My little happy place.
I only have a two bedroom apartment rental right now so painting the walls was out of the question. However I did finally cave in and hang up a few things of my own. I wanted to show you that you don't need the best of everything to be a stamper, start with what you have. I'm slowly growing out of those plastic drawer carts. To the left is my desk, my hubby's old one - a running theme in here - where I blog and listen to Pandora while I create.
This is one of our cats, Mistral. He knows which color family he belongs in: Basic Gray, Neutrals. He 'helps' me all the time. As a matter of fact, he's 'helping' me type this post by head-butting my hands so we apologize for any typos. He gets jealous of technology.
My color inspiration board, color family wheel and printouts. This also hold my scrap tin, paper trimmer and Simply Scored. The little shoebox with the pink bow on it usually holds our other cat, Pancake, a tortie.
This is a piece of old furniture of Hubby's. I store my 8.5" x 11" cardstock in five plain plastic inbox trays. The Designer Series 12" x 12" paper goes into five legal size trays. I leave a strip of each pack showing so I can tell which it is.
This desk is also from IKEA although I am not sure they carry it anymore. It's 6' long and 2 1/2" wide, smooth so no bumpy stamping. The chairs a free hand me downs from a previous boyfriend. Don't worry, hubby already knew this! My inkpads and accessories are in the Stampin' Store Caddy and the Ink Caddy. The whale punches are on two IKEA Bygel rails, which are only a couple of dollars each. Don't look at the right side, that's my 'work in progress' area.Tthe big bulletin board houses cards and gifts I have been given and some small things from Stampin' Up!
Ah, my 4x4 cube Ikea Expedit with attached desk. How I love thy cube-i-ness so. Can't wait to get another one for the right side of my room! This view you can see from left to right: cleaning cube, photo box cube, piercing and tools cube, adhesives and odd inks cube, flat punches and clear blocks, bling, more flat punches, ribbon.
The magic inside the cubes, Rubbermaid Optimizer acrylic/plastic cube organizers. I am a see it use it crafter. Plus these make clean up a breeze because you can pull out the drawers and use them as you craft. I got these from Staples.com, you may find them elsewhere on the web. I have a three tier version holding my punches, an open brick version holding my versamark and staz on, two drawer versions, and four drawer versions. They stack together and most drawers are interchangeable so you can configure how you want them, they clip together.
These magazine Kassette holders are also from Ikea, you get a 2 pack for three bucks I think. I used key tags and good old scotch tape to 'label' them. Kassette comes in colors too. The upper right cube shows a 1/2 size three tier rubbermaid optimizer
rainbows! my glitter, embossing powder, glitter glues in a big stampin up wooden stamp case. The small little 'very useful box' es are from Staples when they were on sale for a buck each. I keep my Rhinestones, Pearls, Googly Eyes, Velcro, Magnets and other goodies in them. The Rhinestone sheets cut nicely into blocks without seperating the sizes.
work in progress - a.k.a. need to buy the daubers. I found these little guys at a big box craft store in the jewelry section and bought them with my 40% off coupon. I plan on getting sponge daubers, which will fit perfectly in each section, 10 sections you know what that means...
one dauber for each color in each family that won't touch each other! Yay! I whipped up a chart and printed it on my computer. I didn't cut it very carefully but it works for me.
The big shot 'table' is realy a 2x2 expedit cube. I got the white photo boxes from that big craft store again, we won't name names, when they were on sale for 1-2$ each. I have them labeled "big shot, fabric, erika's notebooks, to decorate, notebooks (i buy a lot of notebooks okay?), and notepads (totally different from notebooks). All little things I find in dollar sections and such to decorate for 3d projects and gifts. The 'ugly' brown box holds things like vellum, gift bags to decorate, chipboard and cardboard to use. My big vellum pad is tucked in the side there.
ah, of course, I forgot to mention my roommates. All 600 or so of them! My DH collects rubber ducks. Everyone needs a hobby. And what it left of his man cave, misc. electronics. LOL, poor man is relegated to the closet for 'junk' storage. But half the living room is his computer desk and bookcases of books (not ducks) so I feel lucky that he is willing to give me all of this room, except this one wall :)
