When the kids started going back to school in September, I looked around my craft room and realized SOMETHING had to be done. I didn't like the way the room flowed for me, i.e. my Cricut was on one end of the room and my computer with the design studio on it was on the other. And as you can tell by the following pictures, it was in rough shape. I had gotten back from Memories Manor and just left everything, there was my birthday, Laura's birthday, back to school preparation etc. And well......things had been piling up for awhile. It got to the point, I didn't even want to be in there and my creativity was stalled big time. And last winter/spring we had a couple of mice in the house and for some reason they liked my room, I cleaned up after them, but with all that stuff in the room, what else was I missing. And besides, I think Dave might have been ready to call Hoarders on me.
Oh look, in the picture below, you can see one of the projects I completed at Memories Manor, my Bo Bunny Yule card holder. The only place to put it was on the door.
This is supposedly my computer desk, but it got to the point there was no room for my laptop. Not good.
My armoire had a shelf come crashing down because the weight of the paper caused one of the support brackets to snap. Whoopsy. So the paper was put in a corner on the floor by the computer desk.
There isn't room on my cutting table to cut much of anything. Ugh.
A week or so after school started I began the big job of clearing EVERYTHING out of my room, except for the furniture. During the clearing everything out process I realized I am much more than a paper whore, I am a ribbon whore, an adhesive whore, a die cut whore, a bling whore. But the bling, how can you say no to bling, all sparkly shiny. Bling completes any page or card.
At the beginning of the process I had only cleared out one quarter of the room, and Laura came down to the basement and saw what I had cleared out and put in the family room and hall. She said, "Wow Mom, you have a lot of stuff!!! Look at it all". I then told her I had just started and that there was much much more to come out of my room. She looked in and all she said was "oh" and walked away. I think it kind of scared her.
As I emptied the room, I sorted and purged and purged and purged. I filled up two black garbage bags of garbage, and a couple of blue boxes were filled, and I have a stack of stuff that is going to be give away or sold at The Scrapping Turtle's yard sale. I was fast becoming a collector and not a user of my scrappy supplies. The room was getting to be a mess, so I didn't create as much as I liked, yet I would still buy more supplies, but was fast running out of room where to put them. Not a good combination.
In terms of the mice, not impressed. When the room was being emptied, and the furniture moved I found mouse "presents" ew ew ewwwwww!!!!!!!!! I went through 1 1/2 big bottles of Lysol cleaner washing the floor and baseboards and other surfaces three times each. Let's just say I am extremely grateful that Stampin Up packages their stamps in those nice plastic containers. I also found that the little critters decided the handles of one of my totes and my sticker binder would make excellent nesting material.
Hopefully we won't have anymore of the little critters move in this winter, because I will show no mercy this time. Dave wants to do the live traps and release them back in the wild, well they didn't work, so I resorted to leaving some poison bait in the back area of the fruit cellar which got rid of them. And after watching many episodes of Billy the Exterminator, the basic, snap on their necks and kill them instantly traps are the best way and the most humane. Besides, those critters carry disease and well, they have no bladder control at all, we will just leave it at that.
Now we can see my beautiful, clean and organized craft room. It feels so good to walk in now. Everything has a place now and the room flows so much better for me. Can you just hear the angels singing looking at these pictures?
My clean and organized armoire. Notice the cropper hoppers of paper on the bottom where they won't cause supports to snap and bring the shelf down.
Beside the armoire is my bookshelf, storing my sewing machine and different materials for sewing.
My cutting table now has room for cutting. The top shelf is where I have put some of my completed projects such as the Advent Calendar from hell (look at one of my previous posts for that story). I left my pegboard as is, because it was working for me. I cleared some stuff on the bottom shelf so I can show off my Cricut cartridges.. My Epic, Jukebox, Stamp Pad holder as well as trimmers all on the table which is put on bed risers so my back doesn't get sore working at the table. Under the table in the iris boxes is scrap paper sorted into color groups, totes for storing extra albums and pages as well as some more boxes of completed page layouts that need pictures and an album.
My computer desk is next to the table so I can plug into my Cricut while using my Design Studio. Ribbon on the shelf above along with Prima flowers and such in the container next to the ribbon.
The unit above the desk is something I stole from Dave's workbench, used to hold screws and such, now holds glitter, pains, perfect pearls and stickles.
Most of my card stock is now in these plastic shelves that I picked up from the Scrapping Turtle when they moved. Works much better for me than the cropper hoppers. Looks its a rainbow of color.
More patterned paper and a little bit of extra card stock that didn't fit on the shelves.
My ribbon holder that I picked up at Michael's for 50% of. Love it. Displayed a few of my wood mount stamps on top.
My bookshelf where I store photos, idea books, craft books, workbooks and my tarot cards. Unmounted stamps that didn't have a home are placed on laminated card stock and slipped in page protectors in the big white binder.
So there is my new room. I am soo happy with it. Now to get some projects finished.
