Organizing - a Diva's guide to Home Improvements! *wink*

Hiya Crafters!

Do you ever wonder how your fellow crafters end up with such wonderful crafting spaces?  All neat and organized with a nook or cranny for every little thing and when they put them up on their blog you think of your own pile of mahem and just wonder how on earth it could ever look as neat and tidy as the pictures on their blogs?  Well, I have been wishing and wondering the same thing for a good long time and finally did something about it!  After a trip to Ikea to pick up less than $50.00 worth of supplies to help me "get organized"... I already had a couple of floating shelves from them already that had been sitting in the corner of my dinning room since we moved into this place.


When I told my Mom about my idea, she suggested that I move my craft zone out of my dinning room up into our spare bedroom upstairs, however, since I have open houses and stamp togethers with customers and friends more often then family dinners in my dinning room, I am sticking with my plan and I hope that after she sees how great it looks, will forgive me at the next family dinner! (love you Mom!)

Have a look at what I am starting with ... please note that I did make some effort to try and put my stuff into some kind of order on the dinning room table before I got started and yes, I did "clean up" all the left over odds and ends from various other projects that had been on the go prior to this shot ... so trust me when I say that it looks a whole lot better then it did *giggle*



I think you can see some of the items that I purchased from Ikea on the end of the table.  Here is a better shot of those "supplies"... 4 rods, 1 long low basket (already filled with ribbon!), 2 taller baskets, some S hooks and a package of 5 magazine holders.  I also have Hubby's drill with bits and a package of screws and anchors (which came with the drill bit I needed - totally handy and I recommend that you buy them as a kit as it's much easier to figure out which bit you need if it comes with the anchors in the first place!! I bet a woman came up with that one! *laugh*). 


All the dinning room chairs have been moved into the hallway to make it a little easier to maneuver around without bumping into them all the time.   Then I dragged out my craft caddies (those 2 white sets of drawers on either side of my hutch).  And the plan is to move the hutch against one side of the wall to free up more space on the other side.  Here it is all cleaned out but when I tried to move it, it wouldn't budge!  Darn, am I going to have to wait until Hubby gets home from work before I can continue this project?? If I do, then he will want to "help" and I want to do this on my own *pout*.  Oh, I know, how about I clean out everything in the top of the hutch, all that glass has got to be heavy, right?!! Presto, and change-O, moved with very little effort after it was emptied from the middle up!

*happy dance with Bosco (the dog) for 15 minutes before continuing* He didn't know what to do with himself with all the discombobulations going on so I put him in the back yard for a spell to keep him out from under foot (which is really ontop of foot as he's nearly as big as I am! *laugh*

Ok, so after emptying the top part of the hutch and shoving it over as far as it would go, I checked to see if my floating shelf would fit in the remaining space *fingers crossed*

Unfortunately, with the maneuvers I had to do to get the first one up by myself, I just could not take pictures at the same time! *laugh*  So, you'll just have to take my word for it, I sat in a chair and held the support bar for the shelf up against the wall with both feet and drilled all the holes as quick as a button with the drill!  I'm sure that handyman everywhere are having strokes thinking about me doing that but it worked and the shelf was level when I was done! *laugh* 

See!! It worked.  My tools are not rolling around in any direction!  They are sitting right where I put them.  The next step is to measure the amount of space I will need over the shelf for my first rod.  So, with 1 magazine box and the larger of the 2 baskets in place, it should take about ... THIS much space!  Oh, this is so exciting, it's coming together and I just can't wait for the finished product!  Hmmmm, maybe I should have bought 2 baskets for ribbon?

Anyway ... you must be wondering by now, what I'm doing with that shoe on my shelf? Well the long story is, we're in the process of ripping up the basement and I just couldn't find my handy dandy hammer that is usually in my junk drawer in the kitchen.  In a pinch, a nice sturdy heel works great as a hammer to tap those pesky little plastic anchors into the holes!

Ok, so maybe I did it more for a laugh then anything but come on, it was pretty funny!  I love that "woman's tool kit" joke that is a butter knife and a high heel shoe!  *giggle* Ok, onward and upward we go.  I installed the 4 rods and then reached the limits of my reach (I knew I could not pull the same maneuver I had earlier to install the top shelf, so I would have to wait until Hubby gets home for that one, bless him and his 6'6" stature!)

And as it happens, that is about when he called me to come pick him up from work.  I can't tell you how excited I got from my adventures in organizing today!  Now, you will see the proper handyman way of installing a shelf using all the proper tools including a real hammer! *laugh*

And that's it! I spent the rest of the evening going through my drawers to re-organized the contents, packing away the retired items to another location and moving things that I don't use everyday up to the top shelf out of the way!  Oh, and I put all the stuff back in the hutch too.  Maybe this isn't how you want your dinning room to look but for me, it's a little slice of heaven!

I'd love to hear your comments, tips or suggestions too so please feel free to drop me a note!  And I think any of the above little tips could be put to good use in any small space you have for your crafting!  If you can't spread out, then go UP!!

Good Luck in your re-organizing efforts - hope you have as much fun as I did!

Until next time ...

e

Deck the halls ...

While going through my emails, getting caught up with what's been happening with my fellow SU Demos, someone had these cute little ornaments posted on their blog.  They had a link to another site with instructions on how to make them (I am very sorry but I can't find either page now- if you know, please let me know so I can update my blog with their information!)  The idea, stuck with me and I just had to give it a try.

This neat little paper pine cone ornaments was made with a scrap of last year's Designer Series paper cut into 2"x1" strips that are folded into triangles (outer points folded down into the center then flipped over, point down) and pinned into a styrofoam ball.

Start at the bottom with 4 triangles then work your way up (I used 5 after the first 4 triangle which made a pretty pattern alternating the 2 sides of the paper to create the patter you see.   You will also need to lay your 2 open ends of ribbon over the top half of the ball as you pin towards the top.  The paper and pins holds the ribbon secure. 

On the site that I saw, they used flathead pins to secure the triangles in place but I didn't have any when I decided to give it a try so I used a bunch of fancy pins (in multi colours the first time, then swapped them out for all red ones for these photos.)  I kinda liked the dimention the pins added to the over all look - what do you think?

I bought the styrofoam balls, 8 for a $1.00 at the dollar store and the red fancy pins 100/pkg for $3.50 at Walmart.  I plan to try more of these with the various scraps of DS paper that I have left over from other projects, I can't wait to add them to my tree this year or gift them to friends and family!

Hope you give it  a try and email me with a picture of what yours looks like!

More to come ....

You answered the call ...

I just wanted to say a nice big THANK YOU to all the crafting ANGELS that answered the call and placed an order with me last week. You did it and I am still active!

With renewed inspiration for my business I have a few projects in mind for you to keep your eye out for! The first one, which I am currently working on and will be posting soon is all about how I am trying to organize my crafting zone! I will take pictures of the items I bought and then before, during and after shots of getting organized.

I don't know about you, but I love seeing the shots of other people's crafting areas but they are always so neat and tidy (for the pictures) that I just can't imagine that they are used!! *giggle* So, I plan to show you the steps that I am going to take and the tips that I've picked up to help get organized. Maybe it will help you in your crafting rooms too?

Christmas cards, tags and gift card holder cards are all on the way too! So if you aren't already linked to my blog, enter your email address in the little window on the right and get an email when these posts go up so you don't miss anything!

Again, a special thank you to all the crafters that placed orders last week!! I am looking forward to seeing you guys on delivery day for our stamp together!!

Hugs,

Erin