Waiting on the doors and drawer fronts

Thought I'd give you all a little update on the progress of my room.  Almost everything is in its new home, I am just waiting on the doors and drawer fronts to be made and installed.  I am LOVING my new crafting cave!!!  My husband, daughter and I each have our own desk areas...  This first one is Sami's.  Note the six letter slots...that is so that we can all have a place to put our work-in-progress neatly away.  I covered the little bulletin board with some scrap fabric.  You will see lots of pops of green throughout the room.

 This is Sean's desk and work area.  I love the way the printer and CPU are tucked away.  Each has a pullout shelf for easy access.

 This is my desk area.  It is anxiously waiting for its own computer.  Maybe Santa will bring me one?  The cabinet above has all my card kits for classes and swaps.  When I design a card, I keep all the paper, stamps, inks, punches, embellishment, etc... in one container.  It makes it easy to start and stop a project.

The key to a productive craft room is "zoning".  My dear friend, Sandy taught me that.  Zoning means that each area of the craftroom is dedicated to one theme.  For instance, my adhesive zone is these upper cabinets.  Everything that I need to stick one thing to another is in these cabinets (glues, Xyrons, double stick tape, glue guns, etc..)

This is my color zone.  These lower cabinet have everything that I need to add color to a project.  The drawers on the left are ink pads sorted by type (permanent, distress, chalk, dye-based, pigment, etc..).  The lazy susan on the right has all my paints and markers.

This is my die cut and embossing zone.  The drawer on the left has my die cut pads and tools.  The cabinet on the left has dies (eg., Sizzix).  The drawer on the right has all the stuff I need to powder heat emboss.  The shelves below have folders full of cuttlebug embossing folders and thin dies.  My zutter in on the bottom shelf.  Note on the wall to the right are all my nestability dies in shadow boxes lined with magnetic sheets.  The shadow boxes have hinged fronts so that I can open them and easily get the nestability die that I need.

This is my cutting zone.  The drawer on the left has small cutters and blades.  The right side of the cabinet has a pull out drawer with my Cricut.  The Cricut cartridges are all stored in the drawer below.  The shelves on the left side of the cabinet are actually adjacent to the color zone so these shelves contain sponges and brushes and other color related items.

This is my favorite zone...the ribbon and punch zone.  This tall cabinet will have glass doors so that I can easily see my ribbon and punches.   The small cabinet to the right has extra punches.  On top of this small cabinet is my sewing machine that is ready and easily accessible for use.

 This is just a photo of the adhesive and color zones.

This last photo is of the work table that is in between the ribbon/punch zones and the adhesive/color zones.  There are four large drawers under this table where I store border punches, sewing stuff, hand tools and other tools that I use a lot.

Hope you enjoyed the tour.  Once the doors are on I will post again.  Also still need to show you my stamp closet and embellishment closet.

She is becoming quite crafty

My daughter is going to a dear friend's birthday party this weekend and decided that she wanted to make the card.  She drew the image and also colored it with Copics.  The birthday greeting is an old SU one that coordinates with the scallop circle punch.  The ribbon is some scrap felt ribbon that I have had for years.

Tomorrow is my September Fast and Fun card class at the Hen House.  It's gonna be a full house.  I am really looking forward to it.  Sunday I will going to SU swap club at Lynn's.  I am so excited to see what great projects she will have us do and also to see the swap cards.  I will try to post tomorrow night to show you all the loot!

Baby shower card

Something must be in the water at my office.  We have a bunch of pregnant ladies...all due around the same time. :-)  Next month is the first of many baby showers.  I was delighted when the counseling team asked me to design a baby shower card for their happy mother-to-be.  A few of them will come over today (Labor Day...hee...hee) and we will have a baby shower invite assembly line.  Take a peek at what we will be making...

We decided on some "neutral" colors since no one knows if the baby will be a boy or girl.  I personally loved yellow and green when my daughter was a baby.  I had a lot of fun with this card.  I paper pieced the blanket.  Used Copics to color the baby and the tag.  The background was made with one of my favorite IO Cover-a-Card stamps using SU pear pizzazz ink and paper.  I used Nestabilities to cut out the scalloped oval and oval.  You can't tell but I used some puff paint on the socks to give them a fuzzy feel.  The stamps are some I bought over 10 years ago but glad that I kept them.  The name on the tag was hand written using a COPIC multiliner 0.03 black pen.

Triple Layer Flower

I got to play with some of my new toys on Sunday.  This was the inspiration image:


And this was the clean and simple card sketch....



The end result was the card below...

The colors did not scan well at all, so I apologize.  I used my new triple layer flower stamp from SU and the striped embossing folder.  I also used my  Iroc Heat Setting Tool to attach the 3 white metal embellishments.  Fun! Fun! Fun!

My daughter is an artist!!

My daughter has always been an avid reader and writer.  Recently she has become intersted in drawing.  Look at the fairy that she drew....

I gave her a few COPIC marker pointers and she went to work coloring the fairy.  I am really quite impressed.  But I guess I am a little biased.  :-)

One of our back-to-school traditions is to cover notebooks and folders.  She used the fairy for her English notebook.  She cut the fairy out and mounted it on some beautiful scrap book paper.  Then she stamped the title and framed it.  Isn't it lovely?

Hen House August Swap Club cards

As I promised, I am sharing the swap cards that the Hen House ladies created to trade yesterday.

Kimber sewed the back layer on and used Crytal Effects to make the bird glossy.

 Cheryl created this fun and witty card.  Love the bright colors!

 Jen created this super cute sun flower garden.

 Liz used alcohol inks on glossy paper to make this stunning card.

 Can you tell tht the clouds are punched out of the blue background paper in this window card?

 Mary made this beautifully coordinated card.  Love the layering and the dew drops.

Sandy paper pieced the trees on this card using some new MME paper and a Unity stamp.  She even stained the ribbon so that it would match better.  Can't wait to see what the September ladies will make!

September SWAP technique

Join The House Card Swap Club with me on Saturday, September 17 at 10:30am and enjoy experimenting with distress stains, resist techniques and Iroc jewels!

PRIOR TO SWAP DAY: You make 10 identical cards in your own style at home to bring and trade with fellow swap club participants and one to be displayed at the store. If the card you make uses more than 50% of product previously purchased from the Hen House, you will get a special discount after class on a featured item.

DURING THE CLASS: Deedee will teach the fun  technique and you will make 2 cards below using that technique. For the last ½ hour of the class time, one by one each class participant will share with the other classmates the card that they made at home to swap. By the end of class you will have 9 cards pre-made by fellow swappers and two cards that you made using the new technique.

In addition to the Basic Class kit above, please bring the following if you have them: (1) Versamark ink pad, (2) tiny thin paint brush, (3) Walnut Stain distress ink pad.

Cost: $10 .

Click here to register online or call the store at 221-6366.