My very own spot

I love my hubs.  Seriously - he's the best out there.  And here's why.  We were cleaning up our wreck of a house this weekend and he tells me to sit down.  This never means anything good (well, actually it does but in a round about way).  I automatically know that this means he wants to rearrange furniture (AGAIN!) and I just don't know that I'm up for all that.  Turns out - he's REALLY tired of all my sewing stuff being in the dining room and would like to bring in our very old desk from the shed, move some shelving, and put me in the 'office' permanently.  He didn't have to get to the end of his proposition before I was saying yes.

I know he probably doesn't believe me but I didn't like having all my mess out in the middle of the house anymore than he did.  And on the plus side, this meant we were going to have to deal with the disaster situation of all the shelving in the back.

Not a whole lot to say about this process, except that there were several trash bags involved and a run to the attic.

One of many disaster before looks....embarassing

My sewing spot!!

It's definitely not wonderful yet. As you can see I'm still in the middle of painting the ugly trim white, the "desk" needs a new paint job, window treatments need to be hung (and made..I do have one done...), and then fun things on the wall.  But I am so excited to have MY VERY OWN SPOT I couldn't wait to show!!

For the Moms and beyond

For Christmas we asked for formula. All you moms out there understand I am sure. The cost of formula is crippling our budget and since we don't "need" anything, Sam thought it would be wonderful if we were to receive months of supply. Our family rocks - we got almost 2 months of formula as gifts!!

and so it begins...

Some of the formula came in the form of cans, and not the plastic bins, and I just knew there had to be something I could do with them. An upcycle - is that the word everyone is using for this? - of sorts. Unfortunately I didn't inform Sam of my need to hold on to these cans soon enough and so some were lost. But I did manage to hold on to two of them. Enter my project.

don't judge the state of our ironing board...we're going to buy a new cover SOON! ;)

I already redid my "craft closet" by making a "craft dresser", but some of my supplies could be better contained. My first idea was to use scrapbook paper but the circumference of the cans was larger than 12" and I didn't want four seams. Second idea was to use - fabric -my favorite!! I have tons and had some scraps that would be perfect and I wouldn't have to cut into any large pieces of my favorites.

the home stretch...

I figured out the height and then just cut to the end of the piece knowing it would be too long but long is better than short! I pressed the hems on both and then plugged in the hot glue gun. Couple dots to get started and then started wrapping, dotting glue as I went along on top & bottom. Folded over the edge when I got back to the beginning, bead of glue to hold in place, and voila. New and improved container for paint brushes, scissors, glue sticks, tape, & sharpie pens. I really wish I had one more, might have to abandon the Sam's Club formula bin for one more can of Similac just once... I don't think Sam would approve though...we'll see.

one down, one to go

Anyhow - now if I could just find the time to repaint the dresser and the money for some shelves above the dresser and my little craft station will be in serious business! And it fulfills my need for all things fabric & sewing, since I'm supposed to be studying for two exams this week, without breaking out the sewing machine!

so much more fun than stuffed in a drawer.

Everything in its place

At Forest, aka the dream house with an amazing amount of closet space, I had an entire closet devoted to all things crafty, party, and decorative. When we moved to this house - we have one extra closet, in the hall, and it's tiny and not near adequate for what we needed it to hold. And try as I might I was never able to keep all things sewing and crafty in order on the one shelf I had. Nevermind that I also needed to keep extra linens, vacuum cleaner, etc in this closet as well. It was a disaster and it frustrated me and irritated Sam. I could never find what I needed, so I would end up buying duplicates, and that's just no good.

Enter my childhood dresser. Poor thing has been moved I don't know how many times and Bella, our "little" brown dog used it for teething. Several houses ago we decided to paint it red, who knows why, and now it needs to be painted something a little less HI HOW ARE YOU!! but until then it has become my organization for all things fun. And it's in the back of the house, next to the computer, and is in no one's way - except for the maybe the attic hatch...

I am totally a person who likes everything to have a place and everything to be IN that place (though I can never find my keys so I fall short often) - so this makes me crazy happy to have tackled this when I should've been doing other things. I now know exactly where my paints, papers, ribbons, cards, bags, boxes, hot glue, everything is. And this made it SO easy to wrap a baby gift for a friend this weekend. I kinda wished I had more things to wrap I was so excited!

In my master plan - I also have one of those awesome hanging organizers for ribbon and the like - but I've got to convince Sam to build me one. "add it to the list"

This one by Centsational Girl