Teacher Appreciation Treats coming soon!

The gifts for Chris's teachers are done and I am hoping to post pics and a tutorial for the milk cartons tomorrow. I am just WAY too tired tonight since I was up until 1:30am last night getting them done. Who is the crazy lady that signed up to make treats for the Preschool staff?!?! Oh, yeah, that would be me!

It was all worth it seeing how it brightened their day today. Chris and Cameron paraded around the school passing out the milk cartons (full of lemon cookies) and water bottles complete with Crystal Light Lemonade attached. They were blessed so all my hard work paid off! Teachers work hard and they deserve to be pampered a bit!!!

Check back soon for the treats and the tutorial!

Craft Room Reveal

It's done! My craft room is finally done! Almost a year ago (for Mother's Day) Bryan told me the home office could become my craft room. He no longer needed a home office since he has his business office now. With the boys being so curious, crafting in the dining room wasn't working. Leave anything out for a bit and they were getting into it. So now a year later, the room is done! As you can see from previous posts, this has been a long time in the making. I moved things around several times, we got new furniture, I purchased cabinets and drawers to put it all away, and the last step was to paint!

Here is the finished product!!!

SCHOOL AREA

This is what you see when you stand in doorway. The left side of the wall is the school area. Bryan and I are calling the office the SCOR, school-craft-office-room. I am homeschooling Christopher next year so I wanted a space to work for him that is away from the distractions of the other boys. Cameron also has a desk for future schooling. He can work on some preschool type activities while Chris does his school work.

Chris's desk is on the left and Cameron's desk is on the right.

CRAFT AREA

View from the doorway looking at the right side of the room, my crafting space!

Lots of cabinet space for supplies - stamps, adhesives, embellishments (eyelets, brads, tools), etc. The clear boxes at the bottom are for pages that are being worked on for the boys' scrapbooks. Hoping to get scrapping very soon and get closer to being caught up on their albums.

This cute buckets are from my wedding! They were the centerpieces on the tables in the reception. Now they are repurposed for craft supplies. These have chipboard, stickers, and rub ons. More are in the cabinet underneath that hold small letter stickers, various scissors, and more.

This is my main workspace.

From top to bottom:

top shelf - paint & CM cutting system

long shelf - various sizes of ribbon (the boxes are FULL!!!)

hanging rods - flowers, buttons, pens, tools

underneath - Cricut machine & drawers for bow stuff, cards, and ongoing projects

This is more workspace!

More storage on the walls!

The tall cabinets hold scrapbooks that are in progress, idea binders and tear files, more paper pads and scraps, Cricut mats, 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and TONS of alphabet stickers.

Notice all the pictures I need to scrap on the left. They are FULL of pics from Jan of 2008 - February 2009! I need to get busy.

Close up of the wall storage over the work area.

Small trash can for little pieces of trash and a bin for little scraps.

Lots of stickers - now I can actually SEE what I have!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!!!

Thanks to my wonderful husband for 1) giving me the space to be creative (and relax!!!), 2) for painting the room for me on Monday and Tuesday nights after working ALL day, and 3) for putting up all the shelves and rods all afternoon today.

Bryan, I love you so very much. You are always willing to go above and beyond to make me happy. Thank you so much for loving me!

Check back soon...

I will be working all next week on gifts for Mother's Day and Teacher Appreciation Week! Check back soon to see the final products. They can't be posted until after they have been given ;)

Cowboy Party Decorations

Howdy folks! For my son's 3rd bday, he wanted a cowboy party. I was thrilled this was his pick since I had a few Cricut cartridges with adorable cowboy themed designs! For the sign on the front door, I used the Old West cartridge to cut out a large sherrif badge and then the Howdy shadow and word. First, I was going to just put it on a solid background, but I found that to be too plain. As I was working on the banner (see below) I had some scrap patterned paper so I used that to create a "patchwork" quilt look behind the sherrif badge. I LOVE the way it turned out. (NOTE: please excuse the bubbling of the Mod Podge! I was in a BIG hurry trying to get all the decorations done so there was some bubbling and lifting)
This is my favorite banner I have created so far. I used 2 shades of brown and cut out (using the Old West cartrdge) a rustic, western poster. Then found several papers that looked western to add some color. The font is also from the Old West cartridge. On the ends, I took a left over barn and sun and cowboy from the invitations to embellish the banner a bit more.
At Michael's they have wooden unfinished frames for $1. I purchased two and created menus for the food and drink. These can be reused for a Old West BBQ by just changing out the paper in the frame.
For goodie bags, each child had a brown lunch sack with their initial on a sherrif badge. I tied it with some rustic rope and that was it! So simple. Inside was a water gun, a foam sherrif badge the kids made when they arrived, and some gummie worms. The children also received a bandana (red for boy and pink for girls) as they entered so they looked the part! So easy and yet so wonderful!

Recent Card Creations

My Cricut machine has paid for itself several times over already! I have owned a Cricut for about a year and a half and I don't think I have bought a card since then. I make my own now!!!

As soon as I saw the Everyday Paper Dolls and Paper Doll Dress-Up cartridges, I knew I needed them and would use them for so many different things! In my mind I envisioned cute birthday cards for the little ones in my life, birthday card invitations, and scrapbook embellishments.

This is a card I made for two sweet friends that have little girls that are turning 2 in the next few months. There are so many cute outfits and backgrounds I can't wait to make more!
I was looking through the book that comes with the cartridge and I discovered a Mom-To-Be outfit for the paper doll! So cute. I have a few pregnant friends with showers coming up, so I made two of these and have them stashed away for the right mom.

Girlie Creations

I finally have the chance to make some girlie items for a few friends with events coming up. The elation of getting to use various shades of purples and pinks and ribbon is almost more than I can bear! I have no daughters, no nieces, and haven't had any real reason here lately to make something for a little girl.

One of my friends is having a sweet baby girl very soon and her shower is this weekend. I cannot yet post pictures of what I made / am making for her little one since I don't want her to sneak a peek, so you will have to just wait until AFTER the weekend so see what I have been busy working on. Tomorrow I will have to pull out my Cricut and whip up a card to go along with the gift. My hot glue gun will also be heating up to finish the second part(s) of the gift that will make it complete.

Another friend has a daughter with a 2nd birthday that is fast approaching. I am also making her what I am making for the shower this weekend but I have some time to get that one finished (plus I need another Michael's coupon to make the project a bit more in my budget).

So check back soon... I have been busy crafting, just can't let you see what I have been busy making quite yet!

Craft Room - Reorganized!

You might be thinking to yourself, "Didn't Allison just redo her craft room?" Well, yes, you are correct. It wasn't that long ago that I purchased several cabinets, spent a few days putting them together, and totally overhauled our home office to make it into an office / crafting space.

So why am I organizing it again you ask? Lots of time recently has been spent in the craft room as I worked on Christmas presents and various other things. I quickly realized that 1) I still had lots of organizing to do - the mess was driving me crazy & 2) Some of the cabinets were not arranged in a functional way. I found myself having to stand up each time I needed something out of the drawers since they were stacked on top of the cabinets. Plus, with the 6 foot table in the middle of the room, it was feeling a bit cramped!

Most of my Saturday was spent moving cabinets, organizing the closet so all office supplies were in there thus making more room for my craft supplies in my cabinets, and then getting settled in. You can find pictures of what the previous "redo" looked like here.

Rearranged and Reorganized

My half of the office

A view of the newly arranged cabinets

View from in front of my craft table

My Cricut, how I love thee!

With it on the rolling cart I can wheel it over to the table easily.

I so wish I had a wall full of ribbon! For now, this will have to do.

Next year, this will become the office / craft room / school room.

In order to prepare for homeschooling CB, I made him a little desk area of his own. The pocket chart was hung so I can post sight word for him to practice or words he wants to use to write notes. I gave him the organizer on the desk and CB put in all his "stuff". Too cute, but OH SO VERY like his mommy!!!

The left side of the closet

Rolling cart full of MORE craft supplies and wooden crates with art supplies for the kids.

Right side of the closet

Office supplies, no longer taking up my craft space in the cabinets!

We will see how this works out. I am sure it will need some tweaking, but I am planning on trying to get some scrapbooking done over the next few weeks, so I will be in here a lot.