Craft Room Makeover - the after pictures!

Here, finally is the room!! I would still like to paint, I have a light yellow called Shortbread, picked out. Just dont' have the energy to paint yet.

When you walk in the door you are greeted by the Stampin Up Armoire. Can you believe I got this at a yard sale for $10?? I painted it inside and out and put new hardware on it. But what an amazing storage piece for such a low price tag.


I finally have the storage space for all of my Stampin up stamp sets. I can really see what I have and start putting them to use again. I am getting excited to start doing some crafting.




The bed is dressed with a pink and white striped comforter and has a green and white polka dot blanket and pillow. Just girly enough!!! The french memo boards are one of my projects - there are three more that are almost done leaning over by the door. Just need to find the best buttons to accent them!


I do have quite a stash of buttons - they are all from Papertrey Ink and I got the cute little spice jars from World Market. They are the perfect size to hold the bag of vintage buttons. The shelf holding the buttons came from my Mother -in-law. It was a plate shelf she had in the attic. I painted it up and backed it with the blue gingham fabric. I think it is such a cute background! The white storage unit came from Target and I put it together and backed some of the cubbies with pink paper with white polka dots. Love it!
I got this storage cabinet from Target too. The ribbon holder above came from Michaels and so did the tool organizer on the top. I use this cabinet for storage for my cricut and other handy tools! Like my binding machine. Soon, my Letterpress set will go here as well. I got one for Christmas - but it is backordered until the end of January...patience!!
This is my desk. I got the desk on clearance from a kids furniture store. I think I paid $25 for it! The board on the back I covered with ribbon and it dressed it up just enough.


This unit holds all of my clear stamps and other non SU stamps that needed a home. It is full - so I may need another one in the future - Did I mention that I am going to Michaels today???

Craft Room Makeover - the before pictures

**WARNING** This post could scare you!!! These are the awful messy before pictures of my girl/craft room/mommy space.



Scared yet?? I didn't even get the full affect of how much stuff I really have. Oh, and yeah! I have a 60% off coupon for Michaels - and yes, I am going today!!

Sick day crafts

I guess there is something to be said about being home with a sick kid, I got some crafting done! Cody is now old enough not to want to sit on my lap all day when he doesn't feel good. As a matter of fact, he just took over the recliner and watched t.v. all day - in between his naps, that is! Ok...on to the good stuff.

This was the first project of the day. I bought these frames at either Michaels or Joanne months ago. They came in a 4 pack and I think I maybe paid $4 for them. I dug into my massive button supply and just started gluing. I needed a perfect frame for the picture my 8year old drew for me. In the picture, he is wearing a shirt with an arrow pointing to me that says "I love her." I have a shirt with an arrow pointing to him saying "I love him." He also added a picture of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo bear. So cute!!

When I finished that, I was so proud of myself I decided to try something else...

Here are the "ingredients" I used a small jar from some Classico Pesto sauce and some scraps of fabric, foam and batting to get the project under way - oh, and of course the very important hot glue gun!!



I cut out some circles of foam and glued them to the lid of the jar. Next, I cut a circle of batting and started gluing the batting on top of the foam - pulling a little tightly to make it "pouf."

After that, I glued the circle of pink fabric to the batting, trimmed it all pretty and tied it up with some striped grosgrain ribbon. What do you think about my productive day???

Happy New Year!

The holidays are over and it is time once again to start fresh! Will I be a better blogger? Will I post more than 5 times this year? That all remains to be seen.

Jon (my 8yr old) asked what my new years resolution is...I took some time and really thought about it and decided that it would be to finish some of the gazillion projects I found lying around in my craft stuff.

I have moved into a new crafting space and haven't even begun to make heads or tails out of all of my "Junk." Right now it is just a HUGE mess. I will post a little later the before / after shots of the new space. The before is really a little scary. Who knew I had that much stuff???

I have this picture posted...doesn't he make you happy?? He does me.

For a friend...

It is always hard when your friends move away. When I was growing up, my dad was in the Navy and it was usually me who was moving. We lived in 7 different places before I was in 7th grade! I always had numerous pen pals and I guess that is where my fascination with stationary and cards began. Last month one of my best friends from college left the great state of Virginia for new opportunities in the also great state (not as great as Virginia, but who is??) of Ohio. I have made the card to send her along with a little box of goodies.

I also got lucky enough to have a business trip in Dayton, OH last week. Do you know how thrilled I was to learn that Dayton and Columbus are only and hour away?? Well, that sealed the travel deal for me and I pulled off the BIGGEST surprise by showing up on her doorstep. Her husband was in on the plan with me - but she had no idea. I loved it and got to spend almost 24 hours with them.

Here is the card I am sending:

I used a Stampin up! set (Branch Out) for the tree, bird & swing. The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink's set (Boards & Beams).

I used SU! Read red, chocolate chip, black, and various shades of green for the colors. The button is also from Papertrey Ink's vintage

button collection.

My favorite part of the card is definitely the "rope" I used for the swing! I decided to try and use twine (also from Papertrey ink!) and using an embroidery needle was able to sew the twine on to look like rope! I really do like the way it turned out. What do you think?

Recycling at its craftiest!

I have to say, most crafters out there are natural recyclers! We save everything, always with the notion that one day I know I am going to use that again. Well, I also have 2 sons and boy do they grow out of clothes SO FAST. Everytime I am bagging things up to send out to Goodwill, I think - gosh this is nice stuff, how can I use this??

I finally found another way to recycle old jeans. I posted pictures of the jeans purse I made awhile back - here now is the Ohh la la Denim French Memo Board

SO, do you have any creative ideas on how to recycle your kids old clothes into beautiful craft projects??

Latest Creation

Months have gone by and I haven't posted any of the stuff I have been doing. This is the latest. Jon has finally grown out of his size 5's (yes, he is almost 8). So, instead of sending them off to good will, I cut them up and made purses out of them! This is the first one I have completed. When I showed Todd, he said that it is probably the best thing I have made. Here are a couple more shots...

What do you think? Cute, huh? Well the kids are fighting and the dog needs to pee - I better head out!

February has gotten me into the total organization mood - all those great mags that come out in January must have done it!

I have to take pictures of my new crafting space. It is almost where I want it to be. Just a couple more cabinets and I am good! Both the boys rooms have been re-organized and really look great. I am starting to get the home office together and I will post photos of everything once I am done.

I recently uploaded several old pictures to my facebook page - here is a really great one -

this is me and my big brother - circa 1970??

Anwyay, I will be better about posting. More to come soon.

New Year - time to try new things

OK - it has only been what, 7 months since I have posted...I am going to try and be better about that. We will see. I have many new things I am going to be using/trying this year -

I got a Cricut for Christmas. I hope to make some fun new projects with that.
I got a mini stepper for Christmas. Let's hope I can make my muffin top dissapear.

So far this break (yeah I took 2 weeks off of work!!!) I made curtains for the den, a cute little purse (pictures to come) from my 7yr old's old jeans, and I addressed birthday cards for everyone all the way through May!

Has anyone else out there tried Tastebook.com? I am going to be trying to create my own cookbook from all the recipe cards and written pieces of paper rolling around in my cabinet. It's pretty easy and I hope the results are as cool as they look.

Lisa Banner

Ok, can you tell that I am a little bored! Of course I have SOOOOO much I should/could be doing - but hey, this is OJT, right? My friend Lisa owns a cute little boutique in Lynchburg, Virginia and just to play around I made this for her.

Watermark for photos

This is my first attempt at creating a watermark to put on my photos/cards before loading them to my blog. Simple, clean look. Photoshop takes a long time to figure out, but I am getting there! I am going to try this for some other things as well. Who knows!

Vacation 2008

This picture says it all! Head for the Ocean. Jonathan spelled it out in the sand and that is where you could find us for the whole week we were in Myrtle Beach. Once again, we had the best weather possible - it was in the 80s and sunny all week. No rain, no extreme heat, just absolutely beautiful.

The boys were trying to "capture" teeny tiny sand crabs here. They weren't fast enough - the crabs were very happy about that. They did get a little mad, however, and one of their bigger, stronger brothers paid Jonathan back with a nice bite on the bottom of his foot. He hightailed it out of the water pretty quickly!

Surfer Boy Jonathan. He didn't do as well on the waves this year as last - but he still had fun trying.

Cody, taking a break after several hours on the beach and in the pool. He much prefers the pool - but really he would take either!

Jonathan will do just about anything for a laugh!

Hey - I was on vacation with my family - this picture proves it. This is the only picture of me though.

We really had a great time and I look forward to going back again. Maybe next year we will be able to take Zeb! That would be a treat. Rotten dog!

Halloween Card

Wow, I am way ahead of the game for Halloween, if only in the card making realm of things. I love the idea of halloween and I buy tons of crap for halloween, but I never seem to get it out and decorate. What's up with that??? I have no idea what the kids will want to be for halloween this year. The "Deadskins" football players have been DONE! It was easy though and didn't really cost me anything. We have the jerseys all I needed was a little makeup and some colored hair spray!

They totally cracked me up - some of our neighbors wanted to withhold the candy though, not a slight on the precious Redskins! Funny thing is - Jonathan LOVES the redskins.

For the card -
Paper: (SU!) Black, Pumpkin Pie
Stamps (PTI) Birds of a Feather
Other: (SU!) Ribbon; (Making Memories) Chipboard Buttons "Halloween"

Boys have birthdays too!

You would never know that boys have birthdays in my world - it seems like all the cards I make are so girly! Whoda thunk that I have 2 boys - and NO girls. I have several boy birthdays coming up soon - like Cody who will be 11 this year! I don't think this card is too juvenile yet, almost, but not yet. We already gave him his birthday present - a new bat. They are sooo expensive. I had no idea! Anyway, he spent what seemed like hours picking out his new bat and his is as happy as a pig in you know what. The poor neighbors have been hearing him on the hit-a-way since he brought it home.
This isn't him with his new bat - but I thought I would add a shot of him at the All-Star tournament. He was literally inches away from a home run! He was so excited and almost forgot to run. Fortunately his feet kicked it in gear and he made it to second. Cody, dear heart, is not the speediest kid on the field...but we love him anyway! The next game he played the other team intentionally walked him. He was totally pissed, but we tried to explain that it was a compliment! The other team's coach came up and told him so after the game was over (we won!!)

Back to the card - heres the recipe:
Paper- (Cosmo Cricket Cogsmo) Cogs, Mr. Roboto, Bandwidth. The background paper was just something I found in my stash that matched the blue perfectly
Stamps - (SU!) So many scallops
Ink - (Brilliance) Graphite Black
Other - SU! Scallop Punch

How Patriotic

I know this card is a wee bit late for 4th of July - but hey, I wasn't home! (To be honest, I didn't make the card until after the 4th but so what, right?) We spent the day of the 4th at our friend's parents house down in Calabash. The sad thing is - we never see these friends and they live 20 minutes away. We had to drive 7 hours to spend time together! That is just plain ol' silliness. Anyway, we had a wonderful cookout with LOTS of great food and there were 8 kids running around so all in all we had a fun time. We heading back to Myrtle in time to catch the fireworks on the beach and let me tell you, if you have never spent the 4th of July in Myrtle Beach there is nothing quite like it. I swear, every direction you turned your head there were amazing fireworks going off. The best part was, we just had to walk across the street and plop our behinds on the sand! No traffic, no parking!

Recipe for this card:
Paper: (SU!) Brilliant Blue, Very Vanilla
Ink: (SU!) Brilliant Blue, Real Red, (Brilliance) Graphite Black, (Ranger) Distress Ink Walnut Stain
Ribbon: SU!
Stamps: (My Sentiments Exactly) Pledge; (Inkadinkado) Burst
Others: (SU!) Dimensionals

Weathered Birthday Card

This paper screamed at me when I saw it at our LSS - which by the way is going out of business. How sad for our town! I know so many people who shop there regularly. Now all we have is Michaels and AC Moore - and let's face it, their paper selection is rather stinky!

Recipe for this card -
Paper - (SU!) Black and Very Vanilla ; (Making Memories) 5th Avenue - double sided
Stamps - (SU!) Weathered ; (Anna Griffin) Sentiment
Ribbon - SU!
Decorative Brad - Anna Griffin "Hannah Collection"

New Blog Banner 2

Well, this is my 2nd attempt at a blog banner. I finally got a version (an old version) of photoshop loaded on my computer and I have been having fun doodling around. The frog is from on old children's book - I found the book on the guttenburg press site - it is from the 1800's but I can't remember the specifics. Bad Librarian, Bad Librarian.

I have some new cards to post - but I am trying to take make my pictures look better. Not quite there yet! This is the original illustration...

Yee Haw I am back in the saddle!

I don't know when or how - but my computer is no longer blocking blogger! Maybe I can start posting again. I need to get some vacation photos up and posted. We had such a great time at the beach - and low and behold we didn't have to visit the emergency room once. I think that is a record for our family. To be fair, it was close! I actually had a palm frond (you know the sharp pointy kind) go directly into my ear canal while we were playing miniature golf. I thought I was going to cry right there it hurt so bad. But, I sucked it up and I don't think it actually punctured my ear drum - but I have tried to keep water out - just in case!

The boys had fun and I actually got a little bit of a tan - so all in all successful! We ended up leaving a day early though. Todd missed his dog SO bad. Hearing the he bit Melanie and she had to get stitches didn't help any. That visit from animal control was brutal! Fortunately everyone has recovered and Melanie still loves Zeb. Rotten Dog!

I have been decorating the powder room in the house - so I will post pics of that as well. I wanted the room to be a soft robin's egg blue and I was going to do trendy chocolate brown accents - but, it didn't work out so well. The paint color ended up being purple! So, I have had to go in a whole new direction. Once I get the shelves and artwork up I will take some photos! I also bought fabric for making curtains for the dining room. Busy, busy, busy! Too bad I have this day job that takes up all of my time!

Mojo Monday Week 41 Challenge

This card was created for my friend Sherry, who just had her 2nd baby girl!

Paper - SU! Vanilla and Close to Cocoa.

I have no idea where I got the pink paper - just in my stash! The patterned paper is by K&Co. "Hopscotch Girl Ballet Toss."

Stamps - SU! Soft and Sweet (retired, I believe)

Embellishments - pink brads with crystal stickles and American Crafts Ribbon.

Sketch to Try

This is my very first sketch "challenge." It really was fun - especially since I had a need for a graduation card!

Paper -: SU! Black, Whisper white and a silver metallic that I got from Michael's

Patterned Paper - Stemma "After Graduation"

Stamps - I got the graduate stamp from the dollar bin at A.C. Moore and the corner stamp is from the Verve Visual Filigree Fantasy

The ribbon is an AC Moore ribbon.

I made this card for my graduate - Cody - he graduated from the 5th grade today. Boy was I a proud Momma! I thought I would showcase him here in all his cheesiness!!! Happy graduation baby boy.

Summertime color challenge - a wee bit late

Here is my interpretation of the Verve Visual "Summertime and the living is easy" color challenge. Entries were supposed to be posted by the 31st of May. Oops, I didn't quite make it.

I have never entered any challenge before and I was SO nervous about posting my work. But I really liked how my card turned out, so I thought - what the heck. I will link to the contest anyway.

Here are the deets:

Stamps (from A.C. Moore - Inkadinkadoo)

Paper - SU! Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White & Certainly Celery

Ink for Cones - pumpkin pie

Ink for ice cream and words - regal rose, so saffron, certainly celery, & Bashful blue (I didn't own any sky blue, so I guess I didn't follow all the rules!)

Extras - stickles for the sprinkles, big brads by Queen & Co., and sweet petite ribbon from AC Moore.

Next time I will do my best to get my post in on time!