My newly reorganized and improved craft space!

Yesterday I managed to get into the basement and finish up reworking my craft area. While my husband is pretty grumpy that I’ve invaded the ‘Man Space’ I’m crazy happy over the results! It’s been a crowded mess down there for the last little bit and I’ve been crafting on the kitchen table. However, it’s a pain to lug up the things I need, or have to go back down because I forgot something, so I really wanted my space ready for me to pop down when I have a few minutes and work on something and not have to move it so we could eat a meal.

Now I’m so excited about it but when I took some pictures I realized that the electrical box looks pretty hideous on film. I know nothing about drywalling but I’m either going to beg someone who does to help me, or I’ll be learning! So pardon that tiny eyesore while I tour you around my happy little creative space.

I still want to attach the powerbar to the underside of my computer desk and get all the cords off the ground and tidied up.  That thing in the corner is our freezer but it really can’t move anywhere else in the basement so for now I just covered it with a cool storage basket. The white cart under the table on the right holds all my papercraft tools and supplies.  The blue bins beside are my fabrics and yarns.

There’s my scrapbook for our trip waiting to be filled.  Along with some favourite pictures of me and my mom and dad, my Style School binder and my Jayne, “Time for some stunning heroics” and Marv the Martian mugs I use to store things.

I picked up the red, blue and green collapsible buckets at IKEA.  I’ve got juice pouches in one, buttons in another and rick rack in the last one.  At least one was supposed to be a little garbage bin on the table top but my supplies took over.  There’s my cute new sewing box, contents all organized, my fun sewing books, and my Style School wreath project in progress.

In attempt to hide the eye sore I’ve filled the space up with some fun things.  An owl from Cuba, a cute postcard, my inspiration hoop, silly faced Happy Bunny, a Beatles souvenir from London and yet another Style school project, the Polaroid art frame.  For the Polaroid frame I used pictures from when I was a kid to add to the vintage feel (wow I basically just called my childhood vintage . . .) and I love those shots.

These are some completed things I have sitting around.  I’m hoping to make a few more things this weekend and make my donation to the Craft Hope store.

Fun new fabrics.  I fell in love with the wood grain fabric used for a book cover Style School assignment so I searched some out on Etsy and found it at uberstitch. I’m going to use it with the little woodland creatures print. The cursive writing practice one was just cute, and hey, I’m a teacher, I can print! The funky red one was on super clearance at Fabricland because it’s a Christmas print, but I thought it was just neat.

So now that I’ve accomplished so much there I can focus on my Style School assignments, do my own creative things and figure out how to put my sewing machine into this neat little table my mom gave me then paint it some cool colour.

Wow, looks like I’m going to be a pretty busy bee for the next little bit. Yippee!

Wonderful idea for help for Haiti.

This is another really neat idea from Craft Hope.  Their Etsy store has all sorts of donated handmade items for sale.  Right now it’s raising funds for Doctors without Borders.  They seem to be getting tons of donations from the crafty world.  I checked it out last night and already this morning there’s a whole other page of listings.  I need to get to my sewing machine and create something for this!

Cheap fun! and reuse before you recycle!

The other day I thought I was pretty smart when I got out a roll of transportation stickers I had kicking around and made Wesley a little paper with a road, train tracks, an airport, water and a train station (that looks a lot like a dog house I know).  He had a blast sticking on all the stickers and making a cool picture.  He asked to do it again a few days later.

Today after setting up my lovely table from IKEA I brought the box upstairs to flatten out and draw some roads on.  We made roads to Grandma and Grandpa’s, our house, Nana’s, some of our friends houses, the preschool, the indoor play place we hang out at and “Daddy’s friends’ house”.  I tried to get some specifics about who those friends were but that was the only answer I kept getting.   So while Daddy indeed have friends, apparently Wesley isn’t too concerned with their names.

That's 'Mommy's van' and 'Daddy's car' in the dirveway.

Of course after I had drawn all those places and added some trees, bushes and flowers Wesley requested an airport.  Into city planning mode!  I found some space behind the preschool for it.  Hope Grandma and Grandpa don’t mind.  When they got their 17 acres out in the country they probably didn’t think an airport was going in across the street.

Resolution inspiration.

I really wanted to create some cool wall art, like this for our living room.  But it’s a bit of an involved project that will take time to organize and make so I had a brain wave for a smaller project with the same effect, only it will decorate my cute little new craft area (once I finish organizing it).

How’d I do it?  I just cut 2 circles of fabric, one green and one cute Heidi Grace patterned one and cut them in two pieces.  I though I might make another one later so I wanted some fabric ready.  Then I sewed the patterned fabric to the solid colour piece.  A while back when I needed 1 embroidery hoop I went into Value Village and picked up a back with 5 in it for some insanely low price, like $1.99 and I remember thinking, “But I only need !”  good thing I have many now.  I fit the circle into the hoop with a little cute ribbon covering the seam.

Then I sat down to think of some fun little words I could pencil onto the green that would be inspiring and motivating.  I penciled them onto the fabric, grabbed some floss I thought would go nicely and sat down to make it prettier.  I went a little free form on the leaves and heart *shrug*.  Then I added a few buttons in colours from the patterned fabric and voila!  Now I just have to get downstairs and set up the other table I picked up on Tueday night so I can begin the great craft space organization of 2010.

What was doing the night before our flight to England?

Making this!!

I wanted to try to make a messenger bag and I’ve been holding onto this super cute Heidi Grace fabric for a while and was happy to finally use it.

I added the little green heart just for fun.  The inside is just a cute swirly orange fabric I found somewhere. I’ve been reluctant to use the fabric since I had to get it on one of my road trips to Joann’s, and those don’t happen as often as I like!  If anyone from Joann’s is reading this, please build some stores in Canada!  I beg you.

I’d still like to make the strap adjustable but I was being impatient and wanted to take the bag on the plane with me.

Style School binder – favourite things from the inside.

After a recent power outage our printer wouldn’t turn back on so I finally broke down and went out Friday night and got us a new one.  Which meant I could finally print all the images I’ve been saving to put in my Style School binder!!  Usually when I bounce around the net while browsing my favourite blogs I save pictures of neat ideas here and there to inspire me.  I’ve been bad and I don’t know where most of them have come from, so I suppose as a sort of new start for 2010, I’m going to save the files with a name that lets me know where I saw the image.  So here’s some of my favourite things I’ve collected over the last few months.

I have one of these already, but after seeing this I think I need more!

I love the idea of this shelf, and how the toys are all underneath out of the way. In our house, the shelves would need to be empty for another 2 years or so!

I love this little bench and the arrangement on the wall. See the makeover and rest of this little nook here at the purple pea.

Great looking storage for all your craft supplies! From somewhere on apartmenttherapy, I’m pretty sure.

Love this idea! Find the tutorial here.

In the spirit of needing to organize my seemingly ever expanding craft space, and wanting a cool bike, I must have these!

Yellow cabinet from IKEA. For *my* good looking fabric storage

I saw someone buying this in Walmart. The picture doesn’t do it justice, it’s a really looking neat bike.

I need an eclectic collection of plates to hang on one of our walls.

This one just makes me smile, from weheartit.com. What all our scales should say.

Style school binder fun.

While in England I picked up a decoratable binder for my Style Binder assignment for Style School. While watching part 1 and 2 of the BBC remake of Day of the Triffids I decided to work on the cover. Inspired by my location at the time I designed it using a London Underground theme.

There’s a bit of a shine to the binder so it was tricky to get a shot without a glare, but you get the idea. My only available tools were the Lightening McQueen coloured pencils my son had from Christmas. So all things considered, I think I did very well.

By the way, if you’ve never been to London and would like to scramble your brain for a few minutes take a look at the map for the underground. If you live in New York City, never mind the link, you have your own brain scrambler.

Sewing box + a bag = gifts to me!

Seems our house is still an explosion of luggage and laundry. So in lieu of an actual useful crafty post allow me to I bring you, ‘The things I bought while away on vacation”!

A lovely sewing box from John Lewis. I loved the craft section there and wanted to get more but the first day we went we had the kids and then when we went back it was to a different location and it was also insanely busy with the post Christmas shopping. So I grabbed a sewing box and ran. I would have gotten the slightly bigger one but I was worried about having to pack it.

And of course, any trip for me wouldn’t be complete without the purchase of a bag or some sort. So on our last trip into London I found this little cutie! It was meant to be since the price tag matched exactly with how much money I had left in my wallet. Clearly it was asking to be taken home with me.

I hope to get creating again on the weekend for sure. I’m off to scrapbook on Saturday and Style School starts Sunday so it should help kick start me for 2010!

Juice pouch jackpot! Or however you say that in German.

Here’s my stash of juice pouches from the trip! Not sure why they’re in German since we were in Spain . . .

I can’t wait to make myself a little bag that, hopefully, no one around here will have!

Taking down the tree!

We got in from England on Friday night at about 9:30 and were ready for bed! With England 5 hours ahead we were a tad tired. Then of course my wonderful little baby boy woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning. He was ready to go, it was 9:30 for him. The rest of us weren’t so ready. Wesley spent about 10 minutes awake before he had a meltdown and I marched him back up to bed. But being up early wasn’t so bad I started to explode our luggage and dig out all the gift and souvenirs we bought, and the Christmas tree needed to come down!

So, while Christmas is over I had ornaments on my mind while I took down the tree and unpacked some I had bought on the trip.

Now while I didn’t make these, they would be pretty easy to whip up some that are similar. They’re by Maileg. It’s been our thing when we travel to get Christmas decorations/ornaments so I picked these 2 up sort of for the boys. Most of the decorations on our tree are painted by me. I used to buy some every year and sit and paint them. I figured I’d have a tree full in a while. Travelling and collecting them is just as much fun.

This one is just cute! It has 2009 on it and says Rudolph on the other side.

I haven’t had much time to be crafty with the trip and returning to work today, which is going to be tough after over a year off! I fully intend to keep crafting in 2010, and posting, and creating, and being me.