If you've been following my blog for a while, you already know my philosophy. If you're just tuning in, here it is in a nutshell: Your opinion of me is none of my business. I'm not a particularly proud person, and this blog is to track my own life and progress. If something I share here overlaps and/or helps someone else or sparks a thought that leads them to something useful, then hooray for us all. To that end, the good, the bad, and the ugly all get equal time here. I'm just Keeping It Real.
Since this house that we bought needs SO MUCH attention, and much of it must be done "before the snow flies", to quote a popular catch-phrase here in upstate New York, my upstairs, out-of-the-way crafting/sewing/working room is not priority on the Make It Pretty or even Get It Done list. However, I did need a large worktable to facilitate making a living (working on the floor just wasn't cutting it - I'm getting too old for that...), so here it is:
What you're looking at is two adjustable sawhorses at 33" high, with 2"x6" boards screwed to them to support a 4' x 8' sheet of particle board, with an inexpensive "tile board" laying on top, which makes the table 36" high (same as a countertop). I started to put fabric around the edge to cover the mess underneath (mostly materials for jobs), but only had enough to cover the side facing the door, so you don't see the mess walking into the room. You can see some of the mess and one of the sawhorses in the second pic.
What else you're seeing is the partially-stripped wall. That knee wall that the table dead-ends into took 5 1/2 hours to strip (three layers of wallpaper), and I kind of burned out on that particular joy, so I moved on to more visible projects like curtains for the living room.
When I pulled all my boxes and bins into play for World Card Making Day, there was very little rhyme, reason or order to where I put things, it was just OUT. The clutter was making me claustrophobic and crazy, and ultimately less productive work-wise, so I took yesterday to impose a semblance of order on the chaos. Here's the makeshift system for now:
This is the portion of the closet visible when the bifold doors are open. What you're looking at here is two shelving units stacked on top of each other and housing my cardstock, embellishments and some tools. To the left (farther inside the closet) are bolts of fabric, some batting and a shelf with pillow forms, trims and more fabric for various jobs. I also have the ironing board, cutting board, and sewing machine in here.
The shelf inside the closet is created by the enclosure for these drawers:
The top drawer has sewing supplies (thread, shears, bobbins, Velcro, pins, zipper chain, etc.) and the rest have stamping/crafting tools and supplies - Cropodile, crimpers, brayers, embossing powders, chipboard, stickers, etc. Here you REALLY see how hideous half-stripped, unpainted walls and trim can be! On the other side of the door we have the most-used stuff:
Yup -the starving-student crate shelves! (Hey, I told you I'm not proud - this is what I have to do right now...) Mostly ink pads and stamps here. Also Cuttlebug, paper trimmer, etc. Most of what I use every time I make anything gets grabbed from here and moved to the worktable like this:
What you see here is my large guillotine paper trimmer, Cuttlebug, stamping pad, small guillotine paper trimmer, stamp scrubber, acrylic blocks, and these:
Cuttlebug plates and folders, small drawer unit with adhesives, specialty pens (calligraphy, white gel pen, Stardust glitter pen, Write 'n Rub, blender, journaling, etc.) and small tools like stylus, sanding block, edge distresser, razor knife, etc. The red caddy has scissors, tweezers, mat pack, Bow Easy, more adhesives, etc. My beautifully filed and indexed patterned papers are in bins under the table.
I realize NONE of this is pretty, but I just need it to be accessible and serviceable for now, which it is. I started making a card for the Featured Stamper challenge, but Greg wanted to go watch football OUT for a change, so I cleaned up and went with him. Did you know it's about twelve billion percent faster and easier to clean up when everything has a place that it actually belongs? Shocking, that!
I will, of course, share pretty pictures if/when this room does get the attention it needs and I get more permanent solutions for all the needs my job and hobbies require. I do, in fact, already have the paint for this room - I just need to find the rest of the walls and finish patching them (that's why the walls look like chicken pox with calamine lotion where I did already strip them - spackle isn't pretty, but it's got to be done...) I even have the fabric for the valance! All in good time, my pretties!
Alright - enough blathering for one post! Gonna go see how the current football game's going and how Greg's doing... If I finish my card, I'll be back to post that, too! G'night!
