Storage Options

A friend asked me how I stored my stuff...so I decided to take a few pictures and post them.

These iris carts originally held ALL my stuff (now I can't even come close). But I still use them to hold my individual stamps plus all the 'extra' stuff (like ribbon, templates, etc).



Now the sets have found a new home in a book case. I write their names on the side (or use labels if they came with them). In addition this is where my cuttlebug and bigger stuff lives.



Then there are my unmounted stamps...these living in CD cases...in a CD rack of course :-). I write the names of the set (or company name) on the side in permanent marker.



And then there are my inkpads (that live in an old cassette tape holder) and my ribbon (which live in a rain gutter).



Ok, I gotta run get ready for work. Should be leaving in 10 minutes and can't even find a hairbrush to brush my hair with. Last I saw it Chewy (the puppy appropriately named) had it. Now I can't find it at all. Sigh. Going to be one of those days!

So much to share...so little time!

Apparently the best way to get people to come visit your blog and LEAVE COMMENTS is to offer blog candy! I took a nap and woke up to 14 comments! I think that's more than I've had total since I started the blog! A few of you are close...although it's still not the exact answer I'm looking for. So keep guessing!

Here are a couple more organizational ideas...

My ribbon (is in a rain gutter bought at Lowe's...they even have little slider things that you can make dividers with). I love that you are able to pull one out and then put it back without dealing with a rod through them all.




And here are my CTMH acrylix stamps. This is actually a two drawer unit that we had in the bathroom to hold stuff in. I saw this and thought 'ah ha' and sure enough the sets fit perfectly.



And now...onto some more fun artwork!

Here is a white board I bought at the $1 store. I stamped it with the walking crab stamp from Gina K with staz-on ink and then colored it in with sharpie markers.



And here is a card I made last night...it is my first attempt using embossing paste. I bought the stuff back in February. It's MUCH thicker than I expected. Does anyone know if it's supposed to be the consistency of playdough? Anyways, I made the little bucket with embossing paste - then the rest of the ideas grew from that. This crab is from SU's Crab & Co stamp set. The ball is from a CTMH stamp set. I tore the brown cardstock to make the sand and inked the edges. I used a brayer and blue for the water. Masked that and stamped the "sun" (a circle from CTMH) and then punched a scallopped oval and used that as a mask to make clouds.



And here is a totally different card I made last night. I wanted to make a baby card for a fellow blogger who just had a baby. I used the basket from Clear Dollar Stamps (cdstamps.com) and then a baby bottle stamp from CTMH (an old incentive set). I'd stamp a couple and then mask them and then over stamp a few more...until the basket was filled with bottles. Pastels don't photograph so great...so hopefully this'll show up ok. This is not my favorite card...but it'll do.



Enjoy (believe it or not...I still have MORE to share...but I'll stop there!)

My Re-Organized Room

I originally stored my stamp sets in Iris Carts...by size of the box they came in. At the time I only used CTMH stamps because I was a demonstrator for them. After I stopped demonstrating I started buying whatever I wanted (didn't matter which company) and pretty soon I couldn't find what I wanted. My hubby picked up this cool shelving at the thrift store...a huge container of it for $10. You can build them in different configurations.

So we built it like bookshelves (kind of) and now I have all my backgrounds in one area, all my Christmas in one area, all my sayings in one area, etc.

In the far right back corner you will see a CD holder. These are my unmounted sets. These have also outgrown the holder but I haven't decided what to do about that yet. For now, I just put the left over ones up on one of the shelves. All the mounted and unmounted sets are marked with a sharpie so I can find them easily.

In the front of the table you can see a bulletin board and a cassette case holder that is mounted and holds my ink pads. Also, you'll see a Pampered Chef tool turn-about which holds all my constantly used items (like fine point black/white pens, paper piercer, sanding blocks, scissors, etc).

To view the pictures larger...just click on the picture. Then use the browser's back button to return to the blog when you're done!



This view you can see my wire cubes I use to hold papers, my iris carts (which now hold misc stuff like adhesives, embellishments, etc), and a magazine rack that holds all my scrapping/stamping magazines (well, it was actually some sort of wine holder that we got at the thrift store but it works perfectly for holding magazines!)



My total size is 9ft by 9ft...actually a little less. There is no door to the room (it used to be our dining room). At some point after we get my Dad's estate settled I'd like to build on to our mobile home (making our family room, the "dining area", and the laundry room all about 10 ft longer). If we do that then I'd like to close this side off and just have an entry from the remodeled area of the family room. Time and $$ will tell if that'll ever happen. But for now it's my dream. Well, my dream would be even bigger...but I'll settle for this! ;-)

Not shown, are my CTMH acrylix sets, my ribbon storage, and my $1 stamp set storage. I found a way to hold those today but didn't get a picture of it yet. Will share those in the days to come.

For now...here is one more card I made to share...



The House Mouse image I received as an image trade, the paper is CTMH. The image is colored with chalks. I still can't seem to watercolor for the life of me. Good thing these are easy to color with chalks! I bought some chalks at the last stamping expo and I've been quite happy with them. My old chalks smeared pretty badly but these are much better. I wouldn't say they are completely "smudge proof" (as they were advertised) but they are much better than my old chalks. If anyone wants details of the company - just let me know and I'll pass it along.

Have a great day!

Monday, monday

Good morning and welcome back to the drudge that's called a "work week". ;-) I finished unpacking my bags last night, only to realize that now I can NOT FIND my digital card! Yikes! So I can't take pics of the pages I did until I either find that card or buy a new one. I've searched high and low and no luck. I think the company that made the card had a witch putting curses on the digi cards as they came off the line! LOL!

In the meantime, I did have THIS picture on my computer already. It's what my scrap area looked like AFTER I finished making and wrapping all my Secret Pal packages!



Now, do you feel better about how YOUR area looks?

Jane