My New Button Holder

Hi Everyone,
I can't believe I forgot to post this. I made it this summer and was so proud of it. Okay well I didn't exactly make it so much as put it all together. I bought this shelf at Value Village for $4.59 and I got the mason jars at Canadian Tire for $8.84. It works perfect! I hated the system I had before it was actually a pain in the butt to use buttons because I had to do so much digging to get one. Now...not a problem! And how awesome does it look under my ribbon holder shelfs that I got at a yard sale last summer. Slowly I'm organizing my room cheaply so that I can spend all my extra money on supplies :)
Got any great organizational ideas I could use?
Tara

This is how they were stored...

And now...

My sewing machine actually belongs on this table but I moved it for the picture so you could get the full view. When I get a house and can hang more stuff on the walls it will be hung too but it is too heavy to hang right now without some support.

My Scrap Room

Hello Crafters,
Earlier I saw that Christina from Creations with Christina had another 'show us' link up party going on. When I read the topic 'show us your craft space' I actually LOL. It was a crazy weekend and between running in and out to different things I managed to get some crafting in. I did not however get to the clean up part. I decided it needed to be cleaned up before I could take a photo. I was just starting to clean when I thought this might be a real transformation and grabbed my camera for a before shot. I am so glad I did and now that it is all nice and neat again I am happy to share not only the after but the before as well so you can see how hard I worked :) It took the better part of the afternoon to get the room back into shape.

I have been looking at some of the great rooms that have already been linked and have to say I am a bit intimidated but I am linking up because I love to see all sorts of rooms and it always amazes me to see part of dinning rooms or a closet turned into a workstation. My room may not have all matching furniture or be a pretty colour but I do have an entire spare room of our apt. and for that I am grateful!
Thanks for taking a peek into my little slice of paradise!
Tara

BEFORE

Honestly, my craft space never looks this bad!

AFTER

This is my favourite decoration in my room :)

My Second row of cartridges is stuck behind these ones...poor things. Just no room to display them all.

And now can you see why I am on a paper diet?! I put the ruler there just to give you a real sense. After I broke some furniture from the weight of some paper packs I decided to pile them all on the floor. When Brian saw them all together he was a tad unsupportive but I told him I would try really hard not to by anymore and I have been I swear. I have only added maybe an inch to this this year....shhh he has not really noticed though :) The real sad part...my cardstock and loose patterned papers are in some of those towers in the closet. These are just the patterned paper pads :S Yes, I admit I have a problem!!!

Punch Storage

Hi Crafters,
Christina from Creations with Christina is doing a link up series showing different parts of peoples craft rooms. This week she asked everyone to share how they store their punches. I just love looking at all the different and creative ways people store their stuff so I thought I would join in. I store all my punches in two clear three drawer towers. I am not 100% happy with this as I often forget about them and thus don't use them near enough but it keeps them from getting dusty at least lol. Below is a picture of the two towers and then a shot of each drawer so you can see how they are organized.
Thanks for looking! You should link up too I would love to see how you store your punches!
Tara

Still room to grow in the drawer below :)

I am not a fan of the Fiskars and Martha Stewart edge punches because I actually find them bulky and hard to store, 3 out of the 4 I only bought because they were on clearance for an excellent price. These four have their own drawer because of the space they need.

I find the EK Success ones much better because they are flat and can stack if you need them to. I am sticking with these from now on.

And then there are all the mini punches. Most are from dollar stores and Michael's. Before I owned my Cricut I was a bit obsessed with these...can you tell?! I liked them better then stickers because I could use them over and over again.

I just took this last picture because I loved all the colours mixed like this. Very creatively inspiring :)

Scraps, Scraps and more Scraps

Hello Crafters,
Do you ever feel that your scrap pile has just gotten out of hand? Well, it has got to that point for me. I keep ever little piece because as soon as I throw a scrap out and it heads to the recycling depot I find the perfect 'would be' use for it! I have a long pink plastic basket with all my long strips, a shoe box jam packed with anything smaller then a card layer and then 3 file folders for the larger pieces (1 for cardstock, 1 for patterns, 1 for seasonal). The file folders were not in too bad of shape but the smaller pieces were over the top. Oh and the best part the smaller pieces were in no sort of order what so ever then then the strips being separate. So here is what I began...

First I put all these strips in colour piles and then neatly put them back in the pink basket so that each colour would stay together. Next I attacked that shoe box you can just see the corner of. Again, I put all the same colour together and put all the same colour pieces in a sandwich baggie. If it was too big for the baggie it went into the file folder. I didn't take any pictures other then this one because I was on a mission! In the end it all looks so good though! My mom called when I was in the middle of doing it and asked me what I was up to...when I told her sorting scrap paper based on size and colour her reply was "are you really that bored?!" Scary part was, I thought this was a okay way to spend my Saturday night lol. Please say you can relate and it is a paper crafter thing not just me haha.

Anyways, this week I will show you a ton of projects I have made with these scraps! I have been super productive since this organizational binge!

Back tomorrow with a colourful project!

Tara

Ribbon Storage

Hello Craft world,

I am so excited! I have been doing some much needed organization in my craft room and it is starting to look and feel great! Don't you find that you are much more creative when everything is all neatly organized or is this just me? Anyways, last summer I went to a yard sale and found cute little shelves. The man told me he had made them himself for his wife years ago, He had $10 marked on each. It was getting late in the day and I had already brought a lot of stuff but I was thinking they would be about the right size for ribbon. He saw me thinking about it and told me he would sell them both for $5. I agreed thinking even if not for ribbon I could use them somewhere. What a great deal! Brian and I stopped at the hardware store and got a length of quarter inch round (think base boards). We varinshed the quarter inch round and he nail gunned it on for me. Tada now the shelf was perfect for ribbon because it couldn't roll off the front! I only wanted one done at the time because I didn't think I had enough ribbon for two. I Figured I would use the other one for something else and didn't want the lip on it. (I have no idea what I was thinking, lol). Just the other day we finally got around to finishing the second one as all my ribbon never really fit on the first, lol. Below is a picture of just the one and my overflow draw and then a picture of both hung side by side. Don't they look great?!

Thanks for looking!
Tara

 

Button Organization

So yesterday I was trying to craft and getting fustrated because all my buttons were in little baggies and I had to pull them all out of the jars to even see what I had. I get most of my buttons at Frenchy's. For those of you who do not have this wonderful store, it is a used clothing store where everything is thrown in bins and you actually have to dig through the clothes/misc. items. Now... it is hard work but super cheap and very rewarding if you have patience, practice and a washing machine. One of my favourite bins to look through is the button one! Here is where they put all the buttons they have cut off clothing that is too 'used' for anything other then to cut up and sell for rags (yup, they sell every last piece). I find the best buttons, beads and bling in this bin and depending on how much is in the little baggie it costs between .10 to .35 cents! I have been collecting from there for a while and just throwing my baggies in my jars but I have so much now I can not see what I have. I ended up dumping all the buttons out and putting them in colour coded bags, then I put just these few bags back in the jars. *sigh* this is going to make life so much easier!!!