I thought I'd post photos today of the scrapbook room I created earlier this month when my son and grandson moved out and I was able to reclaim a couple of rooms in the house. I'm really thrilled with how they turned out.

The tour begins with the walk-in closet to the left of the doorway.

Inside the left side of the closet are my stacks of 13x13 Art Bins that I've purchased from Joanns, at half price of course, over time. The Art Bins hold packs of new paper, pages in progress or pages that need journal entries, card making pages of 3D images, etc. I have a temporary box on the second shelf that hold my embossing plates in folders (not seen in this photo). I need to find a suitable box for them that the lid will actually fit, and give me more room...it's filled. The crate on the floor holds die cuts & stickers by special categories. Top shelf holds mainly empty boxes for some of my tools and a few porcelain or 16 inch fashion dolls I intend to make clothes for one of these days.


To the right side of the closet, are my boxes of ribbons and Cuddlebug. Next shelf down are my card and scrap magazines. Bottom shelf holds photo boxes of quilt shows before I got a digital camera and stopped printing all of them. The 10 drawer unit shown sideways holds extra supplies like glue, ribbons, silk flowers, etc. On top of it are two of my Xyron machines. I have the little X one that I keep under my work table in a carrier. The black tote holds some more paper that I took to a scrap day and haven't bothered to put away....that will go with me to NE next month to visit family. We are going to be making cards this trip. There are mirror sliding doors to hide the contents of the closet, which makes it nice to present a clean room.

On the south wall of the room, I have a recliner to watch TV, there is a turntable CD holder that I'm starting to add stamps to as I run out of room in the drawer units. The 10 drawer units to the left holds die cuts, embellishments, mounting for stamps & tools, glitter, beads and stencil paints. I need to rearrange some of these drawers because I emptied some of them in the re-organization. The second set of drawers holds stamps, stamp wheels, handmade stamps and foam stamps in the bottom drawer. I took all my wood stamps and put them on EZ Mount from Sunday International www.sundayint.com. It took several hundred dollars and about a month or more, but made them easier to store and takes up a lot less room. I now buy almost all acrylic stamps unless I find a sale on a wood stamp that I can't resist. On top of the bin is a craft storage unit I bought at AC Moore that has little plastic tubs and use for spray adhesives, paints and misc. items, it spins so you can get to all the bins. On the left of it, barely visible is the stamp pad holder I made from some drawer dividers and a old drawer from the garage. Beyond that is my paper stacker my son made me using the shelves out of the one I purchased and that fell apart every time it was bumped, forget about moving it on the casters. The bookcase next to it holds all my cutting mats on the side. On the shelves, notebooks holding photos to be scrapped, or 8x11 Scrapbooks in progress, books on card & scrapbooking, boxes of photos and two more boxes of stamps, some that need to be mounted on EZ Mount and others that are Close To My Heart acrylic stamps that come in their own plastic pouches. I have notebooks with actual punch outs glued to pages so I know the punches I have and die cuts, one that contains a photo or actual stamp of most of my stamps (I still need to do all the handmade ones) and a couple of the images on my Cricut cartridges. I also have my Creative Memories cutters and templates on these shelves.

Moving around the room, there is my Worktable in the center of the room. I do my page layouts there and make cards. I do try to keep the surface clean of items not necessary when I'm working, since it's a smaller table to make room for the end drawer units. On top it now is the project I was working on, making embossed tags to show what I have. Behind the table on the cart are my Cricut Expression and Baby Cricut. Baby Cricut is going home with my GD/adopted daughter & GGD in a couple of weeks, I don't use it now that I have the Expression and they can use it for a lot of things, since both of them are very crafty. I'm going to mount a hook on the side of the cart to hold my embossing gun so that it's handy. The 10 drawer unit beside the table holds my working tools and supplies. I have my Pearl EX, Perfect Pearls, plates for the Cuttlebug, punches, etc. in these drawers. Again, I need to shuffle around supplies because I emptied a few drawers.

The table against the wall holds my Wishblade to the far left, my laptop and my Pazzles. On the shelves above it are: Top shelf, re-inkers in the plaid fabric box, notebooks full of items for cards by category (birthday, get well, etc.) a box of completed cards that only need the inside finished (done as needed). Second shelf has my collection of Cricut Cartridges and a couple of mugs of brushes and pens. Third shelf has my markers, misters I made from re-inkers & Pearl EX, ink pads,6x6 card stacks, and chalk tins. They are resting on a piece of foam that a came with a computer part and I cut a half circle so they could be tilted out so I can see what I have. Under the table is my scrap paper that I try to use before cutting up another sheet, and my files of "time lines" to refer to when I make my albums. Once I finish all the albums, I'll be able to ditch all this paper. I may have to add another shelf if I add any other cartridges, which means I'll have to buy longer mounting strips than I did. The entire room only cost me an additional $20 for shelf hardware, since I had everything else scattered around the house and in closets.

This is the shot of the TV, 10 drawer unit with colored drawers that hold various supplies, the remainder of the purchased paper stacker that now holds 12x12 albums in progress (or empty). The purple squares are actually magnetic memo boards that now hold tins with various embellishments, flower soft, etc. I have one extra that I can put the tins I'm using on along with a magnetic bowl and transport to the work table.






These are the tags I made so that I could see what embossing plates I actually had. I hang it on that unit that holds the 12x12 albums and magnetic boards. I started out inking them, and finally went to chalking them. The person that gave me the idea uses black paper with a color core and then sands off the black to expose the pattern, but that's a little too expensive for me to do. I have two pads of that paper and it didn't have a lot of pages and was expensive. This method shows me what I have just fine for my purposes. When doing all my Fiskar plates, I glued the tag back to back so that I knew that plate had double sides. I was amazed at what I had when I was doing this exercise, most of these plates I had never used.



Finally, barely seen in the pictures is the ink pad holder I made for my various pads like the Distress pads. It's pretty full now and all the pads are now labeled on the side facing out. It will do until I can afford to buy the one I really want. This now sits on top of the two sets of 10 drawers next to the paper stacker.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of my Scrap room. I'm really enjoying it. I can sit and work on a couple pages at night while I watch TV, or just sit and read before going to bed. It's taken the TV out of my bedroom since I moved that one to the living room that I never use....most wasted room in any house in my opinion. I found that I get a lot more done now, since I can sew, clean or do yard work during the day and then stay up as long as I want in my Scrap room, but not miss any program I want to catch on TV.

Okay, summer hit with a vengeance this week, temps in the high 90's with humidity. I broke down and turned on the AC 2 days ago.

Yesterday, I took my new Bernina 830 back to the store for the 6th time, but this time it was to trade it for a new machine. She just would not work for two days straight or two projects in the same day without having issues, sometimes major ones. My dealer has been great in working on it, and after getting it repaired only 4 days earlier, told me to bring it in and he'd give me a new machine. I haven't had time to work with it yet, but maybe tomorrow. Today is full with the movies, lunch and then a Quilt Guild meeting tonight. I'm in the process of putting together a FSL Summer hat from Advanced Embroidery Designs....221,187 stitches by my calculations. It took about 6 1/2 hours to stitch out, 10+ of the big Bernina 830 bobbins of thread, and so far, 3 hours of hand stitching the pieces together...I figure it's going to take me at least another 60-90 minutes to finish. I'm going to be making some hat bands next to interchange and match my outfits for the cruise I signed up for the end of Nov.

Found the greatest blog site full of organizational ideas for my soon to be Scrapbook Studio... http://creationsbychristie.blogspot.com/ Check out her blog...I've used her methods so far to identify my embossing powders, Pearl Ex and glued magnets on the bottom of my Stickles. Next on my list are embossing tags & folders and folders for my Cricuit manuals and keypads.

My son and grandson will be moving to their own place by the end of the month after 2 full years of living here with me. I plan to make one of the bedrooms into a guest room and the other into my Scrapbook Studio. I have the room arrangement all plotted out in Inkscape to scale and only need to buy another table and maybe some shelves...although I might have some of them tucked into the closet. Can you tell I'm really getting excited!

Have a great day, and I'll try to post a little more often, I noticed that it's been a full 5-6 weeks since I posted anything at all...I said I was a poor blogger.

Liquid Sunshine

Guess I'll never be a daily blogger, just don't seem to make the time. It isn't that I don't have the time, being retired pretty much lets me call my own shots. I looked at all the things I wanted to do "when I moved to AZ" and wondered why I hadn't bothered to do any of them in the last 11 years when I had total control of my life. So, I bought perennials for the flower bed, don't understand why I didn't before, since I've wanted a bed full of flowers for the last 20 years. Just think, if I would have planted a couple every year, my entire hillside up to the front door would be covered by now. I started last month to go to lunch and the movies once a week with a friend and I probably should volunteer for something. Maybe if I get totally involved in some of these things, the house will sell and I won't have totally put my life on hold waiting for it to happen.

I am so glad that when I got back from the store Friday that I got all the plants in the ground. I'm also happy that my grandson saw me working and without being asked, went out and picked up the branches and weeds that I had in piles, took them to the burning pit and then mowed the lawn. Kudos to him! Yesterday, son & grandson went outside, again without me saying anything, and did the weed eating.....Yeah! I went out and pulled more weeds, cleaning up my flower beds. I still have a lot to do, but it started to rain before I came in, and off and on, it's still doing it today.

So, I should be downstairs sewing my GGD birthday dresses, or painting the wood chest I got her, but I just don't feel like it yet. Instead, I spent a couple hours working on a Banner for my Etsy shop, only to find out it's way too big to post. I turned it into a business card instead, that I'll try printing out, if I have any blanks around. I will either come up with something new for the banner, or leave it alone. I need to take photos of the glass and start posting them, if I hope to sell some of it. I know I'll be spending a good bit of time posting stuff until I get familiar with the page setup.



I have used this profile & hand to create at least five different files. I made a cutting file for the Pazzles, the banner I can't use for Etsy, a business card, a scrapbook page with WordArt, and a greeting card. They all vary slightly, this last one the most, since I took a photo from my yard and used the dandelion gone to seed instead of a graphic file.

This is the card I created from the file.


I have my "Lazy Man's Chicken Cacciatore" in the crock pot. Broiled the chicken breast long enough to brown on the electric grill, dumped in a bag of mixed peppers, a sliced onion, teaspoon of minced garlic, and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Later I'll make a tossed salad, cook some spaghetti and brown some french bread. Dinner done in less than half an hour total!

I've got 5 new books loaded on my Sansa Fuse for listening to when I'm working on the yard, sewing, cleaning house, fixing meals or doing flamework. I should be good until next week when the library will let me download another five books.

Hopefully, I'll post sooner than I did last time....we shall see.

It's been a long time since I posted...I've been busy with sewing birthday gifts and making cards. One of my new and favorite places is Mojo Monday's Blog. http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/ Look them up, a new sketch is posted on Mondays, and for me, that's a great thing. I'm challenged when it comes to card layouts. I used my new Pazzles Inspiration to cut some flower petals & leaves in various sizes, then using chalks colored the petals. The small flowers are punches with the centers some fuzz I cut off of Pom Poms in the attempt to duplicate Flower Soft.



Today, I embarked on an experiment that has consumed the better part of a day. I had to go track down some supplies at the local florist and the Thrift shop. I've been wanting to try "Flower Soft" for some time, but it isn't available anywhere around here. If I order it, the postage is as much if not more that the cost of the item...so I'm not willing to spring for that. I've been told by a number of people that you can make your own with styrofoam.

-I had some Florist Oasis foam in green in the house.
-Called and found out the Florist in town had some pink and was willing to sell me part of a brick.
-Stopped by the local Thrift Shop and found foam in two densities...the more standard Styrofoam and the more dense white foam.
-In the attic I had some compressed foam used for packing a scanner
-Last type of foam I tried was packing peanuts.

After cleaning up my kitchen with a vacuum cleaner, I'm here to tell you, if you do this, do it outside. Styrofoam rather dense, packing peanuts or the regular Styrofoam is so static that it clings to everything. The compressed foam works the best of those types, but still retains somewhat of a round shape to it.

The item that worked the best is Florist Oasis foam used in cut flower arrangements. After looking for it on the internet, I've found that it's available in about 6 colors other than the standard green, but you have to order 4 bricks in a package (of one color). I'm going to keep calling around florist and see if I can find some of the ivory and buy a brick of that. I used a food grater (fine) and a little piece makes a lot! I then experimented with mixing the pink and green with Ranger Alcohol Inks.





The first photo is the Condensed foam found formed to hold things like scanners colored with Wild Plum. On the second photo, Right to left - FF-pink, FF-regular green, FF Pink with Current, and FF pink with Wild Plum. The second branch of colors is FF Pink with Stream, Reg Styrofoam with Butterscotch & Gold, FF Pink with Butterscotch, and the last is the FF Green with Meadow. Yes, it's a fun thing to use on cards and I'll make more with the Florist Foam, especially when I can find a brick of the white. It gives me a way to use the Ranger Inks that I invested in and an excuse to buy some more of the colors I don't have.

That's it for today...I need to cut a bunch more leaves and flowers and other things to use for toppers. I'm out of sympathy, get well and birthday cards so need to shore up my inventory.

Sidetracked!

I declare that my nickname should be "Sidetracked"....why, because I do it so often! I was working on making the BOM for the quilt guild, I wanted to finish all of them by the next meeting April 7th. I'm hoping a lot of others will do them so that if someone wins them, then they will be able to make a full quilt out of them....sidetracked again. So, I'm digging through my scraps, since most of the blocks I chose for the year are scrappy, next thing 10 days have passed and I think I'm finished....wrong! I look up to the top of the book case and there are two more large popcorn tins stuffed full of scraps. Those are just going to have to wait until next week, I will finish these blocks first.

Since I devoted so much time to sorting scraps, I went looking for scrappy quilt patterns (another side-trip) and found this absolutely fantastic website called Quiltville. http://www.quiltville.com/

Bonnie Hunter is the owner/author of it and she has lots of free instructions for many scrappy quilts. I discovered that she and I share basically the same system for organizing scraps (good thing since it was in day 5 of sorting scraps or so that I found the site), I just added two more boxes to my stash labeled "Crumbs" & "Strings". I feel totally justified for not throwing out all those scraps, just wish I would have done it sooner. I now have a basket sitting on the shelf that I toss leftovers from my project and told myself that I would go through it at least once a month or more as I needed to sort it...no more buckets, cans or assorted ziplock bags full of scraps!



Yesterday, I finally finished the pillow shams made from the free pattern I got from "Design in Machine Embroidery" magazine donated by the HoopSisters. It is a "Turned Ribbon" and the quilting and piecing was done "in the hoop". They provided a second block intended for the back, but I decided to add some 3D organza based flowers from Jenny Haskins, "Gracious Impressions" and make a matching pillow sham. They really turned out nice and will make a lovely gift.















Well, today I'll continue working on the BOM for the guild. I think I have about 5 more to do. Once I finish them, I need to pull together the stuff I need for the April Program....me on "Machine Embroidery and Quilting", the pillow shams are part of it. I need to pull quilt tops, place mats and anything else I can find that I still own and haven't given away yet...which isn't a lot. I'm going to cover threads, needles and stabilizers as well.

What a beautiful day Saturday was. I spent the morning and afternoon with others for National Quilters Day. We sewed and shared a potluck lunch. When I got home, I got new numbers on the mailbox, then spent a few hours in the garden, raking and cleaning up. First signs of spring have appeared, the sun was shinning all day...what more could you want. I seem to always get more done on sunny days.

Next stop was church service, then a quick trip to Walmart to replace the Microwave that "blew up" while I was gone this afternoon. Tomorrow....or rather today, I'm going to finish sorting my fabric scraps which has turned into a week long process and work on backing up files on my desktop. It's been way too long since I've done it, and I really need to get it done before a disaster hits in the guise of a hard drive crash. Learned that lesson the hard way more than once...so why have I waited so long to do it? Guess because it's such a "pain in the tush". The bigger the hard drives, the more to back up.

I am so bad about keeping up with this.....what have I been doing the last 3 days???? Sorting scraps. No kidding I think they are multiplying like little bunnies overnight. Yesterday, I thought the end might be in sight, but found a large bucket and bag of scraps I didn't know about. I'm sorting them into strips (1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2, 3, 3 1/2, up to 6 1/2" wide) and then into piles of fabric to stick in with my FQ boxes. I found yardage in with my scraps....why I just cannot throw it away like my friends do, I can't tell you. Pieces too small to go in the strip boxes are being cut up into blocks. I know, it's like a illness...with no cure. With any luck, I might get done with them by Sunday. I hope!!!!

Just got through watching DIY Dish first episode and they made the cutest little layer cake pincushions....such a cute little gift item for friends for birthdays and Christmas....I'll have to get the bin of felt out and see what I can whip up. Love Heather Baileys Turtle pincushion, that looks like another must have pattern.

http://www.thediydish.com/feed/

While in Florida on vacation, I bought the cutest thread catcher pattern. It's from ArtFabric Studio....Catchit Frog with Lilypad Pincushion. I need to go through my Batik bin and find exactly the right fabric to make him.

Okay, time for a quick shower and get back down to the sorting. I so do love being retired and having my "workplace" aka Studio just downstairs. All it needs is a TV, but in lieu of that, I listen to Audio books and multi-task. I really should also continue stitching out the thread samples of all the machine embroidery threads I own...I forgot to do that yesterday. It would save me so much time to know what I really do have on hand so I don't end up buying duplicates like I have in the past.