My Craft room

If you were here taking a tour in person, you could look at whatever you wanted.  But since I am your virtual tour guide, you get my lame narration.  :)

In the upper level of our house, we have a big space between the master bedroom and our kids' rooms. I have posted about it before here and here.   If it were over the garage, it would be a bonus room.  I guess it's still kind of a bonus room that we have made into our playroom.  It's open, kind of long and narrow and has a closet at the back of it.  Perfect place for a craft room... oh wait, I mean playroom.  I keep trying to take over the space.  I'm slowly inch by inch, claiming more area.   

This is our kids homework/computer/art table.  I hung a dowel and some drapery rings from the shelf for an art display area. 

This little bookshelf from IKEA holds my scentsy warmer (gotta have my place smelling good), my Cricut (it's also where my silhouette will go when it gets here ....YAY!!), my bitty DVD player, other decorative crap and my binder storage.  To the right of the bookshelf is a galvanized container holding all my vinyl, freezer and craft papers.

This is my little work station.  The desk is from the thrift store with a drop cloth for a skirt.  Hides some unsightly stuff.  Above is my camera collection and other stuff.  Important stuff.

This is my sewing area with the new machine my sweetie gave me for my birthday!  I can actually sew in a (mostly) straight line now! The machine cover keeps little fingers from touching the buttons.  The drawers below hold fabric and other stuff.  I like my stuff.

On the opposite side of the room from the homework table is this IKEA bookshelf.  Right now it holds bins of toys and art projects.  Someday it will be mine- all mine and will hold paper and other crafty goodness.

Here is the closet full to the brim!!  The builders installed a wire closet shelf, I added another one plus a bunch more storage. 

The plastic drawers hold embellishments sorted by color, the enamel bowls hold punches and stamps and the plastic black buckets hold more stamps. 

That is a lot of stuff!!  On the top closet wire shelf is photo storage boxes with pictures, letter stamps, extra adhesive etc.  On the 2nd shelf is glass cracker jars from Target holding ribbon, buttons and other embellishments.  At the bottom right is wire cubes from Target holding paper and other stuff.  Bottom left is wire shelving from Target holding black canvas bins full of tools, projects and paper scraps.  The big white wall shelf is from the TN flea market and holds paint and glitter.

And here is my little Goodwill score for only $3.  It holds stamp pads nicely!

Finally the last pic. The bar, 2 buckets and wire basket are all from IKEA.  Above is my C collection and below is a desk top to work.  Or store more stuff.  Either way. 

And this concludes our tour.  Come back again soon!

linking up to:  Tatertots and Jello, Delightful Order, Organize and Decorate Everything, Under the Table and Dreaming

Bathroom Redo

As I said in this post, last summer I started the makeover of our half bath.  I did the board and batten then lost interest.  I finally talked my sweetie into changing the light fixture a couple of weeks ago and then I finished everything else up.  Only took about 9 months start to finish.  Great.  :) At least it's done now.

Here is a sorta before pic.  I had already put up the board and batten (b and b) and painted the bathroom cupboard black (it was a faded cherry wood)

In addition to the b and b, we changed the light fixture, put up a shelf, and framed the standard builders mirror.

I LOVE this light fixture.  It's an outdoor light from Lowes. 

The shelf and mirror frame.

This bathroom is right inside our back door so it functions as a mudroom too.

a close up of the b and b 

This is my favorite part of the room- my grandmother's drying rack.

I use it to hang our clothes to dry (the laundry is just outside the door)

For the window treatment I re purposed a tab top window valance from another room in the house.  I folded the tabs back and ironed them down with seam tape.  Then taped off stripes with blue painters tape and painted them with black fabric paint.  Easy!

For the mirror frame I just used 1x4's and 1x6's.  I glued them right to the mirror with Liquid Nails for mirrors.

The frame snugged right into the b and b.

And now that room is done.  Moving on to the next one!

Linking up to: Embellishing Life, Today's Creative Blog, Tip Junkie, The Shabby Nest, Whipperberry, TaterTots and Jello, Designer Garden, Funky Junk Interiors

Great finds

 My kids are out of school for Spring Break.  So yesterday we headed to Chattanooga to the aquarium.  We had a great time!  It's only about 2 hours away, so the perfect distance for a little day trip. 

On the way home, I saw a Goodwill.  I batted my eyelashes at the sweetie and kindly asked him to stop.  Luckily he's the greatest guy around and will usually go along with whatever I ask of him.  I'm am SO glad we stopped because I scored some awesome stuff!!

My son was tired from all the shopping and carrying my bags.  Poor kid. 

Just look at this (and the pic is only 1/2 of the stuff).  I have plans for it all.  The chair and little cabinet were only $3.  Yes, $3.  They would have been $10 each at my local Goodwill.  I'm going to clean it up the little cabinet and use it in my craft closet to store ink pads.  Woo hoo!  So when your traveling, keep your eyes open because you just never know where you'll find some killer deals!

Molding!

Oh how I love molding!  It adds so much to a room!  As anyone who comes to my house would know because I have gone a little molding crazy!!

Our stairs were a major mess with nail pops and wall imperfections all over the place.  Molding was the perfect answer, as it covered up all of the mess.  I did this last summer when my husband was traveling a lot.  It kept me busy.  I cut all of those lattice strips with a miter box.  Yes I did.  Yes, it took a long time.  But it was worth it and I love it!

This is the bottom of the stairs.  I added the hooks for guests to hang their coats or purses.

This is our 1/2 bath.  I did the molding in here last summer too. But just a week ago I finally framed the mirror out and put up a new light fixture. I'll post about the entire room soon.

After painting my bedroom, I painted the master bath.  I put the leftover molding from the stair project in here. 

And the room that started it all- the Living Room.  I posted about this large wall here.  Still love it!  It was totally worth all the struggles of doing it myself!

linking up to Decor Chick, Today's Creative Blog

Fun stuff from around the bloggy world

This FANTASTIC camera bag made from a purse!  Love it...I am definitely going to make one!  This project was featured at TaterTots and Jello  and is by The Crafters File Box

Jenni Bowlin is a local TN girl and will be selling some of her wonderful vintage goodness in 2 weeks.  I'm so there!!

I know St Patricks Day is over but look at how cute these letters are from Life Happens

Look at this cute birthday box.  What a great idea!  From eighteen25

I love this adorable ruffled lamp shade at Dear Lillie.  She gives a nice tutorial too.  I can see this in my very near future!

So many very talented ladies!  So many great ideas!!

St Patrick's Day Family Traditions

St Patrick's Day is a fun day to do simple family traditions.  We love any and all excuses to celebrate!  Check out our St Patrick's Day Traditions for Families!  

                                                                                                                              updated 1-2020

  

Lucky Heart Art - A little something for St Patty's Day

Looking for a simple and oh - so - cute art piece for St Patrick's Day?  This small art piece is a great, yet simple art to display in your home.  

It's about time

A few weeks ago I was asked to speak to the youth in my church about time management. Which is kind of funny because I don't think I am an expert at the topic.  But I gave it lots of thought and told them about some of the ways I manage my day.

These are the main tools I use:  my phone for Google calendar and the timer, a notebook to write everything down and my to do list.

Google calendar is the BEST!  If you don't already have it...get it!  As long as you have access to the internet, you can access your calendar.  Plus my husband and I both have it on our phones.  So whenever it gets updated, we can see it on our phones or on our computers.  Every month, I print out a copy of the calendar and hang a hard copy on the fridge so we have a visual reminder of what's going on. 

I have seen and used tons of different to do lists, but none of them quite worked.   I wanted a place to write dinner (to hold me accountable), appointments and my to do's for a week at a time. So I created a personal to do list in Word and it is really working for me.  I couldn't figure out how to put this on my blog so I hosted it here it at google docs if anyone wants a copy.

A huge time saver is using a timer to do tasks.  For example-I hate emptying the dishawasher.  So I set a timer for 1 minute and tell myself I only have to spend 1 minute emptying it.  But of course once I get started I always just keep going to finish it off.  Once in a while I try to race the clock and get done in 1 minute too.  Whatever works.  Also, do you find yourself getting on the computer to do one quick thing and the next thing you know you have spent 2 hours on facebook or wandering around the internet?  Yeah, me too.  So set a timer for 20 minutes or so and you won't loose track of time.

photo credit

Write everything down!  Everything!  I have tons of little notebooks all over the place, in my purse, in the car, at my bedside, etc, to write everything down.  Project lists, birthday lists, grocery lists, goals, journaling etc, a notebook is a wonderful place to keep track of everything.  I refer back to mine often to keep up with my goals and projects.