Who needs a place to eat when you can craft?!

WARNING-  9 MILLION PHOTOS HERE!

Remember my dining room make over?  You can check it out here. You know you are curious about this paint color!

Before- orange walls, purple curtains, and brass light

Yellow walls, brown curtains, and spray painted light

other end of dining room

 Remember my craft room makeover?  Yes, I have a messy issue... this is a long standing issue.  If you want to see part of it here.  I did that as a slow reveal.  I just knew everyone in the world was on the edge of their seat to see me transform an itty bitty space.  Admit it, you were.  Well, maybe you weren't but you can amuse me ;)

So, in a moment of daringness I asked my husband how important he felt the dining room was.  We have a counter we sit at for meals and space in the kitchen (if you suck in while trying to walk through) for the table.  So I was careful how I manipulated proposed the situation.  I suggested to him how wonderful it would be for him to have a room to tie his flies in for fishing.  A place with a desk for doing bills.  He thought that was a great idea.  So I graciously offered to move out of my craft room and into the dining room.  Wasn't that nice of me?!  Seriously, how many wives would be willing to leave a 5 by 5 space and go to a 12x10ish space?  It was a public service of mine really.

I even offered to set up his office for him!  That is pretty much the nicest thing I could do for him right?

So, it has taken a few weeks but I managed.

I didn't want to spend money on this endeavor... asking for money surely would have put a kibosh on the process.  So I spent under $4 on this little move!  I bought a can of spray paint for my jar lids so I could sort of pull some stuff together.  Everything else is stuff I had.  I don't care for the fact that everything is all mismatched but I did the best I could and didn't spend money so hubby is happy.  I mean of course he is happy, I so generously made the move!

I used a paisleys everywhere as my sort of unifying thing.  Just enough to try to make something consistent.  So the robin's egg like spray paint on a few recycled cans and jar lids along with paisley paper was my ATTEMPT to pull stuff somewhat together.

There was no place else for the hutch so it stayed in here.  I used it for my books though.  Ignore the pile of crap treasure to the side of it, that all needs to go to my classroom.

I put little paisley labels on all my boxes, you can't really see it in the photo but just pretend ;)  Over my desk are my cutting mats... I clipped them all together with binder clips and hung them from 2 nails.  The table to the right is a drop leaf table for the kiddos to do their homework.

My table/working area.  Ok, my clever move here- see the baskets hanging to the table.  Yeah, I am a genius I know.  Every time I craft I am losing everything I am working with.  So I keep a cup on the table for scissors, Gypsy pen and all that.  I had these two things from when I tried to hang them in my kitchen cabinets.  Well, my cabinet doors don't hang with them on.  So I hooked them to my table.  So you can see my ATG and Cricut Toolkit are in there now.  I can stick my cell phone in there, and other stuff I just need to set somewhere while working.

I keep a trash can on my table always and you can sort of see the can I spray painted with paisley paper around it back there too.

This is a black DVD shelf.  It fits mason jars perfectly.  I spray painted all of the lids, made paisley labels for the buckets, and put paisley paper on the back of the shelves.

On the labels I used chalkboard paper.  It is fun and as close of a match in color as I could get to the lids;)

You can sort of see the labels here :)

Some of my ribbon ;)

This is just one of those cheap plastic drawer things that I put paisley paper in to hide my  junk treasures.

 

This is a piece of furniture I didn't want to take out.  My husband made it for me.  He isn't just cute, he is handy :).  The best part is that is where all my wine glasses, martini glasses, margarita classes wine, alcohol  responsible adult beverages are stored.

My husband did this on the tin panels.  Sometime, I will tell you the significance  of the lupine in my life.

So now who wants to come over and play?!

Free for the taking!

Last summer I saw this gem on the side of the road with a free for the taking sign!  I was SO EXCITED because I knew just what to do with this- I learned about it on Pinterest.

Now, for those of you who don't know me let me give you a little insight into my mind.  I don't do manly work.  By manly work I mean lifting, mowing, transporting cargo, shoveling, snow blowing... pretty much anything I don't want to do.  Now, I don't think I am too good for it.  I am not lazy.  I just don't DO it.  I married the perfect man that would truly rather I don't but that comes with me being responsible for inside the house stuff.  I digress.  Anyway, I don't do lifting and taking trash off the side of the road.  However, my dad and husband do.  I mean this was one hot gem.  So I found myself rapidly dialing both of their phone numbers for them to pick it up ASAP!  I mean this was going to go fast and I was going to be very angry if it was gone.  So of course I told them it wouldn't fit in my SUV.  I am still a bit fuzzy on if it would or not but clearly it is WAY too heavy for me even if it would fit ;).  So, understanding my sense of urgency regarding the matter,  knowing I am a complete spaz and wouldn't let him forget if it was gone, my husband rushed right over to pick it up for me.  He was disgusted and told me there was NO way it was going in the house.  I plead with him, but it was FREE!  Of course he made some comment about how I say things are free but they always end up costing money- men!  So I was DETERMINED not to spend a penny on this baby.  I succeeded.

So, it sat in the garage for a year, under a bunch of hubby's stuff.  I finally made him pull it out for me a couple weeks ago.  Remember, I don't do man's work.  So he had to put it in the house for me and all ;).  I did manage to dust it and wash it but he had to rough it up.  He wanted to put an oak top on it but his router died mid project.  I insisted I wanted it now anyway.  Patience is a virtue yes, but I have never been accused of being super virtuous so phew off the hook on that one.

So on Pinterest you see all of these fabulous projects.  I found one with scrapbook paper modge podged to the front of drawers.  So I painted it white and tried it.  Yeah, not loving the look at a all-

Still determined not to spend a cent I got some brown glaze out of the garage to dim the whiteness.  YEah, my son accidentally dropped the entire thing all over the floor! YIKES!  So I used left over paint from another project.

I need to touch up a couple of white spots ;)

Not perfect but not bad.  Check it out the door on the bottom right fits 12x12 paper!

So do you know what project that paint is from?!
It is the paint from my cabinet makeover!  Remember that? See it here.

Rockstar Classroom

This year I am moving from Kindergarten to 3rd grade.  I am VERY excited.  I have done my classroom up with a rockstar theme.  I made a ton of guitars with Indie Art on my Gypsy.  There are other spatterings of Cricut cuts throughout my room.  Here is a photo of the room.  If you want to see more you can visit my new 3rd grade blog, Learning and Lattes.

Step Card

Excuse the poor lighting in the photo!


The first time I saw a step card I thought "WHOA! There is NO way I can do that!"  Turns out I was so wrong.  These are the easiest things to make!  The hardest part is picking how to decorate it :)!

I try to use things in my craft room that collect dust... like my rubber stamp collection.  So I found this stamp and viola!

What is your favorite kind of card to make?

Dog Lover Sign

I made this sign for my sister and brother in law.  Moses, their Dachshund is their life.  I cut the dog from the Paisley cartridge.  The letters are done in vinyl on the glass. 

It was an inexpensive yet personal gift, less then $15!

Thanks for visiting!

ProvoCraft you are KILLING me!

Ok... where to start...

These are made with Noah's ABC Animals cartridge

Today I worked for a couple hours at our local craft store to demo this new cartridge.  Here are a couple of the animals I made before the demo.  (All the ones that were made at the demo went home with kids... and the kids LOVED this table!)

ProvoCraft is getting into the 3D side of things which is super fun if you have a good use for things.  The entire time I played with this I kept thinking about all those dioramas my kids were creating in Kindergarten through 2nd grade.  These would be perfect!  

However, I feel like the layers are getting crazier and crazier with the newer cartridges.  The learning curve is steep!  It takes a long time to create one of these guys, so I will need to get more practice with them I guess.  On some of the animals I just plain couldn't figure out the layers.  I have seen this with a few cartridges lately.  I think I am just going to need to get used to it.  is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by the complex layers?  Am I alone?

I am one of those people that is NOT a visual learner.  I like to read the directions and create my own visual.  When I look at pictures telling me what to do I am actually confused... so maybe that is my problem? Who knows :)

Challenges:
All Sorts Challenge- circles (horse's back end ;) )
2 Sisters- On the farm... You would find a horse on the farm. Maybe not a blue one but a horse :)
Challenge Up Your Life- anything goes
Pause, Dream, Enjoy- Around the Farm

Posts from the Past Day 2

This was another popular project on the blog in the past: 

Welcome to our blog hop!

This is your first stop!  Thanks for coming by!

This was my first diaper cake.  I actually found it to be far more simple then I expected.  The thing that took the longest was figuring out what to put in the center.  I used 20 oz coke bottles in the end :)

Thanks for visiting!