My Craft Nook Part 1 ~~ IT'S FINALLY DONE!!!!!!

IT'S DONE!!!! IT'S DONE!!!!! Can you believe it??? It's only taken me... .how.... many months to get this craft nook together??? BUT .... IT'S DONE!!!!!!

Here is what it looked like when it was Ruby's nook and you can see where the bed was. AiAi has been really destructive and I didn't want him to ruin Ruby's things, so I've moved some things out of his reach and packed some things away and will bring them out when he's old enough to understand how precious they are to us.

SO...... without further delay!!!! Here is MY CRAFT NOOK!!!!!!! =D

I've seperated showing it to you into 6 sections/posts that make sense to me, so enjoy checking out my Happy Place!!

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This is the dresser that used to be in our closet. It now holds fabric and crochet stuff.

The brown letter sorter on top has all kinds of little sewing notions in nice little categories. I have my sewing machine on the right side, ironing board and iron on the left side. The ironing board is right beside the door.


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Here is the top of the dresser. I'll tell you what things are in the following pictures.


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Left side of drawers has all fabrics in it. I have a few more to wash and put away.


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The bottom drawer has purse projects and stuffing. Then the 2 top drawers have some yarn (which I need some more colours of) and crochet hooks. Back in there somewhere are some knitting needles, I gave up on knitting again, who wants to come for a visit and teach me to knit??

I crochet hats for Sick Kids Hospital, primarily for the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and Cancer Ward. You can see my blog I've dedicated to Ruby here. Please do all that you can to help these children. If you don't knit, crochet or sew, think of finding a group who does and donate yarn to them. We are always in need of yarn. I make about 250-300 hats a year and it can get really expensive. I will always accept donate wool. Please leave me a comment with your email if you would like to send some. Just keep in mind that it has to be soft for their little heads, especially the precious ones in the cancer ward.


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This is top of the letter organizer and it's the one on the left side.

Very top is my stuff for making Italian Charms.
Middle are beads and jewellery stuff.
Bottom are all the tags and things that go on my donated hats.


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I've had this vase for a really long time but because Daniel is sensitive to flowers, we never have them in the house, it really bugs his allergies and asthma. Well!!! I found a use for it. It houses my clothespins and rods for when I make korker bows.

You will also meet Ginger, the mad money saver. Isn't she adorable?? She helps me save money hehe. Melody found that little box of hummingbird pencil crayons and gave it to me. Isn't she a sweetie??


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This is all ribbony stuff for my bow making stuff.

Top is misc stray ribbons and my glue gun atm.
Middle is korker bows and neat little shaped bows.
Bottom are my itty bitty skinny ribbons and ones from packages or presents we've received.

Now.... onto the paper/card making posts!!!! Are you ready?? Grab a latte and dive in!!!! =D

Craft Nook Part 2

Here we go onto the paper area!!! Which is pretty much almost all of my craft nook.

Beside the dresser is this shoe organizer that has 2 baskets with stamps/glues. The shelf below are my chalks, little squares of papers and misc things. Below that is the power cord and pedal to my sewing machine. The purple and green container has all my ribbons for my hair bows. I'll have to show that sometime just for fun.


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Here is a better shot at my inks on the left, and glues and daubers on the right.


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This is my inspiration board. You'll see a little glass hummingbird hanging near it, I have 3 of them in the room and we collect them now because of Ruby. She never talked but she would hum her sentences. My daughter Melody said that Ruby was like a hummingbird and there is a ruby throated hummingbird, so we collect them now. =D

I put things that inspire me and goals (ahem pink slice) I am working towards.


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This is the shelving unit of paper craftage!!!! I'll go into more detail with the pictures below.


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On the very top, on the left is my 12" x 12" box that has extra supplies in it that I use regularly. On top of that are my copic marker refills. Beside those are my finished cards. I don't have a better home for them, so this container works well and keeps the dust off of them.

The shelf below going from left to right.....

My containers of embossing powders. They each have their own little spoon and I find it much easier to hold the image in the box and sprinkle on some powder, then flick so the powder goes right back into the container.

The two boxes hold stamped images that haven't been coloured in yet. When I stamp, I always make a few extra stamped images for later on. Next is baby wipes, you can never have too many baby wipes!! Then there is temp adhesive and rubbing alcohol behind the pink container that holds my decorative scissors and beside that is my circle cutter.


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The next two shelves are my fun shelves. The top one in the picture is where I take my photos of my cards. I took thick thick bristol board stuff (but like styrofoam only more durable) and cut it to size. On the left side are little bottles that used to have body lotions and stuff in it, now they have little glittery flowers hehe. On the right are my tim holtz inks and some sickles glittery heavenliness!!! The effect of glitter without the mess... ahhh.....

Below that shelf is my paper storage. You can see the post I did about it here. The binders that are on that shelf hold my past card ideas and my full stamped images so I can just flip through the binder and decide what I want to stamp with.


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The bottom shelves host my stamps in cd cases and on that same shelf are some cute photo albums that need some homes at some point. On the very bottom are my magazines. I just purged through a bunch of them so there are a few empty magazine holders. On the very far right are all of my cross stitch patterns and books.


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Here is a closeup of my cd cases with my stamps in them.

Craft Nook Part 4

Now onto my table. I haven't cleaned up from the card I made today. I always make 2 of the same card and keep one in a binder that shows how I made that particular card. I'll be posting about that on Dee's Thursday Tips this week, so stay tuned for that.

The table that I craft on is a fold away table. So, I can have either one side up, both sides up, or close it down to a little rectangle when I vaccuum, I adore it. The picture shows it with both sides up. I'd still like to get a pink computer chair for this area because the fold up chair that comes with it... well it's uncomfieish even with a seat cushion. hehe


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Now I sit on the left side of the table and on the right side is my blue cubbie. It holds those things that I am always looking for. The top 2 drawers are smaller and the bottom 2 are deeper.


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This is the bottom drawer. It has a box with my most commonly used stamps, you know the ones you find yourself drawn to time and time again no matter how many stamps you have!!

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Next deep drawer up is currently housing only my heat gun. Don't have anything else to go in there yet, works for me.

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This little drawer at the moment is holding just some paper scraps that haven't found a home yet. I don't know what it will be in the end.

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Ahhh!!! My top drawer!!! It contains all the stuff I grab for everyday. It has my most used stamp pads, glue pens, dimensionals, painters tape (which is GREAT for holding down paper temporarily when I'm using my circle cutter), and all my other adhesives and glues.

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I have a little cubbie that I got at Michael's and don't remember who makes it. It has 6 side spots, 3 drawers, 1 frame area, a place to hang stuff and an elasticy holdy area. In the middle area I keep my chic stand and paper piercer.

These spots hold my markers and commonly used jelli pens and the other one has my glue dots and adhesive runner.

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This part holds my acrylic blocks for stamping, my jelli pens, bone folder and embossing stylus.

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Overe here we have scissors. You'll note that the purple pair has a ribbon on it. This tells me that this pair are my tape cutting ones. They are gummed up with glue etc, and get cleaned once a week. Behind the scissors are my different kinds of rulers. In front, I have my tweezers, mist sprayers and quilling tool. ~~ The other side hosts my copics.

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And here is the chair that is from my husband's grandma from the 70's. It's an aswesome chair, really well built and still very comfie. We have the matching 3 seat sofa in our living area. You will see on the wall there is a picture of my darling daughter Ruby. That was the last summer she was with us up in Muskoka. It's a pixel project that took about 50 hours to do. Click on my personal blog to see it. I also did one of my favourite picture of her and you can see that here.

Thanks for tuning in this long... on to post number 5!!!

Craft Nook Part 5

Beside my reading chair, I have my book/resource/embellishment shelving unit. This is what it looks like overall.



On the very top are some of my fav cards, and hey lookie!!! It's the card that is on my current giveaway sitting up there!!! I'm sad to see it go but she is too cute to just keep around. So, head on over to my Bugaboo blog and enter for a chance to win her. The giveaway ends on this Friday, March the 5th.

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On the top shelf are my embellishments!!!!! yeah for pretty stuff to put on your cards!!! In a little bit I'll show you what is in there but first... the rest of the shelving unit!


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Here are my books and binders with patterns, ideas, and all that jazz. This is also where I store my acrylic paints. On the bottom shelf are more binders and my 8" x 8" empty scrapbooks for presents. I digital scrapbook and print out the pages and they make great presents for family. =D


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Now!!! Onto the GOOD stuff!!!! In the bottom drawer of this unit we have my brads, lovely little pretty brads to hold other great embellishments together on my cards. I have a weakness for them and would totally buy more if hubby didn't have me on a budget. Bad hubby... just kidding.


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The next drawer up are for my eyelets. I keep all of my little embellies in these little jars with snap lids that I got from the dollar store. I got a cropadile for Christmas and really like adorning things with eyelets.


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The middle shelf have little hearts from when I went on a binge with my Martha Stewart punch. Those are in a different drawer. Look at all those pretty colours. I plan on buying some acetate and making shaker cards with these pretty little hearts!


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Next drawer up is my bling bling compartment. I have these in itty bitty baggies cause they don't fit so well in the little plastic thingies.


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And the drawer on top are my BUTTONS!!!!! I don't craft very often with buttons but I sure do love to look at them and sort them. I really should do more with buttons. hehe


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In between my 2 containers, I have my flower petals. I got these at the dollar store and specifically look for little flowers that would look good on cards. I then take them apart and put them in these cute containers that used to house my markers. Now I can mix and match my flower parts; like on my card today for the Monday Colour Challenge. Those are from 3 different flowers and look how pretty they are. I have 4 containers total and the total money I paid in flowers was $10.00, whooo hoooo!



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Here is the bigger container. In the bottom are little alpha's that came with a paper pad I bought at Christmas time. I have most of them sorted by specific letter, but there were a few that needed to be the whole alpha together.



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There is nothing in the middle drawer... yet... but here is the top drawer with all those Pretty heart border from that Martha Stewart punch I mentioned. Look at how CUTE they are. Now to find something to put them on hehe


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I couldn't get a good picture of the contents of this box while it was on the shelving unit. It sits on top of the bigger unit and it has these great flowers of all sizes. This is 3 packages worth of flowers from the dollar store. This container holds 100 4" x 6" photos, that's what it's supposed to be used for, but this is a cuter idea, don't ya think??

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Thought I would show off the top of the unit more and you can see the pretty cards that are on display.

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And here is the other side.

This concludes section 5, now onto the last one!!! Enjoy!!!

Craft Nook Part 6

Here are the last pieces of my nook to show you. As you can see in the first photo, my night stand is on the right and well..... the bed is right beside it. lol This is my bookcase that will eventually house my favourite novels. I don't know what hubby did with the shelves so I can't put the books on there yet. Most of them are hanging out in the closet on the top shelf. hehe


This is my create sign that I made awhile back and my Twilight calendar... which now that I look at it, I need to change it, cause Emmett is for February.... oh May come soon so I can see my Jasper. /blush


I promise you that my punches are level. I just apparently can't take a picture of a door properly. So, even though they look like they are sloping in an easternly direction, I promise you that they are straight. I got these racks at Ikea, I have the 21 inch length ones and they were only 3 bucks each!!! They are just like towel racks but you get them in the kitchen section and they are closer to the wall.

Well thank you for looking at my craft nook. It's been a long process getting it all set up, but it's been this way for a few weeks and I'm finally starting to get things organized and working how I like it.

Blessings, Dee =)

Dee's Thursday Tips ~ Paper Storage

Since I didn't get to this last week, I'll give it a go this week. 2 weeks ago I shared how I keep track of what cardstock comes from what place. Now I'll show you how I store all those papers. Since I'm a cardmaker and do digital scrapbooking, I don't have a huge need for 12" x 12" solid cardstock. I tend to buy mine in 8.5" x 11". The solid cardstock that I do buy in 12" x 12" (there are a few because I just love the texture of them) will usually get cut down into a 8.5" x 11" size.

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I have them in different containers. These are rubbermaid magazine holders, I happened to find these ones at the dollar store. I prefer them over the ones I have on my bottom rack (I'll share those another time when I get my craft nook all finished =D) because the front panel is higher up and keeps the papers in there more securely.

They are sorted by brand and then by colour. I don't mix brands even if they are the same shade of colour. For me, it makes it too hard to remember what paper belongs to what brand. On the left are my solids by 3 different companies. The far 2 are by the same one and the others are different.

On the right side are 1. a collection of 8" x 8" pad I got because it was more masculine and some inserts from 8" x 8" scrapbooks, 2. a collection of super cute girly designs that I got on sale for $2.00 each and bought 10 of them (each paper pack came with 36 papers!!!!) and the last bin has the cardstock that I print on for my digital stamps.


I wanted to show off my favourite girly papers, I don't know what I will do when I run out of them because they don't sell this paper pack anymore. /cry



Here are the bins on the left side.



I thought I would show a shot of how I know what company they come from. I keep one sheet from each pack and put it in the side for easy reference.


Thanks so much for looking. It's a system that works really well for me and I enjoy buying cardstock way too much. hehe