Reorganized Craft Room

It has been a crazy couple of months with travel and other stuff!  I finally decided that I was frustrated enough with how my craft room wasn't working that it was time to do something about it.  Along the way, I have gotten some of the Recollections cubes from Michaels. I had some old small bookcases that I just stacked stuff on and was constantly digging through piles.

I also had lots of little organizing containers that were taking over my workspace and it was out of control!  I went back to Michaels and got more cubes and replaced the bookshelves.  I had lots of help yesterday putting together all the pieces parts and finished putting everything away this morning.

I'm hoping this new way to organize will allow me to work more efficiently and not make such a huge mess as I work.  Fingers crossed!!

I took over my son's room a few years ago.  This is where I have my stamping stuff.  I have all my ink pads, both on top and in a drawer, embellishments, ribbons, idea books, etc., etc.

This is an upcycled DC/DVD holder that houses my stamps and punches.  I spent quite a bit of time unmounting all my wood stamps and putting them into CD/DVD cases.  I was able to reduce the space of the wood mounts substantially!  On the bottom right is a box of cards nearly ready to go off to Operation Write Home!  Most all of the cards that I make go to this fabulous organization that sends handmade cards to deployed heros so that they can send them home to family and friends!

This is my work area.  I used 2 pieces of MDF and painted them white.  They are supported on each end (both sides) with a 2-drawer file cabinet and Closet Maid wire drawers on the other end.  All my 8.5 x 11 cardstock is in the file cabinets and often used items in the wire drawers.  At the end I hung a covered bulletin board to put cards for display.  The right side is where I do my stamping and the left side is for scrapbooking.

The other side of the room houses my scrapbook stuff and online class books.  On the top is my Cricut and on the Clip-It I have my Cricut cartridges hung in plastic envelopes.  It is pretty full - gonna have to sort through and take out the ones I don't use much to make room. Hanging on the wall to the right are magnetic trays and canisters that hold lots more embellishments.  One of these days I might use them all - ha!

The top row of notebooks are all the PDF's from the Online Card Classes that I have taken.  The bottom is all the 12 x 12 cardstock.

The 2 drawers at the top of the right section holds all my embossing folders and dies.  The bottom row holds my ongoing scrapbooks so that I can add pages as they are finished. A few years ago I started using "The Big Picture" approach to  scrapping as presented by Stacy Julian in her book "photo freedom".  I have found it very liberating. When I was scrapping chronologically, I always felt behind and didn't think I would ever catch up.  This approach has allowed me to scrap what I want when I want and it works!

The other corner houses my computer/printer/scanner and my light box for photos.  I also use the closet with old, tall bookcases and existing shelves for lots of storage of other stuff.

Hope you have enjoyed the tour!  I am really excited to see how well it works for me!

Sheila

For The Kids

I used my Cricut to make images for cards for the kids of deployed heros.  I am still struggling to come up with sentiments for these images and cards.  These were cut using the Dreams Come True and Sesame Street Friends.

Baby Card

I found this little bunny on the Create a Critter Cricut Cartridge and new it needed to be on a baby card!  So cute!

Cricut Card

I use my Cricut a lot for my scrapbooking and only recently have started using it more in my cardmaking for images beyond kids stuff. I'm going to have to explore my cartridges in a different way!

Operation Write Home Blog Skip

Welcome to the next stop on the OWH blog skip!  I am so excited to be participating with so many talented card makers!  You have arrived here from Sue's blog. If this is your first stop and you would like to start at the beginning, head to the Stars and Stamps blog.

The CAS class that I was most drawn to was the Tone on Tone class with the layered die cuts.  I used my Cricut with the Paper Lace cartridge to cut the large, intricate details, making the 6 under layers white and the top layer colored.  The circles were made with punches.

Then I decided to try it another way. This time I used tone on tone plain and patterned paper.  I used the Stampin' Up Beautiful Wings Embosslits.  I used the colored paper (checkerboard) for each layer of the butterflies (instead of the white as above).

I used the same patterned paper for the side strip as for the butterflies.  I chose a second pattern for the sentiment (on dimensionals), which is from the OWH/Hero Arts Year Round Sentiments.

Even though this technique is a bit time intensive, I love the look and results!  I hope you take the time to play around with it. 

Jennifer is giving away 3 spots in the class for prizes - 2 to commenters on blogs, and 1 to someone who links up a new mojo CAS card on S&S!!  Make sure you leave lots of love (and comments) on all the blogs for your chance to win! 

Thanks so much for stopping by and participating in the blog skip.  Now you are off to Lisa's blog for the next stop!

Sheila

Children's Cards

Today, I would like to share some cards made for OWH for kids!  I can't even begin to imagine how hard it would be to be away from your children during deployment, so I was thinking fun and bright!

These were all cut with a Cricut machine. Hopefully they gave some child a smile for a day!

Clean and Simple Card Class - Day Four

Working on black is something new and different for me. This is good for pushing me outside my normal habits!

Clean and Simple Card Class - Day Three

Here is my version of day three's CAS card.  I used the Paper Lace Cartridge (Cricut) and the sentiment is Hero Arts for Operation Write Home.  Day two's card is currently alluding me.....