Art Room/School Room Redo

So I have had one BIG table for our art/school room.  Hasn't been working well.  It takes up the entire middle of the floor, its difficult to walk from one side of the room to the other when everyone is working, the kids distract each other, etc.  So I decided to make 3 small desks instead of the large table.  I didn't want to cut the large table top we had in case we wanted it for another project or my FIL wanted it back.  So I found the perfect size at Lowe's AND it was already cut!! yeah I probably paid a bit more for it precut, but it was the perfect size and easy.  I was in/out in about ten minutes!!

So as soon as I got home I started moving stuff around.  I am a bit of a hoarder! Yes I do admit it.  I have TONS of scrapbooking supplies but haven't scrapbooked much since we moved to this house 4 years ago.  I also love crafting, so I have a rubbermaid bin OVERFLOWING with stuff I WANT to make.  Yeah it's sitting right under my table.  Will have to weed through that fast as it is obstructing Jacob's desk at the moment.

Anyway, here are a few before...

I am so not organized-its a work in progress!

The massive table which I thought would be perfect-it was a mess, I just cleaned it off.

To the left is MY work table. To the right is a dresser FULL of stuff.

So as you can see it pretty much takes up the entire room.  Actually this isn't how I had it originally, this set up actually gave us a little more moving room.  But it left one side of the table and one book shelf unreachable.  So after much planning and still no organizing...

Here is Jacob and JoAnna's desk with my work table in the middle of them.

 Here is the opposite wall.  Actually on the other side of this wall is a coat closet, which I would LOVE to  open up to this room and put all this stuff in the closet and relocate the shelf and armoire.  I still have a lot of organizing to do.  But I hope with the new set up I can get that done quickly.  Maybe this next week I will work on the shelving in the closet AND then maybe knocking a hole in the wall!!!!

Here is Jace's lonely shelf.  He is only 2-soon to be 3 and isn't doing much school.  But I will have to pull our little table out of the garage for him.  He will probably be upset with me when he wakes up in t he morning.  He will feel a little left out I am sure.

cabinet

i don't know if I have blogged about this or not-and I am too lazy to go back and check. I got a cabinet from a friend several months ago, she is moving and just wanted to get rid of it, so it was FREE!!! I painted it, sanded it and here it is!!!! I am using it to store movies, games and electronics.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

need to get some decorating done in my house

We have been in this house 3 years and we haven't done much decorating.

I have done "baby girls" room but havent finished all the details. I have also considered painting her room, YIKES!

First things first...I really want new floors. I hate carpet. We should have pulled the carpet up before we moved in and had wood floors installed. Now it will be a nightmare to have it done. A nightmare I can probably tolerate if I dont have to stare at this stained carpet anymore!!

Here are a few ideas I have come across tonight while browsing..

I want one of these......

BAM!!

I am so very excited about my new ribbon storage!!! I have been struggling with ways to organize my GROWING supply of ribbon...and here it is!!!! First of all this is my second attempt at ribbon storage...
Here was my first attempt This storage didn't work well since I had such an abundance of ribbon, maybe if I had cute the dials smaller, but still its much easier to store horizontally.



I got this great idea from By Your Hands.

This is what I started with....a $3 frame from a second hand store.



I took the "wicker" out and then painted it white. Bought these ceiling hooks for $1.79, painted them white, and TADA!!!! Not only does it make a GREAT storage solution, but it's also WALL ART!!!!






I am just IN LOVE with it!! Cannot wait to get the rest of my room done!!!

Paper organized: check
Ribbon organized: check
everything else.......hmmm...

WOW!!! What a day!!

I started off the day with my son's kindergarten class at the Pumpkin Patch. We had a great time!! I took my new camera (which I actually haven't paid for yet) and took lots of great pictures....I think. Apparently the camera was set to take pictures in camera raw and I have never taken pictures in that format before. It takes a LONG time to upload the pictures so I haven't had a chance to even look at them yet. However, we had a great time.





Afterwards I took my son home and headed to the Canton Flea Market. Its a huge market held twice a year. If I had parked a little closer or had a buggy I probably would have bought a few more things. I ended up buying a rustic frame...there were others there that I LOVED but they were about $95 and I just can't pay that price for frames. But they had three layers and were BEAUTIFUL. The one I ended up buying was about half that price but only one layer and one color. Still cute but not gorgeous. The other thing I bought was an old window pane----which I am in LOVE with old window panes right now. This one is painted a lime green and the panes are made into dry erase boards. I think I may still use it like a picture frame and just center the photos in the middle of each rectangle and make the dry erase board appear to be a white mat. We will see how it goes!!!




Nothing like the Canton flea market to get you inspired!!!! I finally glued these birds to these candlestick holders. And finished my first ceiling tile. I am painting these for one of the K4 teachers. She gives these every year as Christmas gifts to her students. I will attempt putting their names on later. 1 down...... 15 to go...LOL. I LOVE it.

GOT MY CRAFT ON!!

I stayed up very late tonight getting SEVERAL projects done!!! As you will quickly see I got all of these ideas from Ashley at Make It And Love It. She has some GREAT ideas and AWESOME tutorials. Even someone like me that doesn't sew was able to whip these up!!!!

First I made this sippy cup leash, that I saw at Make It and Love It. I think it turned out great and I will surely be making lots more for Christmas gifts. This will be great in the car, shopping and just about anywhere we go!!!



Then I finished this project from Make It and Love It, that i started last week for my daughter's room.




Then I took one of my old shirts and turned it into a dress for my daughter. I have been wanting to try this one for a LONG time. I have several sweaters saved that I want to try this with. I think it turned out great, especially since I have only sewed a few things in my LIFE!! This was my first time to cut and sew sleeves. I think they turned out cute..can't wait for her to try it on tomorrow!!!! I also made her a headband, you can see the tutorial here which is ALSO from Make It and Love It!!!




I still have a lot of work to do in my CRAFT ROOM to get it organized and "operational". So that I am not having to move big loads of stuff from one table to the other just to have work space. I am really ENJOYING my time in my art/craft room! Its a stress relief for me and I have REALLY missed it. So hopefully there will be more coming soon!!!!

Another weekend project!!

Ok I got brave and linked this post to "Today's Creative Blog"! Its a day late but oh well.


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I found these dragonfly plaques at Hudson's for 99 cents!!! Thought they would be the perfect size for the space above the towel rack in the main bathroom. So I brought them home and painted them. I think they turned out great. Excuse the wallpaper, I am hoping to get that painted soon.

Here is the "before" actually I had painted one already, but you get the idea...


AFTER: the colors are a little off in the photo. The plaques are beige, orange, turquoise and brown.

A gift for my in laws...

I have recently been to Easley Amused-and LOVED IT!!! Its an instructional course and you paint a canvas. It is so much fun!!! So for my mother in law's birthday and for Father's Day I decided to paint these canvases to represent all the grandchildren. I had so much fun painting them.

OMG!! I am so excited!!

I saw this on a blog and just HAD to try it!! (I will link to the blog next time I come across it-want to give credit where credit is due!!). Anyway, I got a new cartridge for my Cricut today so I figured it was FINALLY time to try this out.

I cut an owl and a bird out of white contact paper. I put the owl on my laptop and the bird in my daughters room. They are SUPER cute!!!! I cannot wait to fill her walls with all kinds of little images-birds, butterflies, owls, flower, etc!! OMG I am about to clear the stores of contact paper!!!!!!

Finally-initials-after two years

I bought these initials for baby girl's wall two years ago. I finally got them out this weekend to cover them with fabric to match her bow organizer-and realized the "M" is actually a "W". I should still be able to make it work-but I cannot believe I didn't notice this when I bought it. Anywho-I covered the "P" with the same fabric I did her bow organizer and the other two initials in complementary colors. I then heat embossed flowers and an owl on the the solid colors. Not sure I like them-might go back and cut out some of the flowers from the patterned fabric and modge podge them on the solid letters.

Being Crafty while the kids are away

Well I met my mom Wednesday night and sent the two older kids home with her for five days!!! I will meet her again Sunday night to pick them up. Its been 3 weeks since we have seen her so her and the kids are having withdrawals.

So tonight I actually got some crafty things done!! I still have big plans for the next day and a half-but here is what I have done so far....

First off a bow holder for baby girl. I have finally learned how to make them and she loves wearing them, so I had to come up with something to hold them. I had this photo board in the garage that we haven't used since we moved. So I recovered it and whala!!! It is so cute! I also have wooden initials I hope to decorate this weekend and get hung before she comes home!!! This will be great since her walls are absolutely bare at the moment!!
BEFORE


AFTER


Second thing I did was very simple. I found these candle holders at the Dollar Tree and glued them together. I saw this on another website and wanted to try it myself. They turned out cute. Here I just filled them with Valentine foam hearts just for the picture.

BEFORE


AFTER


Next thing I will work on is probably baby girl's initials. Hopefully tomorrow I will get busy on organizing my craft room-right now I am having to work on the kitchen counter-because my craft table is full of STUFF!!!

Happy New Year 2010

Ok so I have lots of 'goals" for the new year. I really want to take time and be with my family this year and concentrate on the important things in life. I want to be more proactive instead of reactive. I want to set goals and strive to reach them.
So here are a few of the goals that I really want to work on this year...

Spend more time with family and friends: this is were I struggle the most. I usually make plenty of time for my family however, my friends usually get neglected. I don't keep in touch well with people I don't see on a regular basis. Although I hope these friends know I would be there at a drop of a hat if I can and would do anything possible for them. So my goal is to try to keep in better touch with my friends this year. Either by email, text, phone calls or maybe even...gasp...visiting them!!!

Run: believe it or not I use to love running when I played soccer. I was never fast but I felt my endurance was fairly high. I didn't much like running around a track but preferred running through a neighborhood or a trail. so I'd like to start of slow by walking and then work my way up to running.

Bible/devotions: I want to make sure I take the time each day to read my bible and do devotions. Not only for myself but also with the kids. I bought a devotional book specifically for the kids with special activities that are meant to help the lessons be memorable. So I would like to start that with them.

less tv: my kids like most kids today watch WAY too much tv. Its my fault and I need to start limiting their time in front of the tv and computer. I had tried letting them watch a show or two after 7pm-only after baths, dinner and homework (that is speech homework for Jacob). This worked great since they go to bed at 8-they only get an hour of tv AND I could take tv time away as punishment if they didn't behave during bathtime or dinner time!!

weekly game night: I want to have "game night" with the kids once a week. They have tons of board games and such and we really need to pull them out and spend some quality time with them. This will most likely decrease our tv time as well!!

date night: there for a while my husband and I were taking a date night once a week. Now we rarely take this much needed time. So if not weekly at least every other week we need to set a night aside just for us and preferably something other than dinner...

create weekly/monthly: I would like to create something weekly. Sounds a bit much considering I have three kids, work full time...etc ...etc. But I would like to complete something weekly. Either a new project, a hair bow, a scrapbook page...SOMETHING each week. It really gives me a sense of accomplishment when I spend time in my craft room and create something.

make gifts: I would like to make more gifts-such as Christmas gifts for next year and/or birthday gifts.

make cards: I need to start making my own cards and keep a stash of them on hand. I have a huge supply of scrapbook stuff and should be able to make every card for every occasion!!

photo session monthly: another passion of mine is photography. I love taking portraits. I have always wanted to be a photography but haven't taken the leap yet. I have photographed a few small weddings and taken pictures of friends and family but not much else. I would really like to schedule one photo session a month to build my confidence and my clients. I have been putting this off for far too long...

artwork on walls: we moved a year ago and still do not have much on our walls. I find I am too cheap to buy stuff in the stores so I want to create things for my walls. Which should be easy since I plan on creating something every week!!!

lose baby weight by Jace's first birthday: After I had JoAnna I went on a serious diet and lost all the weight I gained while pregnant with her and then some. I was down to my "pre kid" weight-which was before I even got pregnant with Jacob. However, once I started my new job I gained 20 lbs in 5 months and then got pregnant with baby #3 and gained 43 lbs! YIKES! So I really have to work hard now to get this weight off-especially since he is already 4 months old!!!

Cook at least twice a week: since my husband isn't home for dinner most nights I haven't been cooking much at all. My kids are picky so I usually just eat whatever it is they will eat: mac and cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, etc, etc. So I would like to cook more "adult friendly" meals and hopefully this will help introduce them to new foods and help me with my weight loss!!

WOW!!! All in all that is a LOT of goals for one year!

Christmas decorating

We have been busy getting our Christmas decorations up this past weekend. We have been doing a little each day, starting with the tree. The kids loved helping with the ornaments. We still need to the outside done, but will have to wait for the weekend when Keith is off work.

Here is a little countdown Christmas tree I made for the kids last year. Thought I'd post it. I finished the second one tonight-since JoAnna was too young to really participate last year I never finished hers. I put the candy canes in two different ways-not sure which way I prefer. We had one similar to this growing up and we looked forward to pulling the candy off. I hope my children will look back and remember this as one of our many holiday traditions.

Craft Room

(can you tell I am held up in a hospital room? so I have nothing better to do than to create new posts to my blog that nobody will EVER read...)

Ok so I was so excited that we found a home with a formal dinning room, as I had planned on turning it into a scrapbook/craft room. Well I have finally started working on organizing my new craft room. I have bought floating shelves, I intend to have 4 when I am done but only have two up right now. Here is a picture of the bracket going up...




I will post more photos later. I have 2 shelves up and need to get photos. Then I really need to get busy organizing. I plan on having a birthday party at the house in 2 weeks and Thanksgiving a week after that-so I at least need to get all the boxes unpacked and things put away.

Cushion Redo

I bought this living room suite 9 years ago and except for the couch cushions I think it has held up good. I liked the back cushions because they were plush and removable so you could throw them on the floor and lay on them. Unfortunately they have lost their "plush" and were a huge eye sore and no longer functional as back cushions. So I finally bought some fill to redo the cushions. It is a HUGE difference and not anything like how they were originally done, but I think they will hold up better this way. Here is a peek.

BEFORE


AFTER


You can hardly tell there is even a cushion there. Hopefully that will keep the kids from bouncing on them and throwing them all over the family room.