My craft room!

When we were looking at moving house last year, one of my requirements for the new house was that it have enough bedrooms or reception rooms that I could turn one into a craft room. I'd been crafting for 5+ years, initially using the dining table in the lounge/dining room (with all my stash in boxes etc and having to pack it away when I had finished), and then having a "craft/computer" area in the spare bedroom, where I at least had some cupboard space in which to store stash. But I really really wanted to have a proper room where I could store my stash and do my crafting.

When we moved house in February, what was going to be my craft room was initially used for storage as we slowly got unpacked and sorted and bit by bit began to buy more furniture etc (we had moved from a 2 bedroom, 1 reception room house to a 4 bedroom, 3-4 reception room house!) and, room by room, get the house the way we wanted it. The first step in getting my craft room sorted was a trip to Ikea to get some desks and a comfy chair - once they were installed, hubby set up my computer for me in there... but my stash was still all in boxes and there was still a lot of "junk" taking up space in the room and what I desperately wanted and needed was proper storage space so I could get my stash unpacked and organised.

First on my "must-have" list was a triple stacker unit from Storage4Crafts - a lush dedicated craft unit with a selection of 12x12 paper shelves and 12x12 drawers! Next up was the obligatory Ikea Expedit unit! :) I got the 4x4 cube unit and also a 2x2 cube wall unit. I also got myself a fabulous dedicated inkpad shelf unit from Inkylicious (which I painted white to match the colour scheme of the room).

With all this in place, I was finally able to start unpacking and organising my stash and now my craft room looks like this:

Desk area

Comfy chair!!

The corner filing cabinet is my one concession to my craft room's alleged "dual function" as an office! :)



Triple stacker unit and inkpad shelf unit

Inkpad shelf unit

Expedit unit!

Expedit wall unit (and yes, the plastic tubs are yet more stash awaiting unpacking!)

It is still a work in progress.... I've still got some stash to unpack (see above!) and I am still in the process of finalising exactly how best to organise everything... and what storage boxes etc I need for the Expedit cubes. I've also got plans for more wall storage.

Having my own space in which to craft - and being able to have my stash properly unpacked and organised within convenient reach (rather than stacked up in pizza boxes and plastic tubs!) - has been a huge part of my recent remotivation, and increased experimentation, in the world of crafting! :)

Uhoh... this could be a problem...

...BasicGrey now sell digital versions of some of their collections!

Umm. Did I mention that I am a bit of a BasicGrey fan? Oookay, less of a fan, more of an addict! :lol: Of the 29 12x12 paper shelves on my lovely craft storage unit in my craft room, 16 shelves hold BasicGrey papers! Ooops! :D I looooove their combination of fab patterns with aged/distressed look.

So I had to have a look at their digital selection and, even more awesome, they have available as digital files collections that have been discontinued - so I kind of had to buy the digital Motifica collection (the first ever BG collection I bought and still one of my all-time favourites).

I did actually have a good reason to get Motifica as my UKS team have started a Book of Me project and I found an old, unused, 6x6 album that I am planning to use for my BOM... it's from the BasicGrey range by K&Co and the album is covered in Motifica designs - so I thought it'd be fab to do my BOM pages using Motifica as well... but the Motifica sheets I still have are all 12x12 so not ideal for use on 6x6 pages... but with the digital Motifica kit, I can print the papers/pages out in 6x6! Perfect! I've already had a play and designed my first BOM page in Scrapbook Factory Deluxe, using the BG elements. :)

Now however I have to fight the temptation to a) go crazy buying digital BG elements (instant BG gratification - no waiting for delivery!! :D) and b) spend all my time on the computer digi-scrapping with BG instead of working on my other projects!

Ooops!

If you don't hear from me for a few days, please send in the search parties... I'll be in my craft room, staring in hypnotised delerium at all the pretties on my computer screen! ;)

Goodies!

Is there any better way to start the day than with a delivery of stash? :D

It's grey and miserable and wet out there but I don't care cos I've got a cup of tea, a mince pie (breakfast of champions! :D) and a big set of stamps (with a CD-ROM of coordinating backing papers), courtesy of QVC! :)

Hmmm. What to play with first...? *ponders* ;)



ProMarkers

Well, I have officially had my first go at using ProMarkers!

They (and/or Copics) seem to be all the rage in the crafting world atm and I got some for free as a subscription gift from Craft Stamper magazine (after they failed to send me the subscription gift I should have got and then ran out of stock of it - but that's a whole 'nother story!!). I should point out at this juncture two important reasons why I have thus far not strayed into the realm of ProMarkers/Copics (aside from the issue of not having any):

a) I don't do cute designs. It's just not my style, crafting-wise, and most of the stamped images I see being used/coloured in with ProMarkers etc in the craft magazines are definitely on the cutesy side of things - Bentley Bear and cutesy animals and little cutesy kids and stuff. Although I am rather hooked on stamping these days, I tend to go more for the artsy or decorative sorts of images... the only vaguely cutesy ones I have are ones that came free with magazines etc; and

b) Although I have always been not bad at drawing/doodling etc, historically I have never been that good at working in colour! Line drawing/shading in black and white, I can do, but whenever I have tried drawing in colour/colouring in with e.g. pencils/pens etc, it's never really turned out all that well.

All that aside... this weekend I had to make a last-minute birthday card (thanks to my mum only remembering on Friday evening that it's my uncle's birthday on Monday!!) and when I came to look around my craft room for ideas, I pulled out a set of clear stamps that had come free with a crafting magazine... they are not my usual style but are also not too much on the "cutesy" side (more the "cartoony" side) and I thought they'd be fun for a birthday card. And as my freebie ProMarkers were sitting nearby, the thought occured to crack them open and have a go at colouring in the stamped images!

So here it is, my very first attempt at using ProMarkers/colouring in stamps! :)

I'm actually quite pleased with how this came out, especially my attempt at shading (and especially given that I only have 10 colours of ProMarkers to work with atm!). :)

It was quite quick and easy to throw together a fun but masculine birthday card using this stamped/coloured image and this was the final result:

Hope my uncle likes it! :)

Ooops... addicted? Moi?

I may have gotten slightly involved in playing with my new stash last night... to the point that I a) forgot to eat and b) ended up going to bed at silly o'clock!

But on the positive side of things, I had a really creative evening and ended up making three sample cards for a lady on BabyCentre who is looking to buy a handmade personalised engagement card. :)

I loved playing with my new stamps sets and co-ordinating cardstock and inks etc... I found I was overflowing with ideas for how to put them together into attractive cards!

Here's the three samples that I came up with:

Cream card blank, SU Baroque Motif stamps, SU Chocolite Chip inkpad and cardstock, gold shimmer pearlescent cream cardstock, Basic Grey pearl embellishment

Cream card blank, SU A Rose is a Rose and Cheers and Wishes stamp sets, SU Daffodil Delight and Pumpkin Pie inkpads and brads, SU Pumpkin Pie and Very Vanilla cardstock

White card blank, SU Artistic Etchings stamp set, SU Whisper White cardstock, Papermania black cardstock, SU Basic Black inkpad, VersaMark inkpad, SU Heat & Stick powder, black glitter powder, Papermania adhesive black gemstones, SU white grosgrain ribbon



All in all, a pretty productive evening's crafting! I just need to remember to take time out to eat in future! :lol:

Do you doodle?

Along with several other people on UKS lately, I've gotten into what you could call "doodling".

It's basically all new2this's fault as she stumbled across this website about Zentangles. Now, apparently the name Zentangle is actually a trademark, belonging to the creators of the website, but new2this started making some "Zentangle-stylee" ATCs and posting about them on her blog/UKS and people participating in the ATC Trail on UKS liked the look of them and started having a go and next thing you know we were all hooked and the ATC Trail was sending "doodled" ATCs back and forth like nobody's business!

I loved making these doodled ATCs... it reminded me of my schooldays when I used to draw and doodle, all the time! All my class notes would have doodles in the margin as I idly scribbled pictures and designs while listening to the teacher - in fact, one teacher even commented to my parents at a parents' evening that he would see me doodling and assume I wasn't listening, would try and catch me out with a question and find that I was in fact listening.. the doodling was part of my concentration process! :lol: It was a habit that I had fallen out of but making these doodled ATCs was a lovely was of revisiting that creative process.

Here's the doodled ATCs that I made and swapped on the ATC Trail:

We got so hooked on these doodled ATCs that we decided an organised swap was in order and new2this kindly volunteered to host it. Everybody doodled a set of ATCs - each with our own "theme" and style etc - and sent them off to new2this and we all got back the most incredible selection of detailed, imaginative ATCs. Here's the collection I got back:

L to R: Gosie, Magpie, Gingerscraps

L to R: ElysianAngel, new2this, Starbeval



L to R: Lacemaker, Lurkio, Dragonfly



L to R: Stash Keeper, Wisher, AllycatD

This was an awesome swap and I'm still in awe of the creativity and level of detail that went into these gorgeous designs.

I'm sure I'll be making more "doodled" ATCs in the future (and in fact I am working on a full-page doodled scrapbook page!!) so if it's not something you've tried, why not have a go? Just grab a pen and some plain white card and see where your imagination takes you! :)

Oooh pretties!

Lookit all the pretties!!

My lovely UPS man came this morning with a bumper box of goodies from another of my latest craft addictions - and another one I am blaming on my sister-in-law! :)

I can't wait to get playing with these...

I'm going into my craft room for a while... I may be some time.... ;)

On your marks... get set... Blog!!

Hurrah! I have a craft blog! :)

After years of crafting and posting about it on UKScrappers, and on BabyCentre, and mixing in the odd craft-related post with my fanfic, real life blogging and fandom-related witterings on LiveJournal, I have decided the time has come to have a proper craft-focused blog where I can share my enthusiasm, and my creations, without boring the pants off people who only read my LiveJournal cos they like Stargate:Atlantis! :lol:

I've been crafting - mostly scrapbooking with a bit of cardmaking thrown in - since around 2004, after my lovely sister-in-law (who is totally the enabler of my crafting addiction - *waves to Helen*) gave my hubby and I a beautiful 8x8 scrapbook of our wedding that she had made for us. She casually pointed out that she'd left a few blank page protectors at the back if I wanted to fill them and I said "Oooh, I could do some pages about our honeymoon!" and she took me to her local craft shops and helped me justify the huge amount of stash I bought to hubby... and the rest is history! :)

Since then I've gone through periods of crafting and times when I've drifted away from it but since moving house earlier this year and me finally having a craft room/office all my own - meaning I have a proper place to work and to store my stash and I don't have to keep pulling out boxes from cupboards in order to scrap and then packing it all away again when done - I have found myself getting massively remotivated in my crafting. I'm churning out LOs at an unprecedented (for me!) rate of notes and I'm also expanding my creativity and my skills and trying out new techniques and new areas of crafting; I've gotten into making ATCs (and boy, is that addictive!), I've made a decorated canvas, I've started making more complex cards like tri-fold shutter cards, rather than just using pre-made card blanks all the time... I've gotten hooked on stamping and started playing with different inks and different techniques, I've tried brayering, resist stamping, shimmer mists, you name it! I've also joined a team on UKS and am really enjoying that - great teamies to chat to and all sorts of motivation and creativity bouncing around!

I'm loving my new-found (re-found?) crafting motivation and hopefully this blog will be a part of that and I'll be able to share my enthusiam, ideas and projects with my fellow hopeless crafting addicts!