Saturday, March 26, 2011

My Stamp Room: desk, embellishments & paper

Before: a messy desk that day.

 After: cleaner, with my most used items at hand.
After: My dear engineering husband brought home this used drafting table from work one day.  It is awesome and I will show you what I use it for on another day.  My desk is parallel to it on the right side, so it makes like a U for me to roll my chair back and forth.  Also I love chocolate, so there it is on my window.


Before: embellishments, ribbons, etc...
 Before:  I even had some embellishments in the plastic drawers below.  They were labeled but not as organized as I thought.
 After: Candy and small embellishments on these cute little shelves, where I can see them & get to them easily.
 After: More embellishments on shelves & ribbons on spools down on the desk in right corner of picture.
 After:  I took all the retired ribbons, buttons, felt flowers, & other non-SU! odds and ends and put them in jars.  (The packaging of these items really did take up alot of space.) Some jars were re-purposed and I feel so frugal!
 After: Current ribbons in my ribbon keepers and current embellishments in my stack and store.
 Before:  Above picture shows my designer papers in my paper holders. Below picture shows my 12 x 12 card stock in paper holders on my rolling cart.
 Before and After:  I have always had my 8 1/2 x 11 card stock and their scraps in my filing drawers in my desk.  They are grouped by Stampin' Up! color collections, with specialty card stock & retired card stock folders in the back.  
 After:  I added more paper holders with retired DSP to my rolling cart.  I keep them grouped by the package they came in because I am not talented enough to just pick out matching papers of different colors. (SU! does that for me!) In the accordion file I keep my Simply Scrappin' kits.
 After:  This huge desk organizer was an ordering mistake on my part.  But I realized it was large enough to put files in, so I have my scrapbooking elements swaps (from Hot Swappin' Mamas) in baggies and filed according to season.
 After: I removed the closet doors and stacked the plastic drawers. In front of the plastic stacks is my black rolling cart with the 12 x 12 papers/card stock at the bottom and my organizer at the top.  It is so easy to roll to my desk when I am scrapbooking and then roll back when I am done!
After:  This paper holder on my desk holds my current DSP.
I hope yall like my new stamp room so far.  I have re-purposed several things that I really like, even though they are not that pretty, but they really worked for me.  I did buy a new rolling chair.
Have a great weekend!

Friday, March 25, 2011

My Stamp Room is almost done!

Before pictures are very surprising to me- how did I get anything done?!

 Before:  Stamp sets on shelves, punches are in sterlite drawers, and then there was the dollhouse.
 After:  All punches are up on rods above my desk.
 After: Punches and stamp sets organized, and now dollhouse is in daughter's room.
After:  Stamp sets- red dots indicate current sets.  The first three shelves are sets that are broken up (yes, Ellen, I took your advice!) and grouped by topic.  This is really convenient and freeing to know I can now get rid of those stamps I don't use.

Friday, March 18, 2011

More Sew Suite

More of the cards I made for my sisters, Jeanne and Jeannette, made with Sew Suite.  I still love this stamp set and the DSP!


   I copied the design by Mary Brown's card, just changed the colors.








Inspired by Julie Marshall's card.



Pretty much copied Gretchen Barron's card.



Inspired by Raissa Spatola's card.


Yall have a good day and great weekend! :)

Friday, March 11, 2011

Sparkling Sew Suite

I am pretty sure that I saw a card similar to this somewhere on the web, but don't recall where.  Everything is Stampin' Up!, except for the pink rhinestones.  I can see myself making these over and over again, just changing the sentiment.




This reminds me of a story about when we were young and my mom sewed most of our clothes.  We lived on a farm and the sacks that the grains for the cattle came in were colorful like these dresses.  My sister, Ellen, who was probably about 5 years old had a teacher that complemented her on her dress.  Ellen said my mom made this out of an old sack.  I am not sure that the teacher realized she was telling the truth. Lol

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Sew Glad We're Friends

Good Morning!  From the moment I saw the sewing items in the mini, I was thrilled!  My mom and two of my sisters are seamstresses.  I have dabbled a little in sewing myself, mostly when my daughter was a baby.  So I was very excited to get my hands on sewing "stuff."  My sisters, who are twins, will be receiving some of the creations I have made with these stamps for their birthday ( I hope Jeanne & Jeannette aren't reading this.)  I used the Pattern Pieces stamp from the Stampin' Up Occasions Mini Catalog for the large image.   The sewing machine image is from Puns from the Past.  The button is our new embosslit.  So cute!

 

Sunday, March 6, 2011

I've Been Zindorfed!!






I took Michelle's beginning brayer workshop!  It was awesome!  (I need to practice so much-lol). I am glad I didn't take the advanced class because I would have been overwhelmed with more info and it gives me something to look forward to next time she comes around.  Yes, I really did make those!!  Of course, I did need one on one instructions and look at how "white gel happy" I was.   Michelle was so patient with me.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Hello?!! 2011?

My first post of the year had to be for something or someone special!  Joey Ortego was born Monday, weighing 8 lbs. 6 oz. and measuring 20 " long.  My niece, Nicole, had an amnio done and he does not have a chromosome defect, but does have a major heart problem.  Isn't he so precious?!!!!  Oh my gosh, I love every extra finger and toe!  Please pray for Joey and his family as the doctors in New Orleans work on making him
 healthier.                                                                                                                                 







I have been away for a long time.  It was difficult watching my dear mother in law pass away and then burying her at Christmas.  As part of the healing process, I have been redoing my stamp room.  I will soon be finished and will take pictures for the blog.  I am proud of myself!  (and so is my husband, who is tired of seeing my stuff all over).  It is amazing what "alot" of organization can do for your ability to be creative.
Happy 2011,
Elizabeth