MY NEW SCRAP ROOM!

Ladies and Gentlemen: proudly introducing MY NEW SCRAP ROOM!  YAY!!!!  It's FINALLY done, and organized, and clean, and beautiful, and wonderful!  And I'm so freakin excited, I can't stop doing the happy dance (although I'm sure all my neighbors wish I would stop!)  For those of you who think I'm weird and/or have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, you can catch up with the rest of the class here (part 1) and here (part 2) and here (part 3.)  to see all the before and during pics.  Or if you want to skip all that and take the speed course, here's one of the BEFORE pics:

This was my work surface.  It was a little messier than usual since we were already starting to move some things around.  I had a small desk with two lamps on it, right by the window.  The lighting was so bad, I could only really work on anything during the day, when I had the light from the window coming in.

And now...

Here's a pic taking in the same area of the room, that shows just part of my really huge built in desk!

Here's a closeup of the gorgeous trim on the desk.  I was thinking about painting the leaves and vines, but I haven't decided for sure.

Here is where the desk begins.  Notice the awesome blue grey wall color?  No more brown!

And here it continues all the way down the wall,

and around the corner, into what used to be a closet.  I have 14 feet of desk space now!!!!  In the closet area, above the corner of the desk, is custom built shelving high enough and deep enough to house my scrapbooks and other plastic storage.  Actually though, most of the plastic containers have only a fraction of what they used to have and some of them are even empty.  Why, you ask?   Because...

this is what lives on the other wall!  Most of my goodies were able to come out of plastic storage bins, and into the light where I can see them and USE them!!!  So here's the pic of my long anticipated paper and embellishment shelves...TOTALLY worth the wait!

So, here's a few pics showing some really great storage solutions and functional features in the room.  Some of these were our ideas, and some of them we gleaned off of Crafty Storage (which is a GREAT site btw...I strongly recommend you go check it out, but only when you have lots of time, since you could easily spend HOURS on there!!)  and then personalized to make them work for me!

As I've mentioned before, I've asked some of my friends to save babyfood jars for me.  I cleaned them out, used Goof Off to get all the labels and adhesive off, spray painted the lids silver, and viola! Embellishment jars!  I think the can of spray paint was 97 cents at Wal Mart, and other than that, all that storage was free! (okay, for those of you who are detectives, you may have noticed six Ikea jars above the others...I got those a really long time ago for uber cheap.)

Here's the ribbon storage idea that I thought was brilliant.  We got the plans and general idea from Nichole Heady's blog  Of course, her ribbon doesn't look as straggeldy as mine!  But they used pieces of crown molding on the front of each shelf.  Crown molding is cut on a diagonal, so the ribbon sits in there, leaning up against the molding, and pulls easily when you need to cut off a piece...genius!

Here is how I've decided to store my cardstock scraps.  I saw this idea over on Nicki's blog and changed it around a little to work for me.  Nicki's is way bigger and  prettier than mine, but I like mine, since I can leave it sitting right on my desk ready to use whenever I'm working.  I just cut small circles of the colors I had, and glued them to old file folders that I cut in to dividers.  It's all sitting in a shoebox size plastic container at arm's length!

Here's two ideas that I really like.  Since it would be really hard for me to climb under the desk to plug things in periodically, we mounted a power strip/surge protector on the inside of the desk.  Any time I need to plug in a glue gun, my Cricut, whatever, it can go right there, and I don't even need to lean over to do it! 

The second idea here is the curtains I made to go under the desk.  I'm also a crazy extreme couponer, so I have some really ugly file cabinets that I keep my newspaper inserts in.  Those fit right up under the desk, along with some other bulky items, and you never have to see any of them, but the curtain slides to the side if you need to use anything under there!

The last functional feature I really love is the door!  They cut it in half for me!!  Why, you may ask?    To keep my room and my paper hair-free from...

Bailey and Alyce, and...

J.D. and...

Megan, and...

Spottie, and...

Jack.  Hey Jack, what are you doing in my new craft room???  I guess he had to give his seal of approval!!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my little corner of the world.  I'm going to get off my keister and make a video pretty soon too.  I'll let you know...ie., don't hold your breath!

For those of you who took the crash course and haven't read the history behind this room, all of the furniture was custom built by my neighbor Chris.  His wife Suzanne, did the designing, painting, and tons of other stuff.  They ripped up my disgusting carpet, replaced the electrical outlets, put in new GLORIOUS lighting, cut the door in half...everything!  Of course my sweet hubby helped with painting the trim and other sundry jobs! (I heart him!)  Out of pocket, this room cost us a grand total of $22.  Yes, $22.  No, that wasn't a typo.  We exchanged the neighbors redoing the room for me dog and housesitting for them while they're on vacation.  Yes, I owe them quite a bit of dogsitting!  And Chris says he would love to build special orders for any of you who may live close ;)

Challenge Time!

I realized I haven't entered any challenges lately...or even posted any projects lately!  And I call this a scrapbooking blog?!?!  I had better get to work!

Here's my entry for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog...Challenge #79, Leaves Are Falling.  I don't think I could have made a project any more literal than that...the leaves are falling all over my page!  This is a picture my kids had done for me for Christmas a few years ago.  The real leaves in the picture just made me want to add more.

In other news, MY CRAFTROOM IS DONE!!!  I have one more little thing in there to do, but I'm not going to worry about it for the moment.  I'm taking pics today, and I should have them up either tonight or tomorrow, so make sure and check back to see the new craftroom!!!!

Exciting Stuff!

I've been following Megan Elizabeth from Above Rubies Studio for a while now.  She's got some great videos on just about everything you could ever want to know about your Cricut, Imagine, and Gypsy.  She's also just recently come out with a line of paper called Paper Layerz, that is about the coolest thing I've seen in a long time!   If you're interested in checking out her amazing stuff, click here.

So I'm super stoked to announce that she has started a new affiliate program to give back to those of us who have helped her to become a recognized name brand in the paper crafting community!   Her story is amazing.  Her husband lost his job unexpectedly, and they decided to make a how-to video for the Cricut Expression...mostly for friends.  They were expecting to sell about 500 copies.  To date, they have sold over 100,000 copies!  WOW!  She now has more videos to chose from, as well as her paper line, and lots more things in the works!

She feels very blessed and wants to be able to pass that on.  She feels that she can do that with her new affiliate program.  She's giving a 15% commission for sales from those of us signed up to her program!!  Please click here to learn more and to sign up for the program for yourself!!

I've also put her cute little blinkie on my side bar under my page links, in case you want another look!

Smokin' Hot Deal Alert!

OH WOW!  If you've been waiting for the right time to buy a Cricut Cake Machine, today might be your lucky day!  Over at CricutMachine.com I just saw the FULL SIZE Cricut Cake bundled with FOUR CARTRIDGES for only $129.95!!!  That's usually what the Mini Cake runs alone!  I've seen a few great deals over there, and the best ones usually sell out pretty fast, so if you're interested, get on it!

Happy Baking!
Amy E.

My Tribute...

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Hugs,
Amy E.

Hubby Watch 2011 And Other Stuff

Okay, a quick update on hubby.  First off, hubby still has a blood clot, but it's a safe one that can't travel anywhere dangerous like his heart or lungs.  I want to apologize to those of you who have a medical background, read about his blood clot, and then proceeded to have heart attacks of your own!!  That being said, hubby's blood clot is actually 6 centimeters across...in his surgeon's words, "it's HUGE!"  So now, his whole incision and blood clot area has gotten severely infected, and hasn't responded to the first round of antibiotics he took.  The surgeon has now prescribed the "strongest thing she can, while letting him continue to work."  (He went back to work two days ago on very light duty)  She marked the area of the redness, and if it hasn't gone away or down significantly by Monday, Hubby is going back in for more surgery :(   She's starting to become concerned that his body might be rejecting the mesh patch that was used to repair his hernia, even though she says she's never personally seen it happen.  So, if he does have to have another surgery, they'll remove the blood clot and replace the patch with something else...more on that later, if it becomes necessary!

On to happier news!  My craft room is SO CLOSE to done!  All of the shelving has been built!   The shelves and trim have been painted, and now we're just waiting to have the trim attached and the shelving hung!  WOOHOO!!!!  My desk has been overtaken by all the stuff that will be going up on the shelves, so I've only had a little tiny area to work in...needless to say, I haven't gotten much done!  Here's what it's looking like right now:

Yes, that's 10 feet of desk space taken up with ribbons, embellishments, and goodness only knows what else, waiting to go to their new home on the shelves!  I foresee a BIG blog candy giveaway coming in the near future!

Oh, for those of you are are still interested or may have missed it, the super cheap prints deal that Snapfish is doing is still valid until the 10th...you have two more  days.  I've been procrastinating, but I really need to do it!!

This past weekend, I FINALLY got a Martha Stewart Scoreboard!  Woot!  I really didn't think it was a tool I would ever need, but then I started seeing all these pics and videos on people's blogs of gorgeous card folds and boxes, and figured maybe I better get on the band wagon and get one!  I love it!  You can't possibly imagine how freaking excited I was to fold my very own envelope and have it LOOK like an envelope!!!!  So now, I'm in a folding frenzy!  Do any of you have tutorials, or videos on your blog using a scoreboard or scor-pal?  I would love to see them!!!

Labor Day Super-De-Duper Deals!

Um, wow!  Who needs to print out some pics to scrapbook?  Check out this deal!  Snapfish is offering up to 500 (FIVE HUNDRED!!) 4x6 prints for only one cent each!  ONE PENNY!  Beat that deal!  Go here for more info.  This offer is good through September 10, 2011.

Michael's has a 50% off a regular price item coupon that is good Sunday 9/4 and Monday 9/5.  It doesn't exclude Martha Stewart Crafts, so I think it's a good time to get that Scoreboard I've been wanting.  It might be a good time for those of you who are in love with her punches to jump on this deal too.  Michael's is pretty strict about their one coupon per day policy, but you can always take a second coupon to Joann's.  Remember, both stores accept competitor's coupons!

Joann's has a 20% off your entire purchase (regular and sale price items) coupon this week that's good through 9/14.  Most of their scrapbooking stuff is on sale for 25% off, so even with the coupon, you're not really getting a killer deal on most items.  But if you need some paper, it's a good weekend to buy.  DCWV Premium Stacks are on sale for $9.99, but after the coupon the price comes down to $8.00.  Also their 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock packs from The Paper Company are on sale through Monday 9/5 for 2 for $5.00.  Pair that with the 20% off coupon and that will bring your price down to $2.00 for each pack.  Not a bad price if you're running low.

Here's a PDF of the Joann's coupon: (thanks Crafty Pink Butterfly!)

Happy shopping!!!!

Hugs,
Amy E.

The New Cutie Pie Challenge Blog

Hey peeps!  I found a brand new blog that is giving away some awesome candy and having a DT call!  It's called The Cutie Pie Challenge Blog and it's all about those super cutesie cards we love to make!  This should be a fun one!!! 

Above is a little card I made a while back with a cartridge that came preloaded on the Cricut E2 called Just A Note.  It was my first full-size card cut with a Cricut, since I had only had a baby Bug before then.  I was very proud!!

Here's a pic of the yummy blog candy they're giving away.  They plan to add to it when they reach 50 followers, and they're almost there!

Hugs,
Amy E.