Wall Collage

I recently created this collage on our powder room wall...
I plan on jacking that 7Gypsies receipt holder up here soon, but otherwise, I love how it turned out! I planned it out on the living room floor, use kraft paper to "map" where everything went (no extra holes in the walls!), and voila!!

Enjoy your Thursday!

Owl Inspiration

You know I love me some Sweet Treats...

I made these bag headers with the Stampin' Up Bracket die, a few circle punches and a couple scallop circle punches. I free-handed the beak (diamond shape, folded in half) and then attached to to a bag full of this stuff...

I've posted about White Trash Mix before, but if you need the "recipe", you can find it here.

For more Sweet Treat ideas, be sure to check out my ebook here.

Enjoy your Wednesday!!

My Space

I should've titled my post "My Mess" because that's what it is right now. I had every intention of tidying up my room so I could share some current pictures with you, but time got away from me and right now it truly looks like a tornado swept through my room.

So, I will share some photos I took several years ago when we first made my scrap room. It looks pretty much the same, only I've accumulated more stuff. I've updated my paper carts and I've added a Clip-It-Up and a little cabinet that holds my Thickers. (Yes, I have that many Thickers that I needed a cabinet just for them!)

I'll start with an view of my room. My room used to be an unfinished part of the basement that stored all of our junk. We knocked out part of the wall, so that it could be open and I could talk to Farzad while I'm scrapping, and we finished the walls and floor.

I love my red walls. They're so energizing yet cozy. Poor Farzad. He was working for McDonald's at the time, and when he came home and saw the red walls with the yellow ceiling, he said, "I can't get away from McDonald's."

You can see that on the one side, I have my sewing machine. I'm so fortunate that I can keep it out in the open since I use it on almost all of my pages. That little green paper cart has since been replaced with a matching white one.

Speaking of paper carts, they are my favorite part of my scrap room. I got them from The Container Store, and they are so sturdy and hold SO much paper. The wheels on them are very smooth, and they roll out and back in easily. I have my paper in legal-size hanging files and I made labels on cardstock, which I laminated and stapled to the folder. Here's a close-up view. You can see these are old photos by the papers I had.

I like that my paper sticks out above the file folders because it makes it easy to rifle through the papers to find what I need. The paper doesn't get bent.

I now have six of these carts. I file my papers alphabetically by manufacturer. I have one cart dedicated to BasicGrey papers and another cart for my monthly kits. The rest are for the other manufacturers. A new addition to my system is that I have a page protector to the front of each folder where I store all the scraps. That makes it so easy to find particular scraps of paper.

I store my cardstock in ROYGBIV order in this letter sorter I got at Staples. Since I scrap 8 x 8, most of my cardstock is 8.5 x 11. When I get 12 x 12 paper, I cut it down to 8.5 x 11 so it fits in this sorter. It's sitting on a square piece of countertop because Farzad didn't quite know how to miter together two countertops. (Some day, in my dreams, I'll have a fancy house with a professionally built scrap room.)

I store my cardstock scraps in file folders, by color, in a little rolling thingy that hides under my workspace. It's easy to grab what I need.

Here's another favorite part of my scrap room--my stackable drawer chests from The Container Store. When I started buying them, they only came in this icky brown, but I love how they help me to keep my embellishments organized. They now come in a pretty white, and I have some of those in another spot.

I added labels to the drawers, and I store my small and "lumpy" embellishments by type, in alphabetical order. The drawers are really lightweight and easy to pull out to find what I need. They're surprisingly roomy. Not too deep so that you'd have to pull everything out to find anything but nice and long to accommodate lots of stuff. Here's a close-up shot of the contents of one of the drawers (again, old stuff because my pics are several years old). I have a lot of stuff in there, with lots more room at add more.

My flat packages of embellishments are stored in drawer units that match the paper carts. I have four of these, and they hold the countertops. Also, the paper carts each have two drawers at the bottom. Here's a picture that shows them with the drawers open. These drawers are very roomy and very long and not too deep. They easily slide out and I can put them on my lap and dig through them to find what I need (ignore the old stuff).

I don't have pictures, but I store lots of other stuff in the drawers. I have a couple of drawers to hold punches, one that holds sewing stuff, all my Heidi Swapp chipboard letters (I have a ton of that), some hold tools, a drawer for adhesives, another for embossing powers, mists, flocking powder, glitter, etc., another for stamping supplies, like ink and acrylic blocks.

I store my flowers by color in these drawers. I used to have them all thrown in together by color, but this summer I spent a day organizing them with similar types in plastic bags, so now I can find what I need:

I use some of the drawers to hold my rubber-mounted stamps. Most of my acrylic stamps are in CD jewel cases in this little shelf that I got at Michael's for $1.00 (I think they made a mistake). I have a few baskets with other stamps that I've kept in their packaging. 

You can see I have a basket that holds smaller pads of paper. I have a few baskets like that around my room.

My ribbons are in big glass jars, stored by color, and I think they look so pretty sitting on that shelf.

I bought spice racks to hold my paint. Yeah, I know, it looks like I don't use my paint, but I really do. They were pretty much brand-new when I got that rack. Don't you love the way ROYGBIV looks like a rainbow--and such a great way to organize everything. Makes it so easy to find just what you need!

The door on the right leads to the washing machine, fuse box, and water heater.

Here's a shot of where I work on my layouts. Ha-ha! It NEVER looks like that. I usually have about a 9 x 9 inch space clear to work on my 8 x 8 pages. I have a BasicGrey magnetic mat now, but there's not even enough space for that to be clear!

I now have one of those little turn-around thingys to hold all my pens and tools. I love those little stackable screw-together plastic containers to hold all my ittty-bitty things like brads and eyelets. For my buttons, I've gone through many systems, but I finally settled on Ziploc baggies, organized by color. Not pretty, but easy to stick my hand in there and find what I want. I love my OTT-Light which is screwed onto my counter. Oh, and I love my comfy office chair that has wheels so I can roll back and forth to my paper carts and my sewing machine.

Okay, I caved and took a couple of updated pictures. Here's one of the drawers with my Thickers. I have three drawers full, stored ROGBIV.

The rest of my letter stickers are in a basket that I got at Home Goods. It's big enough to hold legal sized file folders, and I have my letters sorted by color. I cut my BasicGrey letter sheets in half so I could sort them in the proper color folders. I used to have them stored with the collections, but I'd always forget to use them.

Here's one last look at my room. You can picture me sitting here in that chair. This photo shows how the wall is open. On the other side of the room is the family room, where we spend most of our time. I can see the TV from my chair. And my computer, which I use ALL the time for my scrapping is right on the other side of the wall, so I can run back and forth. And I can listen to my i-Tunes from my computer when Farzad's not home watching TV.

Okay, I lied. Here's one more picture--the way my scrap room really looks on a regular basis. This was taken a few years ago when Two Peas was having their CHA in Spirit Day and one of the challenges was to take a picture of your messy scrap room. I can't believe I'm showing this in public, LOL. Me in my muu-muu, no makeup, in all my glorious mess.

Worth a Shot...

I risked my life to take this picture of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. because I stood in the middle of the street to get it. And it was such a rush...
This one was taken from the street, too. But from the safety of the passenger seat!

Today, I challenge you to find a street you love--one that inspires you or one where you live--whatever the street--stand in the middle of it and take a picture. Don't risk your life or anything (be careful, of course--and possibly have someone be a "look-out" for you), but take a shot at it. I promise to do the same and post the results a bit later today. Feel free to link yours up, too!

Enjoy your Monday...

Inspirational Cards

I took this picture last week and added a bit to it for fun. If you right click on the photo above and save it as a jpeg, you can print it out to make lovely inspirational cards. Enjoy!

My Scrap Room

Today I am going to take you on a little tour of my scrap room. My room is not fancy - in fact, it's part of the laundry room. There isn't any pretty lighting, custom cabinets or beautifully painted drywall. It is however, my favorite room in the house! What it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in functionality. I am constantly rearranging, reorganizing and expanding it's size. My mom jokes that eventually I will take over the entire basement.

My room has lots of shelving that I have acquired from family or friends. This shelf at the start of the room holds all my punches, dies, vinyl rolls and other misc. items. I use baskets to hold everything.

Keep your eye out for store fixtures that are being discarded. This display was for greeting cards, it now holds all my dies and embossing folders.

As we move back into the room we get to my bulletin board, paint display and sewing machine. Having it ready and threaded means I will use it!

Paper - I love it, I hoard it and I love to see it. One can never have enough. :)

Now we come to corner of the room that is jammed with everything. I like to keep as much out in open view so that I remember to use it.

I keep my new "favorite things" in open Romanoff bins so that I can grab when ready.

I do keep buttons, charms and little stuff in plastic bins to keep them organized. I can grab the bin off the shelf whenever I need it.

I use an old cassette tape holder for my ink pads.

I saved this cabinet from going to Goodwill! It now holds books, mini albums and other altered items.

Stamps are tucked back into the corner...probably why they don't get used near enough.

I take most of my ribbons off of the cards and iron them - I hate the little kinks in them. (OCD!) After ironing, I put the end of the ribbon onto an extra large safety pin according to color. Each color has it's own pin and each pin hangs onto a hook. When I need a red ribbon, I simply grab the pin off of the hook, find what type I need and then trim a piece off of the bottom. It works really, really well. Got this idea from my friend Jen Gibel.

Remember when I said to watch for discarded retail displays? I got this tiered shelf from Holcombs for $5 when they closed last year. It is perfect for displaying stickers and embellishments.

Magazine Rack garbage picked from GNC.

Yes. I own two Clip it Ups. But it's only because my pal Shelly is in love with her new baby and thought downsizing her scrap room was a good idea. Booooooo.

I love my desk because it was my grandmother's desk. She worked at the Auto Club for many, many years. When she retired, they gave it to her. When she passed away last year, I was lucky enough to get it.

I have lots of different ways of storing items, mainly ones that were free or given to me.

The left side of my room is my technology area (and the washer/dryer). I have a large format scanner, PC, Cricut and a Wishblade. The only thing missing is a large format printer. (on my Christmas list last year, I am buying it for myself this year!) Having my computer and tools right in my scrap area has greatly increased my use of the digital cutters. I still do most of my graphic design work upstairs and use this older PC mainly for cutting and scanning.

Another treasure from my Grandmother. This Underwood is from about 1920 and still works. The best part about this rare find? It was used for legal documents and can accept 12x12 paper!

Thanks for stopping by my space today. I hope this helps everyone to see that a scrap room is what you make of it! Someday I hope to have a "finished" room but in the mean time - this one will do just fine.