My Craft Room

This week I thought I would share some photos of my craft room--I don't really have any cards to share since I was busy setting up an Etsy shop this week (see link to the right). No sales yet, but I remain optimistic! It's also the cleanest it has been in a very long time...

When we bought our house, this room was the previous owner's baby's room. It had a baseball theme and the walls were neon green and bouncing baseballs were painted all over the walls. Not any more!

I painted the walls a much lighter shade of green, and purchased this desk at Pier 1 Imports a few years ago. It really suits the room well. I love the cubicles on each side of the desk--this is where I am able to store most of my stuff...and I make myself sell old stuff if I want to buy new stuff that won't fit. On the side of the desk you see here, I have stored all my stamps, including an entire cubby for acrylic stamps stored in CD cases and my paper, which is bundled in clear magazine holders from Target.

On the top of my desk is an ink storage system from Organize More...this is the most recent addition to the room and I *LOVE* it. I even have cubbies left over in it to store my scissors, rhinestones, etc. It is great! Because I wanted to have all the inks readily available, I was forced to move my radio onto the floor under the desk-I can change stations with my toes.

On the other side of the desk, I store my envelopes, punches and ribbon. None of it is organized in a fancy way, but it's clean and neat enough for me. I don't use my printer enough--it's an Epson Artisan. I have to say that having tried a Canon MX860 elsewhere, I found the Canon to be much more user friendly. The Canon will also print on ultra-heavy cardstock because paper can be loaded from the back.

The other spot in the room where I have things stored is in a bookshelf under the window:

Sorry for the poor lighting! I store all my PTI buttons in plastic jars that come in a pack of 6 at Michael's. I find that one whole bag of buttons fits perfectly in a single jar. There are some larger jars for ribbon scraps. On the center shelf, I store my dies and embossing folders in a pink metal gardening box that I found at Homegoods (I originally purchased it for my wedding, as a place for people to drop their cards). The botton shelf stores an accordion-style box that contains lots and lots of scrap paper, my OTT light, extra white paper, and my Cuttlebug.

The top is decorated with a scrapbook and the Christmas card that my husband gave me this year--it has a bulldog on the front. For whatever reason, he has kinda nicknamed me Bulldog. I have no idea why--I think he thinks it's hilarious.

You'll also note the dog bed for our dog, Teddy. He never sleeps in it because he's too busy eating scraps off the floor.  The other item that I love is the heart-shaped cardholder on the wall to the right of the window. I have lots of handmade cards there from friends and it is nearly full at this point.

That's pretty much it! The other side of the room is really boring...just a clothes hamper, a closet, and a wicker basket containing a few other doo-dads that I don't use very often.

So that's where I go to relax...I will be heading up there shortly to finish some baby cards. I hope you're all enjoying your Sunday. Have a great week!

Papertrey meets politics

Hope everyone is having a great day! I woke up this morning and started to clean the house as I usually do on Sundays, and I stopped smack dab in the middle to make some cards with some paper I received the other night at my SU! demo's house. With ten inches of snowing pending, I needed some Springtime fast, and these colors did just the trick!

All of the paper here is by SU!, as is the ribbon, but the stamp is from the Fancy Flourishes set by PTI. I stamped this in Fresh Snow ink and embossed with white embossing power. I added the miniature pearl stick-ons to the corners and butterfly, which was punched out with a Martha Stewart punch. It's very inspired by Dawn McVey's work, yeah? Her bows are WAY better though. That's the truth!

Needless to say, I never returned to my cleaning. My husband, who is running for political office here in our area, put me to the task of making invitations for one of his events. I am telling you that there is nothing better than the Select White cardstock from PTI! I made 130 invites and reply cards for him, and will be ordering more white cardstock later this evening. {Our first go-around at invites took place last week. We made those on invites on vintage cream cardstock and mounted them on enchanted evening paper. In combination with dark blue ink for the printing, this combo was fabulous!} I cut all the paper, and as I type this he is stuffing envelopes...if anyone from PTI reads this, you should know he said the paper is "awesome." In political-speak, I think this is his way of saying, "There's no way my opponent has mailings on paper as nice as this." You should also know that I am not hoarding your paper here if the quantity in my order startles you. Ha!

Have a good night!

A whole lotta crafting going on

I don't have much time to write because all my favorite shows are on, but I wanted to update with pics of some of the cards that I have made lately!

This card was made with Baja breeze paper from SU! and coordinating patterned papers from Michael's. The stamps are from the On My Couch Set from PTI, as are the rhinestones.

All supplies here are from PTI, including the Valentine's paper from last month's release and the Simple Valentine stamp set.

I actually scored the lines in the paper first and then tried to coat them with glitter...I used a ruler and a glue pen to make the lines straight. (Simple Valentine stamps from PTI)

More SV from PTI! The ribbon is Hibiscus burst ribbon, as is the button.

After this card, I am committed to buying the circle Nestabilities because I cannot find a circle cutter that I like! Again, all supplies here are from PTI; the ribbon is from who-knows-where...it was in my scrap pile. ;)

Have a great night and thanks for stopping by!

"Ooh baby love, my baby love"

Can you hear Diana Ross singing the lyrics?

I thought that combining the circular love stamp from the PTI set called Simple Valentine with the "baby" stamp from SU! would make a great combination. So I used the same patchwork scrapwork idea that I used last week, but this time I made each square the same size using a square punch. I lined all the squares up and used my Top Note die to cut out the patchwork piece for this card. I ran the white paper through the Cuttlebug to form the embossed dots in the background, and added a little bit of satin white ribbon to make this card for some friends:

I used the Color Box silver ink and embossed it with clear embossing power and then used some double-sided foam tape to stick on the circular doo-dad. I chose silver because I didn't have any ink in a pink shade that matched the tone of pink in the patterned paper here.

How's the photo? This week I took the photos in my office at work, which has tons of sunlight in the morning. A little better? The jury is still out for me. But here I am in my office, where I clearly enjoy decorating with crafty things in all their glory!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

Scrap-tastic!

This morning I took a ride in the car with my mom, who asked me to make 6 Valentine's Day cards for her. She told me that she wanted them to be different from anything I was going to send on my own. So I explained to her that I had just sorted through all my old scrap paper, and I would try to use up the single pieces for her cards. After I got home, I saw that the Papertrey Ink DT challenge is a Scrap-tastic challenge, and I particularly liked what Jessica Witty did with her scraps. Using the same method, I made 6 different cards inspired by her work. The challenge is detailed here on Nichole's blog, and Jessica gives details about how to do this here on her blog.

Each card is a different shape and size. This is not because I planned it this way...it's just because that's how my scraps all came together in nicely shaped rectangles and squares, and I wanted each of these to be centered on each card.

Then there is glitter. Lots and lots of glitter. I think that I will find glitter all over me and the dog for the rest of 2010! I punched out oodles of hearts and coated them all with glue and glitter to make the cards really shimmer. In each of the cards, any stamping has been done using the new PTI set called Simple Valentine. Love it! I didn't stamp every card with a sentiment because I think my mom wants to give some of these to co-workers on Valentine's Day, and I am not sure it's appropriate for her to tell everyone there she loves them. ;)

Above: 1 3/8" circle punch and rose red ink from SU! Ribbon is from Michael's

Above: Hat pin and beads from SU! kit. Lots o' glue to attach this! I think this one is my favorite!

Above: Clear rhinestones from PTI

Above: Stamping along the edge also from Simple Valentine set from PTI

Above: Pearls are from Memory Box. I traced the sentiment with a glitter pen.

I think that some are better than others, but Mom will love them all. She loves things that are quilted, like blankets and purses, and these cards remind me of quilts. Tomorrow I will wrap them all up and stamp the envelopes for her as well. Have a great night everyone, and Happy New Year! Tomorrow I have lots of "work" work do; I hope you have more fun than I do. Thanks for stopping by!