an awesome job reworking shelving, running wires and making my new work space exactly like I wanted.  Thanks Paul, you get the husband of the year award for sure!!  So I really need to go back to the beginning and show you pics of a few things.   Here is a picture of a shelving unit that I saw in the ABC Distributing Catalog.  I loved it the minute I saw it.

It sold for $25.99 plus shipping.  I liked it so much because the shelves are just under 7 inches deep.  I thought this would work out great for the shelving above my work desk.  I bought 3 of them and when they arrived I loved them even more because I knew I could switch them up a bit and create an entire wall of shelving for less than $100.00.  Paul needed to make some adjustments to the hanging hardware because they are not designed to hold the amount of weight I was planning on.  Here is a picture of how they came out:

I know it doesn't look like much but that is 93 X 72 inches of shelves.  Here is a picture of how it looks now that it is filling up with all kinds of crafty goodness:

Love!!! Paul cut me 2 panels of sheet metal from my original magnet board so that I could still have my favorite embellishments right at hand.  Here is a close up:

I love having my work desk back. If I need a ruler, It's right there.  Scissors right at hand as well.  It came out great and there is a bit of room left up high for some decorative things.
Next I started to work on the paper storage.  I have been trying to organize it in between opening up boxes and unpacking things.  Here is a before and after picture of the Ikea Billy bookcases.

 Wow, they are filling up fast! I decided to switch up the basket side with the machine side so that from the entry point it would be a cleaner look.  But as you can see there will be machines on both units.  In the top picture you can see where Paul made me a top for the black drawer unit.  The top is recycled from Rory's bed frame.  It was part of the headboard. Paul cut it down and made plugs to fill the screw holes.  It came out great and gave me another work surface.
I didn't want any curtains in this room but the window moulding is shot.  There are paint splatters all over so I thought I would add some curtains.  I bought sheer curtain scarfs from the SwagsGalore website for $15.00 each.  The panels were 40 X 216 inches.  I had them draped and swaged and just didn't like it.  So not to waste the fabrics or have them live in my linen closet I decided to run them across the top of the window and across the top of the closet.  I cut them in half at the width and used 40 X 108 inches on each.  All I did was hang cheap hook from Lowes, pulled the fabric through rubber bands, gave the fabric a twist and there you have it, my 2 treatments for $30.00.  Here's the pictures:

I am pretty sure you can tell that I didn't even take the time to iron the panels.  That's because all I wanted to do was unpack more boxes.  Doesn't my new home office area in a closet look cute.  I still have a bit of work to do there. At least my PC is out of the dinning room! And sure enough there are those black drawers again.  I bought every one that I could find at 2 Lowes. In total I have 27 drawers.  So here is how that worked out  I made 2 - 4 drawer units for under the window, 1 - 5 drawer unit next to my work space (my large format printer fits on it perfectly), 1 - 5 drawer unit by the door and 2 -3 drawer units to fit under my work table. These could not have suited my needs better.  I will be labeling them with bookplates that I pulled off of my old metal file cabinet (which Paul is taking for tools)  He will use sticker labels but I wanted a nicer look.  Here is a picture of the plates:

The best part about these drawers is that they are easy to switch up.  I am filling them up and when I am done unpacking I will be able to change them around from rack to rack with ease.
Before I go here is my before and after picture of the room from the same angle.  I just love how it is coming together.

I just can't wait to get some crafty goodness going in this new space. And not to promote crafting and drinking but I think it's time I settle in and enjoy a Martini in my new space

Now doesn't that look yummy!
Thanks as always for visiting and hopefully my next post will be a crafty one!
Lysa