Some more crafts for the Holiday Expo

Good Monday Morning All! Yesterday evening I laid out all of the items I had created so far for the Holiday Expo and took pictures of them to share with you throughout the week, since I do not foresee having time to take any pictures this week... Busy, busy, busy!!!

Anyhow, this morning I am going to show you a small Christmas planner I created. I originally found the idea via Pinterest and adapted to fit my own ideas. I wanted to make something big enough to be useful, but small enough to fit in a purse conveniently. I've only made one so far, but I plan on making several more before the Expo!

This first picture is of the inside, where I have a notepad for keeping a list of the gifts you need to buy, a small envelope for receipts (I realize the envelope isn't very big, but the planner is meant to be a small one that is easy to carry around, I didn't want to make it very bulky. I also created a small folder pouch underneath the receipt envelope for overflow receipts or if one would need to tear off notepad sheets. Beside the notepad I put a pen. I created the pen holder by leaving a little extra paper on the side when I cut down the paper to make the planner. Then I just rolled it to get a round opening and then tape the edge under the notepad.

Supplies:
Paper: Recollections card stock, patterned papers from dollar aisle last year at Target
Sentiments:Created in Microsoft Word and cut to size with Fiskars paper trimmer and scalloped punch (courtesy of a dear friend of mine!)
Digi Stamp: Skier digi stamp from Bugaboo Stamps
Extra Materials: Paper pad from CVS/Dollar Tree (Some I got from Dollar Tree, some I got from CVS - same size, just different colors), Pen from Dollar Tree

Fall Is Here... No wait... That's winter.... in October... In Virginia....

Yep.... we are supposed to get snow tomorrow.. Craziness.... Well, in spite of the impending snow, I spent some time this evening creating some things for the coming up holiday expo, some paper pumpkins...I made like 4 more after I took this picture... What do  you think?

Quick Edit: Original template from DCWV blog, but I ended up veering off with my own measurements to get a look I liked better!

Believe it or not...

Though my blog posts lately would lead you to believe differently, I have been crafting and creating... just haven't had time to photograph creations... I"m kinda in assembly line mode right now, but don't worry, pics will be a coming... :)

Yes, yes I am....

listening to Christmas music in October...

And we're almost done....

In our master bedroom, we have a hotel style bathroom attached. (sink in room, toilet and shower in a separate room). Since I'm pretty organized, we keep the things out on the sink to a minimum and are able to use the great storage under the sink and in the medicine cabinet. We also have a HUGE closet, which I'll show you in a separate post. But for the bedroom, the only window is not centered on the wall, but I wanted to put our king sized bed up against the wall with the window to maximize our room in the space, so we hung the rods for the curtains centered in the room as if there were two sets of windows or a huge centered set. Since we keep the curtains closed in the bedroom, you can't even tell. Because doing that eliminated the only natural light in the room, I added two small mirrors behind the bedside lamps to try to reflect as much light as possible back into the room. all of the mirrors in the room came from Kirklands. If you have a store near you and you watch the sales you can snag mirrors for really great prices there (I got both of the small mirrors on each side of the bed for 11.98 total for both. :) ) 

 That is the door to our closet. (I know the mirror isn't centered - the light switch is in a bizzaro spot and we hung it as centered as we could!)

 Since we are renting and I didn't want to put any more holes than necessary in the walls, I just threw up a 3M hook for a hand towel, plus keeping it small, you can't even see the hand towel from the bedroom.

 Under the sink, I organized all like items together. In the small front basket is all of our cold medicines (I know people say you shouldn't store that stuff in the bathroom, but since this isn't in the bathroom with the shower and toilet where most of the moisture, I figured it would be find - plus, the only empty cabinet in the kitchen is filled with our daily meds and vitamins) The back basket is seasonal items/travel items that we don't use very often.

 Since there wasn't quite enough space under the sink, we bought a wrack to put in and give some extra shelving. the bottom holds all of the stomach meds, the middle shelf is all the first aid/bandaids and the top bin holds all of my hair stuff (blow dryer, straightener, hair products, etc) The shelf was only like 5 or 6 bucks at K-Mart,  and the big basket was 5 at Walmart. The Small baskets I grabbed for 10 cents a piece at a yard sale.

The hope chest at the end of my bed was a gift from my parents about 11 years ago. I eventually intend on changing the hope chest at the end of the bed to match the rest of the furniture,  but that is a future project. Right now it houses all of my out of season clothes. (Thankfully, hubby's seasonal and non-seasonal clothes all fit in the closet and the bottom three drawers of our dresser!)

And those are my two buds, Bert and Ernie. (Okay, I don't really call them that, the names just came to me. lol) Our air humidifier and purifier b/c I have horid year long in-door/out-door allergies, these help keep me breathing! There is pretty much no way to hide them right now, so I just satisfied my OCD need for having symmetry and placed one on each side of the dresser!

Eventually that picture will get hung on the wall, but for now it sits on the back of our dresser.

Anyhoo, that's the bedroom!

Laundry, Linens, and Guest Bath

Hello all.... I am back... I did not have access to my blog last week during the day, but I do again, so I thought I would share some more pictures of the apartment with you. I was soooo happy to find that this apartment had a linen closet. It was one of the things that I didn't care for in our last apartment... A lack of proper storage space for towels, spare sheet sets, laundry stuff, TP, etc. PTL, this apartment has a lovely linen closet with the perfect amount of space for storing all of those necessities! We also have a small washer and dryer again, which is a must, because we just don't have the time to go to a laundry met every week!

My apologies in advance, blogger appears to have placed the pictures in whatever order it pleases today!

 I wanted a fast (and cheap) way to give guests something to put their toothbrushes in when using our guest bathroom, so I took a bottle that used to have Bath and Body Works Bubble Bath in it, cleaned it out, got out some patterned cardstock and white cardstock, and then adheared to the bottle with some clear laminate paper (easy find at any Dollar Store).

 Did the same for the labels on these bins. The bins are from Dollar Tree as well (Loooove that store!)

 Our linen closet - the top has our iron and spare filters and such. The next has our laundry supplies, and floor cleaning products, as well as beauty supplies, then we have a shelf for the TP as well as house hold cleaning products corralled in a 5 dollar bin from Walmart. That little blue bin off to the left holds some misc. things that didn't have a home or I didn't have enough of one thing to fill up the entire basket! The next shelf is for towels and washcloths. I have a bin for washcloths and a bin for hand towels and I just roll up the towels and place on either side. The bottom shelf is for sheet sets and the bottom has a portable spa kit, our beach towels and a basket full of things that don't have a home yet. :) (Work in progress peeps!)

 This is our spare (i.e. catch all) room. And that is the door. That is all you shall be seeing of that room right now. :)

 PTL, a washer and dryer!

 Guest bathroom

More guest bathroom

 Cetaphil (for my crazy sensitive skin)... and another jar I recycled to hold Q-tips

 Some beach pictures I cut out of a travel magazine make up the art work for the bathroom....

and a small basket of necessities should any guests find themselves forgetting anything at home!!!

And that is our tour for today!

PS - I finally was issued an office.... PTL!!!!!!

I plead temporary insanity....

I signed up to be a vendor in my company's craft fair/silent auction this year. I plead temporary insanity.....


PS - Sorry no posts this week, at a different work site this week.... and I've had to work at least an hour later than normal every day... I should be back with some stuff to share next week.

And on to the kitchen, dining room, and entry way.....

While I'm on a roll, I'll share a few more pictures.... of our dining room, kitchen (with a PANTRY - PTL), and our entry way.

 In our old apartment, we had the palm pictures up in our living room, as was the black bookshelf, but they seemed to fit better in the living room and we didn't have room for the bookshelf in the living room, so we moved them into the dining room, I know bookshelves in the dining room isn't the most usual choice, but I like it there. I think it works for the space.

 If you look reaaaaaaaallly closely in the white cake holder, you'll see some ceramic pumpkins I picked up to add a little fallishness to the room. There is also a giant bronze leaf plate on the dining room table.... and the picture doesn't show it but right now we have some great fall flowers on the table as well. I love the fall... :)

And our entry way - right now it is a landing place for my work bag. and our slippers occasionally. The mirror was a great find from Ikea - it was only 9.99. We hope to eventually find a small table to place there where we can put our keys/work badges/etc.

And our kitchen... let me tell you I was a little nervous about moving into this place because the apartment we were shown had ANCIENT and UGLIEST cupboards EVER!!!!!! It was the best place for our needs other than that though, so we took the apartment... Then we get the keys and walk in to our actual apartment and PTL we have new cabinets, new flooring and new counter tops!!!! (The dishwasher and stove are ancient, but those are workable) The Lord is so good to not only provide for our needs, but also the desire of our heart! They also swapped out our ANCIENT and UGLY vanity in our master bathroom that looked like it had been installed about 60 years ago..... It was nasty, but they replaced it without us even having to ask! :) :) :) :)  We were able to fit our daily appliances on the counter tops with just as much if not more space left over for cooking/preparing dinner. And I put our recipes on top of the fridge for easy access.

But, back to the kitchen, not only do we have the kitchen but a pantry as well, where I can store all of our canned/boxed foods and other larger items that don't fit well in the cupboards. We were even able to fit our trash can in! (Score - I don't have to look at it and it isn't in the way! And I asked a friend if she would mind sewing up some grocery bag holders for me out of some of my towels and she graciously obliged and now I have our bags stored out of the way and hung on a nail next to the garbage can.) 

(I labelled all of my canisters really quickly while we were moving so the fam knew what they were as they were helping out for the weekend. I plan on creating cuter ones, but for now they work! I also created a tag for our basket of instant beverages/tea bags. This way, if they are labelled, everyone knows what is in each place without having to hunt through everything. I also did the same thing with baskets in my linen closet (which I will show you later - let me tell you - I looooove having a linen closet, such a blessing!)

And we move on to the office space.....

Good Morning All... It's Friday!!! Can I get a YIPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Okay, so I'm excited it's almost the weekend if you couldn't tell!) Nothing is going on this weekend really, just really glad the week is over. It was a rough one.... But I digress, I thought I'd share some more pictures of our in-progress apartment.... the office space... The office is still a work in progress (we still need a filing cabinet and I am working on making the cardboard drawers in our storage cubes pretty with patterned paper, but it is functional for now ;) )

I wanted to spend as little as possible in my storage solutions for my crafting, and so far I've only had to spend like $8 dollars on a over the door shoe holder for all my ribbon and a few storage containers from Ikea for my buttons, the rest was pretty much re-purposed from elsewhere. Oh, and I spent $2 for little white dishes to hold our keys. Those will eventually get moved to a small table directly inside our door, but for now they are right beside our docking station for our phones. I also plan on covering the cork board with fabric and hanging it over the breaker box on the wall beside the furnace room door.

Anyhoo, the pictures....

 I put this shoe organizer on the inside of the furnace room door, making it right behind my desk if I need some ribbon, but hidden if we have anyone over.

Right now, we have all of our files/shipping/items waiting to be worked on for gifts/my Etsy shop in those two white boxes on the floor. Surprisingly, it's driving my  hubby battier having all of the files shoved in that box than it is me. :) But the biggest thing is that WE BOTH HAVE DESKS NOW!!!! I have a desk just for me to spread my crafting craziness across and he has his side with the PC on it. :) :) :) :) :) I have a craft space now that doesn't involve sitting on the floor at the coffee table. :)

I am working on getting my things more organized/making the storage solutions look a little prettier, but for now I am very thankful we have the space to keep all of my crafting items in close reach instead of needing to have them stored in a separate room from which I work...

I was able to bring in my storage for my crafts that had been in the spare room in the other apartment, and get extra storage for stuff that had been in our much bigger previous desk... and also fit some more of my crafting supplies. We were also able to get the printer up off the floor too. :)

 If you notice the wall behind the right desk. I was able to re-purpose some shelves to hold more crafting supplies. The top shelf holds my glitter supplies (given to me by an awesome friend who has given me so much to start my crafting hobby. I am so grateful for all her help and giving heart!) The bottom shelf holds all of the little containers for my buttons. I purchased 4 of them at Staples, but when I went back they didn't have any more round ones, so I re-purposed some containers from an Ikea Container set. I put them low enough so that I can easily grab whatever I need off of the shelves.

That basket is usually on the other side of the desk beside my lamp, but I had my craziness spread out on the desk and needed it moved over. :) That basket holds all of my in-progress projects (mainly Christmas oriented stuff right now), that way I can keep the craziness contained when I am not working on it. Behind it is another organizer that holds all of my markers, colored pencils, stamp markers, and also holds my coupon holder as well (making the most of the space :) )

On that back wall are all of mine and  hubby's diplomas and certificates. That wall to the right needs something, but I haven't decide what yet. :) I want to make the most of our space, but not make it feel cluttered.... We have a giant window between our desks, as well as the wrap around window wall that carries into the office from the living room which really help keep the space feeling opened.

God really was so good with this apartment. It has pretty much everything I wanted in a space. :) 

You may notice that we have a lot of black furniture - there is a rational for that... since we are mainly living in an apartment for the foreseeable future and each apartment is set up differently, I wanted to keep our furniture similar so that I could pull things into different rooms and not be driven crazy by the fact that they don't go together. ;)

Wow, this post was quite the mouthful :)

Les Mis

Morning all... As promised, a couple of pictures from Les Mis.... I have a few more, but the lighting was quite poor and I'll have to do some photoshop work on them to try to get the images to clear up.

Side note....This morning I walked by a handicapped woman in a wheel chair, her black lab trotting faithfully by her side... carrying her lunch bag in his mouth. It was a beautiful scene... and it made me smile.... I wish I had a picture. :)

Quick Post This Morning

Hullo all, I am about to head off to work, but I wanted to show you a few pictures. I did some crafting yesterday after we got home from a long weekend in DC (Georgetown). We had a great time, and I got to see my first non-community theater play. Les Miserables was great! I'll share some pictures of that with you tomorrow, but this morning I wanted to share some creations (and this time, I'll actually tell you where the supplies came from! :) )

Anyhoo, some pictures:

Supplies (Autumn Cards):
Paper: paper pack from Ollies, scraps
Embellishments: ribbon from a friend, pattern on bottom of second autumn card from Cuttlebug embossing folder
Digi Images: CDAC
Sentiments: Lawn Fawn stamp

Supplies (Birthday Card)
Paper: Basic card stock, scraps
Embellishments: Hemp Cord (Darico), gems from dollar aisle and Michaels, and HeroArts stamps (inside stamp from Making Memories Design Shop), firskars punch used for corners of patterned paper
Sentiments: stamp (unknown brand)

Supplies (Memo pads):
Paper: Basic card stock, scraps
Embellishments: ribbon from friend and Target dollar aisle (last year), bird (lawn fawn stamps), details on long memo pad from Martha Stewart punch, gem from Making Memories Deco Metal Stickers, martha stewart and fiskars punch used for detailed circles behind gold deco sticker

That's it for now... Gotta run!

Finally .... some apartment pictures

Hullo all, I finally have some apartment pictures to share with you.... and since I took like 50 today (I took the day off... it's my birthday and I just really needed a day off.... so I took it.

Anyhoo, today I will share some pictures of my living room. Keep in mind, it is a work in progress. I have one half pretty much done, and the other is still a blank wall with a tv - which we will build out into a fuller entertainment center as funds permit.... The closet....is awesome... lots of space - half contains our winter coats, shoes we wear the most, and on the top shelf we each have a basket for our winter mittens and hats, plus a basket for sports equipment (mitts and balls, etc). The other side of the closet holds our Christmas decorations, half of our board games (all of the smaller games go into one of the black cubies in the living room pics), plus our extra stools, our vacuum and my grocery carrier.

 The pictures that are on each side of the mirror are actually some frames that I had with beach pictures in it. As I moved much of my palm theme items into our dining room I opted with carrying the color scheme into the living room, but not all of the palm tree items. The picture frames now have scrapbook paper that matches the colors of the living room in them. I may change them as time goes on, but for now they work!

Please, don't judge ;)  I promise this wall will be fixed...eventually.... just keepin' it real. :)

And that is our living room.... More pics to come!!!