WOYWW #860 - Bit of a Read and Pictures

Good morning, crafty friends! 

I think winter may have found us in the Ozarks. 65* F yesterday and woke up to 36 this morning.

I do apologize for not getting round last week. I'll share why in a moment.

My plan for today is to bake a pumpkin custard and pecan custard. I thought about an actual pie but we try to limit ourselves to the good carbs or the treats. We'll have enough treats tomorrow by way of regular Thanksgiving fare.

Her is my desk for this week:

My desk is a mess in spite of no creating this week. lol  I needed the black dimensionals for an organization project and that ribbon is going back in the ribbon storage. I kept enough out for the project I was working on. 

No card this week because I was working on this mess:

This has to get taken care of so I can put up the Christmas tree. This is where all of the Halloween/ Christmas crafting got moved to 'temporarily' from the shelves where I put the stamp/ die boxes I did last year. Draw as line between the carts and up between those 2 baskets. the left is Halloween and the right is Christmas. 

I spent 3 days working on the Halloween. Everything is either in the cart on the right or in two 12x12 Scrapbook binders to use similar to a scraprack. When I want to work on Halloween, I'll pull my project trays cart out of the way and put the drawer cart in place with the binder on top to work from. 

This is one of two drawers of ribbon/ fibers that I probably won't use anywhere but for Halloween/ Fall. The long ones in the back are black and orange velveteen ribbons from $Tree, mini net, and Fall/ Halloween wired ribbons.

I'm going to wait until Friday to start the Christmas side. Hopefully, we can bring the big tree up from the basement. That's my goal. I'm determined to have the big tree up in honor of Bob's first year of retirement. I bought his ornament last week:

I try to add a new ornament each year to our family tree. I've missed a few years with the big tree not going up. The family tree hasn't been up in over eight years, when we hosted the Polish Symphonia.

The tug boat is in honor of Bob's one year retirement anniversary as a tug boat captain. Scuffy looks similar to the very first tug he ever operated almost 43 years ago. I collect Little Golden Books. I have this one in three sizes so I'll create a hanger for this booklet to hang on the tree. 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Sarah and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Sarah’s Craft Shed for all the details. Miss Sarah has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list. 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

MONDAY MAKES - A Little Different

 Good morning, crafty friends!

No card today as I spent all day yesterday reorganizing my paint unit.

I've been using this cabinet as my paint storage since putting the studio together about 11 years ago.

The cabinet was originally one of the wooden stamp displays at Michaels when I worked there. We were down here working on the house when they did a store revamp. One of the other teachers secured the three units for each of us (the 3 musketeers). 

I removed all the shelves from the bottom half (below that wider cross -support) and set a 2-drawer filing cabinet in there. That helped stabilize the unit as it does have a solid open wood base.

So, yesterday I stripped everything off the unit, decided how I wanted to display everything for easy access and repositioned the glass shelves. At some point, I'll take stuff off the shelves one at a time and give the glass a good cleaning. Yesterday was just about getting stuff organized.

Shelf to Shelf/ top to bottom:

Sparkle Mediums from Imagination Crafts

Gilding Polish from Creative Expressions

Mixed Media Pastes/ Butters

Crackle Paste/ Mediums/ Misc. alcohol inks

Alcohol Inks/ SU paintable inks/ puffy paints and glass quill

Homemade Paint Sprays

Remaining four shelves of Acrylic paints 

Below the support bar, sitting on top of the filing cabinet I have my Lindy's Magicals and supplies to make Lindy's inks and watercolor pallets.

Curious as to the filing cabinet drawers:

They old painting supplies, spray paints, etc. 

I'll be back tomorrow with another fall tag using the Oh Nuts! stamp set by MayMayMadeIt that I picked up on a haul last Thursday. If you want to see that haul video, click HERE.

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly 

SPEED BUMP AHEAD

 

Good morning, crafty friends!

Have you ever started a project only to hit a speed bump, or a complete road block? 

That mess you see above is where I store my paints - all types of paints.

However, at the moment they are sitting in boxes & baskets in the studio - in my way. 

I had great intentions of doing the project all in one day. I took everything off the shelves and put them into baskets that are now on the floor. 

Speed Bump #1 - I couldn't find the extra glass shelves. The shelf unit was initially a stamp display at Michaels when I worked there. When the new corporate (after Mr. Michaels retired) the units weren't needed so they put them up for grabs. One of the teachers secured one for me since I was down here in Missouri working on the house. 

After searching and finally asking Bob where they were, he located them for me. Yay!

Speed Bump #2 - the clips for the shelves weren't with them. I kept the clips in a 1 pint egg drop soup container WITH THE SHELVES! Apparently, they didn't get moved with the shelves. 

This meant waiting until I could get to Menards to pick up replacement clips.

Speed Bump 3 - TIME! By the time I'd gotten the tools together to redo the shelves, other projects and things had come up and I haven't gotten back to finishing the paint storage.

Bob leaves Thursday for a trip to visit friends in Iowa. While he's gone, I'm off social media completely. I'll be working on the studio during the day and writing in the evening. 

I only have a few weeks left to finish the studio before the grand girls arrive the end of July. Crowded in to those weeks are three writing conferences. Eek!

When it rains it pours!

What projects are you putting off - or taking up your time? Share in the comments!

Creative Blessings!

~ Rain

MAKE IT - MAIL IT MONDAY - Sort of

 Happy Monday, crafty friends. 

Welcome to a new week.

I know I've been absent but for good reason. Two weeks ago I began preparations to meet up with crafty friends from Dear Julie Julie's junk journal group, including Julie!  I spent a week putting together the goody bags I'd be giving each of the fourteen women in attendance over the course of about nine days. 

The following picture looks more like I was trying out for a role in WICKED or The Wizard of Oz when in fact, I spent ten hours Easter Egg dying papers for the goody bags.

The green hung around for a bit but you can just make out the orange on my nails. 

Okay... so today is Make It-Mail it Monday but I'm showing something a bit different.

These are boxes of cards I've made in the past. They need to be mailed but before I do that, I'll be spending today sorting them by category and moving to three photo boxes on the paper unit in the filming/ crafting corner. That box in the front left is all Christmas cards as well as a stack in the middle to be put together. Those go in their own box since I only send them in late November for the holiday season. 

I'm off to do a bit of house cleaning then start the sorting process. 

Do you mail the cards you make? Let me know in the comments if you have a stash that could bring someone a smile.

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWW #824

 Good morning, crafty friends.

I need to catch up on my 100 day project. I've been making the tags just not posting. Bob will only be gone another three or four days and I'm trying to make headway in the studio.

First, my desk:

What I'm trying to get done while Bob is gone requires sorting stuff on the dining room table. I'm trying to get all of my bling organized as well as rearranging my fiber drawers to make room for all the Stampin' Up! ribbon I had to keep handy when I was a demonstrator. Since that isn't necessary, I'm working on blending those ribbons in with the other two drawers - making three drawers, actually. That craft box on the far left holds the lace trims I've been carding to but in the smaller box you see on the far left. That will open up a larger third drawer for ribbon. Isn't it always a process?  The papers in front are the printouts for my rough draft challenge coming up in April. I'm hoping to finish the draft of Book 2. I've not worked on the book since last July. Its time has come. I feel ready to finally finish the story and get back into a writing routine.

The boxes in the top left are full of ribbon to be carded as well as rolls of bling. I'm going to leave those on their rolls and give them their own box section.

Here's the flat bling I've been working on. This project is finished as you'll see in the final picture.

Pile of bling ready to be sorted in to categories

Sorted

All filed by category

I'd always had the bling in 5x7 card bags standing up like this but not in any order, which meant flipping through all of them to find what I wanted. I moved them to pockets cut from 4x6 brag books lined with a piece of poster board for stability cut to 3-7/8" by 5-7/8" then make file tabs an inch taller than the pockets and labeled everything. Before I had them in a phot box. This box was originally a sardine tin case box so takes up about one-third less space than the photo box. I'll be able to find the right bling for a project much faster.

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Sarah and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Sarah’sCraft Shed for all the details. Miss Sarah has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWWW # 816 - I'm Back!

 Good morning, crafty friends!@

I have missed you all so much.

I left the blogs & YouTube back in July to focus on getting the craft room in order rather than adding to the chaos on a weekly basis. Oh, I was still creating but not for those platforms but mostly for challenges trying to win/ earn more free product. LOL Go figure!

Before cluttering my desk up yesterday I made Valentines from a past Paper Pumpkin kit. I'm determined to work through all of them this year, get them out of here and the stamp sets in with the rest of my very organized stamps.

VIDEO

The chaos is still here but I finally have destinations for everything and am slowly getting areas in order.

Here's my desk as of this morning but will be cleared by this afternoon. 

Obviously not staged for the photo LOL. This all came off the window ledge I'm going to show you next. I will sort, pitch and find a new way to store everything here as soon as I finish this...

I wanted to move my paper sewing machine over to the crafting corner so it's available for sewing around tags, journal covers, etc. Before this it was on the total opposite end of the room in the sewing corner. I have a fabric machine for over there.

The empty unit to the right of the machine is where my ink pads go. I'll also fill in the stamp pad slots above with most used ribbon spools then the rest will go in the ribbon drawers on bobbins by color.

To the left of the machine is a Recollections organization piece I think is going away. Just takes up too much room. I'm going to try moving it to my journaling corner but if that doesn't work then I'll put it in the thrift box.

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Sarah and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Sarah’s Craft Shed for all the details. Miss Sarah has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

MONDAY!

I'm coming in way late today. I got so focused on FINALLY getting the winter holiday stuff packed away (mind you've I've only done the bathroom today. Laundry room is tomorrow) that I let time get away from me. Life happens.

Notice the subject line doesn't say the usual Make It- Mail It. I promise that series is starting up next Monday.

I finally finished the stamp cataloging last week. I'm going to put the short video down below. Keep in mind, I still have to label the dividers. I have them all cut, just need to label. I hope to finish that tomorrow.

I spent Saturday and Sunday on a course on building my YouTube channels for both my author and creative channels. I was in class from 9-5 both days. So much information to take in. Let's just say I'm glad I have life-time access to the material, videos and coaching with the presenter, Jenna O'Malley and her Soul Bard Academy.

I have a project drying, hopefully ready tomorrow for Try It Tuesday. Not sure how what I have in mind is going to work out but we shall see. If it works, you'll see a post at some point tomorrow - with a short video.  Otherwise, I'll be back here on Wednesday.. I've missed the crew at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday.

Thank you for your patience while I got this first big studio project behind me and the house back in order. 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWW #769 - Photo Heavy

 Good morning, crafty friends.

If you recall from my WOYWW #767 Post, I talked about the program I'm taking called Your Path Forward... a game board strategy for getting big projects out of the way. 

Before Bob left last week, he helped me set up the two tables I needed to begin the project.

Monday, I dove in to the first actual step... sorting the gazillion stamp sets into categories.

The following photos are NOT for the faint at heart but it's why I've started this program.

I've had most of my stamps in a tub since I rearranged the filming corner 2 years ago. Since then I've also added new stamp sets that were available for a limited time through Stampin' Up!  This is where I am:

lined up in front of the sofa

on the sewing table and in 2 cubbies behind

on the step ladder

(i'd moved them from the sewing table looking for a stamp set)

After 2 hours of sorting by category, 37 photo boxes and 6 stacks later, this is where I stopped:

Alpha numeric, celebration, mixed media, mixed holidays, ocean/ water

4 stack collection top left is all Christmas. Then there's food, garden (the 2 towering stacks plus smaller one to the right, Halloween, mixed holidays

Large multi-stack of sentiments are on a table all on their own. 

Stamp set count: .....

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR GUESS IN YOUR COMMENT. 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

via GIPHY

WOYWW #726 - Promised Tip for Christine

 Good morning, crafty friends.

After posting last week, I found my note to share links for Christine on what to do with those lovely UK card/ stamping magazines. 

I have a post for the project. I linked to Angela (aka Crafting With Jack) on her process. I hope you find this post helpful:

POST 1

Okay... on to the desk!

The box in the middle holds the things from my haul video I recorded yesterday (it's live on my YouTube channel now). Nothing else exciting. LOL

I've been busy as usual this week. With Bob's first week behind me, the twenty-one days are flying by. 

I've finished the April spring journal. I'll have the video posted here after it's uploaded an available on my YouTube channel. I hope you'll take a moment to visit and subscribe. I'm not out to monetize, just show higher up in the crafty rankings. Thanks! 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWW - #722

 Good morning, friends!

Wow, some parts of my state got hit hard with weather last night. Tornado alarm on my phone went off about 2 a.m. I checked the map and saw everything was south of me so I went back to sleep. Woke Tabby up, too. She came up and laid on the pillow beside me with a paw on my cheek until the warning expired. She is such a nurse maid. Did you know that is a tabby cat quality?

So here's the desk, then I have a couple other things to show you:

Only staged a little. Let me explain.

I did have my journal on the filming table. I'd just put the 2nd quarter signatures in. Everything else needs a tidy up, as Julia would say. The sticks are staged because I wanted to show you what I am working on.

These are large tongue depressor sticks painted pretty shimmery colors. I need to paint the back side today.  You saw the sticks in the desk photo but here's a close up (though pretty sure blurry)

project sticks

I use these project sticks when I'm working on junk journals and for my monthly challenge. Each stick has an item or technique you can include in a journal. Thinks like tuck spots, paper ribbon, fancy fold, tags, etc. Either for my challenge or when I'm stuck on what to make next, I just pull a stick from the cup. I don't have very many so I've created a long list of ones to add to the cup, thus paining new sticks. I'll have 40 new sticks to add to the cup when I'm through. 

Okay, about the next set of photos. You may have seen the teal cart to the left of my desk in the first picture. That is my adhesives/ stickles cart.

I am gradually getting this filming/ crafting corner under control. The only thing I really have left to do until the stamps are cataloged is all of my inks. I hope to finish that project (the inks) by the weekend and can show you that next week.

This cart was black. I've sprayed it teal to match my space. The top rack is all the different types of adhesives I would reach for during a project.  Across the back, Left - stamp scrubby &Shammy Right - stamp case full of glue dots (mostly from paper pumpkin kits) and Stampin' Up! Dimensionals.

The 2nd tier is all of my stickles and Dew Drops in the board Bob made for me:

                                                    

The 3rd tier is the over flow of things I might want to refill quick. Most of the overflow is in a filing cabinet drawer used to store them.

Here's a shot of the top of the basket.

I've used little flatware baskets from Dollar Tree to sort them. Left to Right: tear n tape & rolls of glue dots, Xyron, mounting tape rolls, bottle of sanitizer, rolled adhesives, craft glues, undue, liquid glues.

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

 Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWW #717 - Not A Desk

 Good morning, crafty friends! So Good to see you again.

I do apologize for not getting round last week. As you'll see from the photo and description, I was a bit busy making use of Bob's talents as soon as he got home. LOL  I even canceled Reindeer Club for February.

If you want to play along with my Monthly Color Challenge, you'll find the MARCH COLOR CHALLENGE HERE.

Well, Since Bob got home last week we've been working on the filming corner. This is also the actual 'desk' crafting area. The big work island you've seen in the past will be reserved for my office work and getting out the big machines or scrapbooking.

The filming table is down at the moment. I've painted the legs and they are curing another day or so. I'll explain where the table will go in just a moment. But first.....

This is the actual crafting area in the entire 480 sq. ft. of studio space. This only measures approximately 6 ft. x 8 ft. 

Starting on the left.. you can just see my 4-drawer Project Life cabinet in the foreground. The next section of shelves is where I did store the majority of my stamps. However, when the filming table is in place, getting to stamps required getting down on my hands and knees to crawl under the table to reach any of them. This body just does not do that any more.

I have a matching set of shelves on the back of those that holds all of my scrapbooking stuff so I'm going to bring that around to this side since I don't access those items as often and put the stamps on the other side where I can get to them much easier. That's my project for today.  On top of those shelves I'll keep my most used and possibly seasonal stamps. Once I break everything down and store in the envelopes as I did the bling (shown HERE in Week 715) I may not need as many boxes so that will be helpful.  Incidentally, the filming table attaches to the top of those shelves.

The unit Tabby is showing off is the new 4-cube unit storage. Everything is in place and I still have a couple of extra baskets! I'm sure I can fill those up without too much trouble. On top is where I will keep my most used supplies such as my ephemera folders, inks, bling and tag bases.

Then the cabinet on the right is a full wall unit that houses ALL of my paper/ cardstock. That is completely organized and I can get to items. The only thing on that unit that is not paper are three K-cup drawer units holding my glitters and embossing powders and a plastic 3-drawer unit for larger containers. 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground  for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

MONDAY GOODIES!

Good morning, everyone!

No cards this week. Bob got home Friday afternoon and as usual, we've been on the go. Today we are working on the filming corner.

I spent most of Thursday, Friday, Saturday watching all the amazing creators taking part in the Card Makers Success Summit at Stamp Me Some Love. The event is FREE unless you want to purchase the lifetime access. Trust me... if you think you're not going to be able to watch everything or want to go back at a later time and watch a video again, it is well worth the minimal price for the VIP.   Videos are only available for 24 hours without the pass! But here's the thing...   If you don't buy the pass the first time you click on the purchase link, the price goes up... so make your decision the first go round. You'll be glad you did. I think Brandi said there would be another the end of March as she has other stuff going on in July when she normally runs the next round.

Okay..  So no cards, but lots of video watching, downloading free tutorials and signing up for lots of emails I'll probably wind up dropping.

BUT... I did fall in love with a product that apparently has been around awhile.  I'm always late to the party LOL

Have you heard of STENCIL 360*?

I'm going to link you to Ardyth's video because I think it's one of the best. Justine Hovey also has a really good one, but here's Ardyth's:

You'll find the product on the Penguin Palace website. They are out of Canada. My starter kit, storage bag and one other stencil set should arrive Thursday or Friday. LOL

I'll be doing tutorials and plays in the near future. Keep in mind... whether you are a card maker, a scrapbooker or play with junk journaling.. THIS product has sooo many possibilities.

I also networked in the livestream chats quite a bit and had requests for tutorials using other products so I'll be busy this summer.

Okay... I'm recording a haul video this morning before we get started. I did a short Hobby Lobby trip on Saturday. When I went last week, not a lot of stuff had been marked down. Saturday was much more successful...

I was thrilled to find the teal wax melts for the glue gun. I want to make Thank You seals for my etsy gift packages. I also picked up charms for the mermaid journals, four wink of stella pens, a package of misters and four packages of different types coils for the cinch - 2 coil and 2 D style. The little blue crystal cup was from the Easter Spring Shop line. I'm going to use it to put my fine tip glue bottle in upside down when I'm working on a project. Then there's one other item up in the top right you can't see very well....

It is called a Glitter Vac from We R Memory Keepers. I saw one on the shelf for $15, but then looked behind and there was one for $10!!!  You recharge with a USB and use it to vacuum up all the little bits on your work desk. You can also run it across your keyboard.  I've been wanting one so grabbed this. I figure what I saved on the clearance more than paid for this new addition to my office... and it's teal!

okay... I'll be posting pics to my IG account for the #100dayproject. I have day 3, 4, 5 to post yet but thought I'd share them with you here. All about the studio progress...

The adhesives from off of one cart are all sorted and ready to go here:

I took all the punches off of this cart, sprayed it Teal and now I'll have all different styles of adhesives on hand next to my table. I've already put a liner in the middle tray and Bob trimmed down my stickles tray to fit in there. But since I'm not using the black carts anymore, the tray had been stored in, the tray had to be reconfigured to fit.

The punch cart is finished!

All of the punches I use most are on this cart. Most of the seasonal punches are in a rack on the end of my big work island.  I was even able to add the crocodiles and standard hole punches thanks to the clip on containers on the side. 

That's it for me. 

I'll be back Wednesday with our March Challenge chat and our stick samples on Thursday. Other than that, pretty quiet here this week as I have Bob home to help whip the studio into shape. 

Are you doing the #100dayproject?  Some have told me they were inspired to use the challenge to organize as I am doing. I'd love to hear what you're up to!

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWW #716 & #100dayproject - Day 1

 Good morning, everyone!

Before I get to my desk, I want to remind everyone there are only a couple of days left to sign up for the Card Makers Summit. We kick off the event tonight with a chat on YouTube then the classes begin tomorrow. This is all FREE unless you choose to buy the lifetime all-access pass. But FREE is good. Make some time to Play. If you know any of the instructors, feel free to contact them for their link. 

I am promoting Tiffany Solorio. She will be my guest in the studio tomorrow! Here is Tiffany's Link

You can also find out more by watching Tiffany's video HERE

Quick peek at my desk then you'll see where I'm going with picture number 2:

This is all of my 'most reached for' punches. They fill 3 shelves of a craft cart. On top of the punches, I have the diagram for placement of items in the cube storage. You can see the progress - or lack there of - HERE.

Items to the right are what came out of the top of the cart that will NOT go back in. The stack of junk mail envelopes with the pink clip... those are junk mail envelopes cut in 1/2 to make tuck spot belly bands for junk journals. I got the idea from Scrapbooking With Me on YouTube. Once I can get back to crafting, I'll get those turned into covered bases that I can then just decorate as needed for a specific journal.

I've pulled them all out of the craft cart because I'm prepping for my Day 1 project of the #100DayProject. You can find information for that HERE. Basically, you plan to do one creative thing every day for the next 100 days. I failed miserably at the creative last year so I decided to use the challenge this year to get the studio in order... one Day - one Task at a time. 

I have 3 black  craft carts. The one with all of my adhesives has a handle and won't fit between the Project Life cabinet and the filming table. So I pulled all of the punches off the one without a handle and did this:

Yep. We finally had a warm enough day this week I could spray the black cart teal to match the creative corner and add a pop of color. 

I'm giving this a few days to cure then I'll sort out all of my adhesives and put them on this cart next to my filming table. Then I'll put all the punches on the one I take the adhesives off of.

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 

 Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

A DIFFERENT MONDAY - #100dayproject

 Good morning, crafty friends!

I've been so busy working on trying to get the filming corner done that I've not done any cards.  With that in mind, I thought I'd show you what I am doing.

Incidentally, my #100dayprojectd is to get the studio in order. 100 days and 100 projects should see me there, right? Well... Hmmm

I've been focusing on the filming corner. Once it's done, I can continue to put together content while I work my way out into the rest of the room. 

I hit a couple of bumps with the cube storage last week but managed to push through until I hit one that I just have to have Bob take care of. So much for having the stuff out of the living room before he gets home. ::: sigh :::

I showed you the empty space a couple of weeks ago. If you missed that, you can see the picture HERE.

That empty space was filled with 3 black mesh carts I bought on clearance at Office Depot several years ago. Each was comprised of 2 drawers. A deep bottom drawer for hanging file folders then a shallower top drawer. I bought them with the intention of keeping my Stampin' Up! business files and overstock of cardstock in the bottom drawers then other business/ and ink storage in the top drawers. The problem was, the bottom drawers could not handle weight of either the file folders or cardstock. I'd pull the drawer out but when I tried to put them back, the frame would torque. I'd have to take everything out of the drawer, straighten the frame then try again. Such a pain!

Here is a similar cart on AMAZON except with 3 drawers

I tried remedying the problem by moving the overstock cardstock to a milk crate in the warehouse. but the frames had just been done in and I only put things in those deeper drawers that were light weight and weren't needed often. 

I finally got frustrated enough that I had to have a better option. Then I had the idea for cube storage. 

Here's where I am and I'll explain why there are only 3

There will be a 4th cube top left. But there is a 1x4 brace under that end of the shelf  against the back wall that is about 1/2" too low to allow the top unit to slide back against the wall. I've cried uncle and decided that is just something Bob is going to have to take care of. I think he can do it without having to take the whole shelf down. 

I have drawn out the cubes and noted what will go where. There will be 4 teal cube storage boxes with lighter weight items in them and I think Bob can add a shelf to 2 of them so that I don't have wasted space... like the bottom right where my ink spots/ refills will go. 

My only challenge at the moment is how to reconfigure the stickles storage Bob built me - custom made to fit one of the metal drawers.

As you can see, I can spare a hole or two that might make it fit in one of the cubbies.

That's it for me. I will be back Wednesday with our final February stick pull and WOYWW. Thursday we'll have a complete interview with one of Tim Holtz' makers - Tiffany Solorio. Friday, the element from the stick pull then Reindeer Club on Saturday. Going to be a busy week so don't miss a minute!!!

Creative Blessings

~Kelly

WOYWW #715 & #KCDFebJJ23 Week 3 Challenge

 Good morning, crafty friends!

Wow... just rolling into 8 a.m. and I thought I was running late this morning. 

First off, this is my 'desk' for the week:

This is my filming corner and the desk should be to the left in front of those shelves but I've taken everything out of the space that I can to make room for improvements. I have cube storage units to put together today then I'm hoping (if I measured correctly) that 4 of them will fit below that window ledge (that I still need to clear off before I start).

As part of this whole studio redo, I took one day last week to sort gather all of my bling and sort out. 

This is just a small portion of what I have:

Back in 2021 I ordered THESE bags from Amazon with the plan to store all of my stamp sets in. I'm hoping to finally get to that project next month.

In the mean time, I took 55 of them, lined each with a piece of poster board for stability and put each bling type in their own bag.  This way I can store them in a photo box and flip through to find what I need. I may still pull the basic colors from the scrap rack and add them to here since when working on a project, unless it's theme specific, I may not know what I want to use.

I chose not to cut the sealing edge off in case I want to use the 'empty' bag for something else later. They are sized for 5x7 cards.

Week 3 Stick Pull for the February challenge:

In tomorrow's video we'll be making doilies for our journals. They can also be used on cards. No crochet hook/ thread required. Intriqued? 

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

  Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

WOYWW #687

 Good morning, friends!

Where did July go? Has anyone seen it? Left without so much as a goodbye!

No animals this week but I'm glad you enjoyed my visitors last week. I think even they are hiding in the heat. Well, except for the one squirrel who keeps coming up on the back deck and rattling his feed can. 

I've managed to get the ladder shelves and the work table moved back into their spots.

Die cutting station with photo boxes ready to be filled with all of the dies. I'm still thinking about covering them with the teal & white Moroccan patterned shelf liner. or at the very least, two of them so that I could have white/ pattern - top shelf, and pattern/ white bottom shelf. We shall see.

The planner shelf is back in operation. The boxes are bird suet cake boxes covered in the blue Moroccan shelf liner I'm considering for the die cutting shelves. What do you think about my idea to cover part of the boxes on the die cutting so I have a checker-board effect.

What you came for...

The desk is covered mostly in items for the bee journals, except for the LIFE magazine from 1963.That particular issue contains a story as told by the last man to see President Lincoln's face before the sarcophagus was placed in it's final resting place. If you're a Lincoln aficionado, or even just a history buff, I'm linking the YouTube video telling of Lincoln's multiple burials until this final entombment.  

Finally, a shot of the bee journals in progress...

Each pile contains the journal signature, pieces for the cover as well as completed embellishments and components of things to be finished.

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Julia and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Stamping Ground for all the details. Miss Julia has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly