The Craft Room Organization Project

I'm lucky enough to have a spare room in the house that is dedicated to being our craft room.  Daddy has his brewery downstairs and Maylen and I have the room right off the back deck complete with its own door in case we ever want to dream really big and host crafting classes there someday.  It's an addition to the house and it's a little chilly in there, but it's nice to have and we have a ton of fun in there together.

Lately, I've been working on organizing the craft room to make it more friend-friendly so we can invite others over for play dates (where the mommies get to play too!) and our most recent project is hanging storage over the windows.  The room has windows on all four sides of it - three large ones and one small one next to the doors (one leading outside, one leading into the kitchen.)  As such, it's hard to put any kind of tall storage along any way because I don't want to block the windows - the views are amazing out all three of the large ones and they let in so much light.  We found a storage shelf at Dollar General for $15 that will hold three fabric cubes and a light bulb went off...I could easily hang these above the windows to add storage in a completely unused space!

I bought one and put it together but realized that only one side of the shelves is finished with the veneer, so I broke out the Mod-Podge and went to work with some 12x12 sheets of paper.  Here's the finished product, all put together...

And here it is on the wall above the window:

 

 It just so happens that two of them will fit perfectly, and Daddy's to do list tonight only includes hanging the second shelf above the window.  Much to my disappointment, the fabric cubes that they sell don't fit in the shelf sideways, but I had three other cubes from somewhere else that fit perfectly, and of course the shoe boxes will fit well also.  I plan on keeping the seasonal goodies and things I don't need all the time up there since I will need to climb the stepladder to get to them! My next project for the windows is making Roman Shades...stay tuned for that one!

Here is how I covered the shelves:
I covered the first shelf after it was built and the second one before I built it - needless to say it's much easier to do it before you build...I used Satin Mod-Podge which mimics the finish of the shelf rather well.

1. Measure your shelf and cut your decorative paper to size.  The shelves I used were 10 and 9/16" square but yours may be different.
2. Spread a thin layer of the Mod-Podge on the underside of the shelf about two inches wide.  I did this to start the process of laying down the paper because the glue soaks into the particle board quickly and dries rather quickly as well.
3. Position your paper and rub it down onto the shelf making sure that the front portion lines up against the finished edge of the shelf.
4. Pull the paper back slightly and put another thin layer of Mod-Podge on the shelf and press down.  Repeat this until you've adhered the entire sheet of paper.
5. Using a brayer or your hand, smooth down the entire sheet of paper. 
6. Let the entire thing dry before putting on the top coat of Mod-Podge.  This part is VERY important to prevent wrinkles.

When I put the paper on the shelf, I did get wrinkles and air bubbles, but by letting it dry completely before putting the top coat on, the wrinkles went away.  I'm not sure why, but I think the porousness of the shelf helped to pull it all taut once the Mod-Podge dried.  The top coat may again make a few wrinkles pop up, but generally, they all go down and the paper lays flat once it's all dry.

To hang it, my husband used L-brackets underneath the shelf and above it.  If you don't mind seeing brackets, Lowes has a ton of them that are decorative and meant to be seen.  Or, you can use it standing up as well!

"Berry" Sweet Valentines

I asked Maylen a couple weeks ago who her Valentine was going to be, and she said with a devilish twinkle in her eye, "the baddddest boy in the class." 

I hate it when the future flashes in front of me like that...

Well, while I attempted to talk her out of liking the bad boys and settling more for the quiet kid who can't quite dance and answers all the math questions right, I did manage to get out of her what she'd like to give her classmates for Valentine's Day.  Gummies!

This is what we came up with - I found just enough paper with some fruits on it to cut out enough hearts, and then she picked out the colors for the boys and the girls and we made little cards with a bag of gummies stuck inside.  An easy project requiring only the cricut (doodletype cartridge), my cutter, and my scoring board.  I printed the "You're Berry Sweet" sentiment on cardstock using a simple text box set up in Word.  She helped me stick it all together.  I'm only holding the gummies in with a strip of adhesive on both sides.  Easy to disassemble and eat at the class party.

Last night, she told me she doesn't have a boyfriend and she doesn't want one either.  Now if she'll just keep that attitude till she's about thirty we'll be good... :)

A Re-Entry into the Cardmaking World

I don't think I've made a card in over a year.  Maybe more like two years.  Getting into the craft room just isn't something I have a lot of chances to do...I always feel like there's something else I should be doing...dishes, laundry, giving a three year old a bath...but now that she's a little older and can draw on her own in the corner while I craft or just hang out with Daddy in the living room and actually stay focused on a movie or TV show, I should really put myself in the craft room more often.

I needed a birthday card a couple weeks ago for a teenage boy, so it had to be something simple, no frills, no sparkle.  I reached for one of my most reliable "manly" stamping sets - Plane & Simple from Stampin' Up!  Here's what I came up with :

I used Stampin' Up papers Chocolate Chip (the base), Soft Suede (middle layer), and Crumb Cake for the top layer.  I stamped the plane and the sentiment in Soft Suede ink on Very Vanilla paper then cut them out.  The border on the right side is another stamp in the set, also stamped in Soft Suede.  I used dimensional adhesive dots to stick the plane on the card, and used a thick brown thread to attach the "banner" with the wording on it. 

The card came out much like the name of the set: "Plane" and simple.  The birthday boy (young man?) liked it, so I guess I succeeded on this one!  It felt good to snip out that little plane and put it all together, even if it was without a lot of glitz and bling added to it.  Just to note, I put a piece of Very Vanilla paper on the inside to write on and stamped the corner with another stamp in the set just to tie it all together. 

I have a list of cards I need - most of them for women - so I fully intend to break out the sparkles for my next project.  I also have some "contracted" work that I'm not at liberty to speak of publicly yet, but let's just say it will be good to get back in that chilly little craft room and get to work!