From Your Heart to Ours ..... My Craftroom

Ok. I do apologize. my craft room is not the neatest. I have been organizing since my niece came to live with us and it has been slow going. Plus I am always adjusting things it seems. But I am still able to craft so thats a good thing.

Heart 2 Heart wants to see where you create this week. I have some pics, but some things were just too messy so I will describe them. My desk is actaully a door from my house back in MI. I love it because its has so much work space. It has two inset sections that I quite haven't finished with my idea. I was gonna put plexiglass in those sections so its completely flat. I wanted to make one into a giant light box. But until I do, I have my drafting board in one so I can stamp and just threw a plastic tablecloth so its easier to clean. (trying to get embossing powder out of the crevices suck). My first purchase on my own was a bakers rack. Its wood and 'iron' and i love it. I use it for storaging my mags and papers and its still changing what its stores right now. I use it as a very sturdy bookcase. Ok now for pics. I have been playing around with my paper storage. For non-ctmh I have accordian binders. CtmH I keep in the plastic for B&T and have the cardstock seperate. I got this cute basket on clearance for like $3 after xmas.

This is actually a holder for tea we had at B&N when I was working in the cafe. I took home alot of stuff that was garbage bound. The rolls of ribbon fit in perfectly. I still have to figure out what I'm gonna do with my loose ribbon. Right now they are in chinese take out boxes but those don't quite fit on the top shelf of this holder.

My ink storage. This is an old cassette storage cubby. I used it for my paint bottles before, but those are in a plastic tote. I made dividers out of cardboard so I can pull out just one stamp pad. And much cheaper then the storage cubbies i have seen online. I don't have all the colors yet, so when i do it will be filled at lot more. The other side is in transition right now. I have a couple of punches i want to put on the wall.

This is my great crafty idea section. I love when I get those. I got this on sale, but was never clear on how I was gonna use it (don't let my hubby know this). It is a wine glass holder that attaches under a shelf. I have my sponges on binder clips and just slid them in. Now the can air dry and I can read the lable easily. No more digging thru a pile to find the brown sponge. I have a couple of daubbers just hangin in the back. I bent a paper clip to hold the up. For my reinkers, I just put an o-ring on the cap and the just slide right in. If I don't want to remove them all, I just remove the cap and it comes right down.

Here's the wine rack again. Below it I made my own clip it up. The metal is actually from a lamp I found on the side of the road. I have 3 more pieces of it. I like being able to see my items at a glance. Now if I could only find my black mini medley that I lost before being able to use. :(

I know its not the most glamourous room, I mean it is in my laundry room. But it works. And it keeps my hubby happy that I'm not all over the place (sorta). But I also know with army life, I might not be here long.

Color Inspiration Challange.

Yeah. Another post this month. I'm doing better. I got the Color Inspiration mag from Papercrafts. This mag is AWSOME. I got it as soon as I saw it on the shelves. These color are amazing. Some are a challenge and some are just beautiful.

Moxi Fab blog is doing a a challenge for each of the color catagories. My card uses the Bold & Bright catagory and the colors below. I also used this mag for the sketch I used on the card. the original card is Just Because Collage maid by Vanessa Menhorn found on pg 101.

I love how this card turned out. The colors are just great . *thank you Papercrafts* I used the butterfly stamp from Jan sotm. I used two colors on the butterfly. It looks beautiful. I stamped the diecut with our new Universal Background then stamped a damask found on Feb sotm (this is great. its all damask and the one is huge) on top. Embossed in white . Did this all while the die was still on. I love Spellbinders dies, if only I had more then just this one.
Recipe : All Close to my Heart, unless stated
Cardstock - White Daisy, Black
B&T - Olivia
Ink - White Daisy, Hollyhock, Sunset
Stamps - Friendship (sotm), Find Your Style (sotm), Universal Backgrounds
White Daisy Embossing Powder
Color Ready Alphabet (retired)
Label 4 Die (spellbinders)
Score Board (martha stewart)
button (stash)

CTMH Spotlight Blog Hop - Valentine Ideas

Welcome to Jan. Blog Hop. This month we are featuring Valentine Ideas. With Valentine's Day just a month away, you should get started on being crafty and making your gifts. Just because this is a Hallmark holiday, doesn't mean you have to spend your money on Hallmark gifts. Follow this blog hop and get some great ideas.

This is a circle blog hop, so you can start at any blog in this hop and keep hopping til you see the first blog again. The blog before me is from Jenifer . The next blog in the hop is Melinda .



I have three quick and thrifty ideas for you. All of them are using scraps I had from past projects, mainly Christmas ones. And I tried so hard not to use anything from the new Idea Book coming out Feb 1st. I didn't use any of the papers, but I failed with the stamps. I found out I don't have many heart stamps. I used Sweetheart stamps, which is from the Sweetheart WOTG, and Card Chatter - Love. This stamp set is great for valentine's day and anniversaries or any occasion you just want to say I love you. I also used our new spray pens (tech. didn't cheat on this one because it is available in the Wings WOTG which is available now with some special discounts for this month only). So lets get started

My first card. This is a very simple design. And I love the mist on the base. It would be too plain otherwise. I made two mists for this card, one with Black reinker and one with Tulip reinker. To make the mist, I used alcohol ( you can use water but this dries faster), reinker and some create-a-shade paint. IRL it is so shimmery. Plus I love the fact you can make it the exact way you want it. You don't even have to have shimmer at all, just omit the create-a-shade. *warning. when using spray pen, make sure where the nozzle is or you will get the mist everywhere. Ooops*

Another pretty simple card, using no pattern paper. I random stamped on Chocolate cardstock with the hearts. I love it. To make the scalloped bottom, I just used our circle punch , cut them in half and did two layers. To get the three layers of heart, I stamped the heart normally, then flipped it over on the block and used the back of the stamp for the second layer. Then I just glued that to cardstock and bubble cut the third layer. The letters are actaully from our new Bohemian Alphabet, I just direct to paper inked them to hide the design.

Super simple way to make kid's valentine's for school or whatever. I used Caramel Apple Pop ( I LOVE these. I got two boxes for xmas WOOOO). I just cut down a coin envelope that fit the pop perfectly and added the decoration. And of course finished with a bow. I think this one was the easiest of all.

I hope you enjoyed my post. I am actaully the last one on the blog hop. If you started at Melinda's blog, you are good. If not, the next blog to go to is Melinda .

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Recipe: All Close to my Heart unless stated

Love Ya Card

Cardstock - White Daisy, Bamboo, Black, Tulip

B&T - Perfect Day (retired), Stardust (retired)

Ink - White Daisy, Tulip

Mist - Black, Tulip

Stamps - Sweetheart(WOTG), Card Chatter - Love, Atomic Lowercase (retired)

Punch - 1 1/4 circle, 1 1/2 circle (marvy)

3D Foam Tape

Doily (from stash)

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I (heart) U card

Cardstock - Watermelon (retired), Colonial White, Chocolate, Brown Bag

Ink - Colonial White, Brown Bag

Stamps - Card Chatter - Love, Bohemian Alphabet

Punch - 1 1/4 circle

Colonial White Ribbon Rounds

3D Foam Tape

Score Board (Martha Stewart)

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Sucker Cover

Cardstock - Blush, Colonial White

Ink - Cotton Candy

Stamps - Tasty Treats, Sweetheart (WOTG)

Ribbon (ribbon boutique)

Coin Envelope (from Stash)

Storage Ideas.

I have to clean up my room so my niece can join me with crafting. I would have pics to sho but my camara has no batteries and cannot find any in the house. UGH. hate when that happens.

I got unt the shelve wine rack when it was on sale awhile back wanting to use it for my crafts. I finnaly found a way to use it. With my sponges, i use a binder clip. if you have on clip up and one clip down, u can slid it in. this has the bonus of drying them and still are able to read the names. on the other two shelves i have my reinkers holding. this will probably make more since once i get photos up, but that wont be till i find battieres that work. i added an o ring on the cap of the reinker, and used a rubber one just smaller to keep the large o ring in place and it just slides in.


A while back i got an old wooden cassette tape holder for like $2. at first i placed paints in the to corral them. the i started putting wood stamps. now with clear mount, it was available again. so i was placeing in ink pads in them. worked, but not the best. they were still stacked on top of eachother. so i made a divider out of cardboard to make shelves. i can now fit 18 pad in one cubbi without having to pull them all out (by far my most favorite idea)

I also made my own version of clip it up. while wlaking my dog i came across a lap that was madew out of metal tubing. it was perfect. i hung it up and added hook from the drapping section (its an o ring with a clip so u dont have to sew to make your own curtains) now i have all my mini medleys and sparkles and other small accessories right in hand and visible

i will be adding pics when the carama works, plus adding more clever things i have done to organize my craft room

Waiting by the door...

for my presents I got from Close to my Heart. Ok, I'm not sitting right next to the door, but its an apartment so its pretty close to the door no matter where I am. I won't get to play immediately tho. :( When we came home, we brought some extra baggage, and my hubby's niece to go with them. So I am now a guardian of a 15 yr old girl, very unexpected. That means totally revamping the house so she can have her own room, and revamping the craft room so she can craft with me.

I will still be doing the blog hop on the 15th, so look foward to that. But that might be my first post for the year ( yes, I know this is a post, but there is no art so it doesn't count). I hope I can also do some sneak peeks of the new goodies I got before the new catty goes live in Feb, but we will just have to see about that one. Maybe if I can clean (groan) fast enough, I can start crafting earlier.