What's been taking over my free time (ha!)

So it all started when I found I wasn't happy with my paper storage and it all snowballed from there.I originally had my paper in wire shelves but the sheer weight of cardstock caused me some concern. So I moved all my paper to a new shelving unit. I also dug out an old cd holder

from Ikea that turned into an ink/border punches storage.

Then I wasn't too thrilled about all my paper scraps and to be honest my scrap storage broke so I found this fun little cart at Costco that organized my scraps plus gave me extra storage drawers underneath.

the drawers hold a variety of stuff like 6x6 paper pads, bling and pearls, extra adhesive and flowers.

then I found this cool shelf thing at a garage sale that looked like this

 

Ugly huh? But it has potential! A can of spray paint and volia!

Much better I think! It holds half of my stamps, card making stuff, things to alter and paint.

At this same garage sale I found this table top for $10! I brought it home and put on some legs and wow! New desk! I had to change over what I had because the old one would shake everytime I used my cricut. Not cool.

I also rearranged some shelves and used them in the closet. Here I have my albums, photos, my photo printer (high away from little fingers), markers, small embellishments, glitter glue, my cuttle bug, Christmas stamps and my binders with sketches, acrylic stamps and rubons in.

Here's the view from my desk. I took the closet doors off to create more room and to be honest I never closed them anyways. I hung the curtain just for looks. Behind the curtain is all my dayhome supplies for crafts and games.

And all the Mother's Day gifts from my kids. I labelled everything and got it all organized. What a job that was!

This is a new ribbon organizer that I got off of a daily deal site. It is by Simply Renee and hold spools on top, and clips on the bottom. I already had my ribbon organized in ziptop bags so I turned them upside down and clipped them that way. My felt pieces are the same way.

So that's my room. I do also have another rolling cart with 3 large drawers that holds my extra cricut supplies, my zutter binding supplies and my computer stuff like photo papers and inks. I guess I have no excuses not to scrapbook anymore right?

Layout race

So I joined up for another layout race this weekend and here's my submission for my leg of the race. The layout that I went from had a pattern paper background that featured mostly circles, had circle embellishments, 2 photos and a title mid-page. I used some new American Crafts Dear Lizzy paper, fabric paper, ribbon and embellishments, Jillibean soup journalling spots and some old Fancy Pants plastic circles. The title was done with a left over pack of thickers. Photo was taken by Adrienne Ulliac.

just a tiny bit of creativity

Wow it just seems like this little bit of scrapbooking took a lot out of me. I guess I really shouldn't force it too much. After the go-go-go pace of the last week I was so tired that I fell into bed asleep before my head hit the pillow each night. Sunday was our day for rest. The first layout was one that has been sitting on my desk for almost 2 weeks! I never do that and to be honest it was driving my crazy. I do love how it turned out though. The first picture is my Owen and the second picture is Ethan. How crazy is that?? I used a mixture of Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon and American Crafts and Basic Grey papers. This layout was done with a photo collage made in Picasa. To be completely honest I don't usually do birthday layouts. Not sure if its the mish mash of colors that drives me crazy or the basic "too many photos" concept. So this year I simplified the process of choosing and made a collage. But that in turn made the layout harder for me to do. Plus I tried to preplan with the photos and everything and I don't think I like to do that. However its done. Moving on.

I tried to do another collage for this layout and to be honest I ended up covering the middle row of photos with the title. It just didn't work for me plus any bit of pattern paper I tried just didn't seem right either. So I simplified the choices by working with cardstock and one transperancy from Hambly Studios. Its an oldie from my stash but it worked well with the bubble theme.

I found that while I was trying to scrapbook this weekend I really struggled with papers and embellishments. I've decided that it was for a couple of reasons. First, I was tired and hot. Second I'm so used to scrapbooking kits that have all the decisions made for me. This in turn made choosing papers/embellishments much more time consuming. Third, I don't seem to have a good assortment of embellishments besides some flowers and chipboard swirls. Then I remembered my cricut and did manage to find some stuff that worked. I think that I have gotten too dependant on premade supplies that I've forgotten that I can make my own. Might be a good goal for the summer.

Date day!

So last Thursday my sweet mother in law offered to watch my kids so that Ron and I could have a date day on Saturday. It took me all of 3 seconds to say "yes!" We ended up going to the city just for fun, we had no plans as to being at a certain place at a certain time or anything. Complete carefree bliss! We actually ended up going out for a nice lunch first then shopping. It was so cool cause we hit a couple of scrapbooking stores and hobby stores just checking out stuff. I'm sure the ladies at the scrapbooking store didn't know what to think when they saw Ron walking around and picking out the paper he liked. About 50% of the time I liked what he picked. His hobby stores are pretty cool cause along with all the model stuff they always have cool kids toys. We picked up a little something for each of the kids (card game, puzzle and craft kit) Then we went crazy at costco and even bought our early anniversary gift. We got the angled tete a tete bear chair http://www.thebearchair.com/ which is crazy comfortable and perfect for the mornings we have coffee out on the deck.

Here's hoping to carve out some me time this weekend :)