The Cat in the Hat lost his head....

I have had a few days of very VERY productive organizational time in my craft room this week!

So that means I am ALMOST DONE!!!! I am SO happy!!!! Thank you 29 Day Organizational Challenge!!!! This was a great challenge to participate in!!! I am already a winner for being so close to having an organized craft room!

Look I have carpet on the floor!!

There are just a few odds and ends things that I need to organize.

When dealing with this craft room things that were important to me was

1. Everything had a place

2. Things I used frequently were within easy access

3. It would be easy to get what I needed AND easy TO PUT BACK after I was done using it.... (AKA keep things CLEAN!!!)

4. Everything was labeled

5. It looks somewhat pretty!

I am VERY close to meeting these goals and can't wait to share the finished room!!

Sometimes when you are trying to decide what to do with something fate (?) figures it out for you. This guy was on the "what do I do with this??" pile. Well something fell on it, so that was now an easy decision.... it's in the trash!!
A few things I need to figure out.... ribbon storage!! Look at this pretty mess!
And scrap fabric storage!

After figuring out these few last things and organizing a few last things, I am pretty much done!!!

I can't wait to show the finished room!!!

Craft FAIL to a fancy Silhouette design!

Before Valentines day I wanted to make a stencil for a heart shaped chevron pillow. Well the pillow was a huge CRAFT FAIL!!! But as I was removing the extra chevron pattern vinyl I decided I could not throw away all of that cute chevron cut vinyl..... (see previous posts on craft hoarding....) WELL that pillow craft fail turned into a new fancy design for my Silhouette Cameo!!

Isn't she so pretty! I just took my vinyl and directly attached it to the top of the Cameo.

Easy Scrabble Artwork

I LOVE easy art work projects!! How many people scored these cute red frames from Target after Valentines Day like me for $2.49 a piece! I ended up getting 5... see my previous post about being a craft hoarder...

The mat is a bit girly / Valentines Day, so I simply flipped them over and used the white back side!

Then I cut pieces from my Target dish towels that I hoarded previously.
Taped them down... and put them back in the frames!
I then used pieces from my thrift-ed Scrabble game to create the words create, dream, live. I used glue dots to glue them to the outside glass.

Easy 5 minute art work!!! MY favorite kind!!

My last 2 red frames I just hung cute pictures of little man in! I added my scrabble artwork I made for Valentines Day with the word love! I also covered the lamp shade with that same Target dish towel!! I LOVE the patterns of these two target dish towels!! So inspiring for other projects around the house!!

Large Alphabet Wall Art

After re-arranging my little man's nursery I had a very large blank wall so I created some large scale alphabet wall art!

This huge 36 x36 inch canvas that I painted for our first house while I love the colors, does not really fit into the colors of any room in our new house. And since this is a huge canvas I wanted to re-use it! I repainted the whole thing the same dark chocolate color for my new project.

I designed my "design"out in InDesign first before creating the letters in the Silhouette Studio software. I ended up using Arial Bold font size 530pt (so the letters were HUGE)

I then went used way too much vinyl to make this! Luckily I scored 2 rolls of pink vinyl when my favorite local craft store was going out of business for $2.30 a roll, because I used one whole roll and at least half of the second. I tried using contact paper but that's a whole other issue :)

I will admit it was not easy to transfer the vinyl to my canvas because I was working with such large pieces. I found it did help to cut the row in half and work with smaller pieces. Also going back to my being a craft hoarder I saved all of the inside pieces of my vinyl alphabet for a later to be determined project!! The key to laying the vinyl is to GO SLOW and BE PATIENT!!!

To prevent bleeding I then painted with my original bottom color and let it dry!


Then I gave the letters a coat of my Behr Color matched Restoration Hardware Baby Silver Sage Paint.


Since I was pulling up such huge pieces of vinyl I let it dry longer than I normally would. I didn't want to pull up the vinyl with wet paint still on it and have it accidentally land on the print and ruin it!! I also did have to do some touching up on the letters.

Here is the finished product and it nicely shows the size of this canvas!!

I am happy with how it turned out! Little man likes to point to the different letters and it fills the space perfectly!

I am a craft supply hoarder...

My name is Ange and I am a craft supply hoarder...

Well week two of the 29 Day Organizational Challenge is over!

I feel like I have made great progress but I also feel like I have so much more to do!!! AND this challenge of course has inspired me to want to organize EVERYTHING in my house!!! A bit more of a challenge for ONE short month!!! Here is an example, look at all of these clothes that are going off to charity!!!

But back to the craft room...

So I have decided I am a craft hoarder!!! I have WAY too much crafting crap (I am sure just like everyone else!!!) And it seems like it just keeps multiplying... ok maybe if I would stop buying it.... but that's another challenge!!!

An example of my hoarding...

This is just small pile of vinyl scraps I CAN'T throw away... you just never know when you are going to need a scrap piece of vinyl and it's REALLY kind of expensive.... You can't see in this picture but the large pieces already have cuts in them from where I had trouble using my Silhouette.... so they are pretty much useless pieces of vinyl...

I ended up throwing away all of the pieces that could not be used and kept only a few of the scraps and organized them into their own separate bin. That allowed me to organize the bin that contained the rolls.... look so neat and organized!

Another hoarder example...

I also can't seem to throw away craft fail projects. This was supposed to be a pillow but it didn't turn out so well, and I did not have the correct fabric medium to paint ratio so it was REALLY stiff... this should be thrown away, right? Well its finally in the garbage!!!!

The Wedding Pictures

An update on the wedding pictures.... I threw away almost all of the 4x6s in my proof book!!! I kept a VERY small stack (maybe 20) and tossed the rest and added the album to my garage sale pile! I also cleaned out a second wedding album and kept again a small stack and tossed the rest!!! 2 HUGE ALBUMS GONE!!!!!! SOOOO HAPPY!!!! I did keep all of the pictures in a separate garbage bag and won't actually toss them in the trash until next week when its garbage day again in case I have a change of heart about throwing away wedding pictures!!!

So my big progress for the week... the CLOSET!!!!! I removed all of the clutter, and organized, organized, organized and organized all of my totes.... sooooo much work, but its so organized in my closet now!!! AND I used my trusty label maker!!! I LOVE MY LABEL MAKER!!!!

My closet has two levels of wire shelving so I took advantage.

The floor level holds a plastic drawer with all of the heavy paper, the tote holds some fabric and the ugly black file cabinet (that only fits in side ways... boo) which holds important files. To the left of the plastic drawer I have large canvas and picture frames neatly placed behind the door.

The top shelf holds lots of labeled plastic tots. I love the cute packaging of the Cameo starter kits, so I store the labeled items in the box - except for the vinyl, I have too much vinyl and that's in the tote to the left and in the starter kit I have all of my cleared out vinyl scraps!!
The middle level.... LOTS of labeled storage!!!! And I LOVE the idea of using skirt hangers for fabric... I just headed to my closet and found a few skirts to donate and then I have a nice and easy way to see SOME of my cute fabric.
I also mostly have these two shelves cleared off!!! These shelves held our books we did not read and the wedding pictures. I am not sure if these will stay in the room or not. And I am still not 100% sure what I will do with the books I plan to keep.

So that is this week's update. I am getting there.... but its a slow process (and it doesn't help that when I look through pictures I have to look at them all :) ) But I am SO excited about the progress that I have made and I LOVE that this is making me want to organize more in my house! I don't want to feel like a hoarder, I want to feel inspired in my craft room! And I will soon be there!!!!

How to take a picture inside at night... a-ha moment!!

Over the weekend I took a photography class with an AWESOME local Photographer.

I have had my DSLR for almost 2 and a half years now and I have taken a few classes on how to take pictures with it and I had learned great things. For the most part I could take great shots of my soon to be two year old in the daytime, but I could NEVER get good pictures at night inside our house....

Last year for my birthday when I got a gift card to a local Camera Company, I bought a Canon Speedlite 430 EX II. I used it pointed straight up to bounce the light off of the ceiling. It worked great but I was bad about replacing the batteries in it.

So over the weekend at my class, I brought up the issue I had with taking pictures at my house, at night. They were so YELLOW looking.

Here are a couple pictures I took last week before my class. Blurry and yellow! Could be cute, but they are not.... sad mama!

Then enter my class!! I learned that in this situation I should change my white balance setting to the Tungsten setting and up my ISO to at least 1600.

TWO SIMPLE CHANGES!!! But wow do they REALLY make a difference!

The next two pictures were taken in the same spot of the house, similar time, same lighting... etc... I just changed the ISO and White Balance BUT they aren't yellow like the first ones!!!


I love this last picture! It looks like something I could have taken in the middle of the day!
Once again the side by side comparision! Look at the difference in the picture on the right! The color is SO much better!!! I am SO excited to have finally learned this tip! Two simple things and my pictures look so much better!!

Happy 1 year blog anniversary Crafty, Scrappy, Happy!!

I am so excited to be a co-host for the Crafty Scrappy Happy first year blog ANNIVERSARY linky party!! Congratulations Jaime on 1 year of blogging! I recently discovered Jaime's blog and was excited to find out we live in the same city.

I am a huge fan of Jaime's dinning room table! (Probably because I experienced how much work REALLY goes into a table re-do!!)

Help me wish Jaime a Happy Blog Anniversary by checking out Crafty Scrappy Happy Link party! Also check out the other co-hosts of the Linky Party!!

Our Barker Bunch

Northern Cottage

Decorating the Dorchester Way

Renewed Upon A Dream

Little Lucy Lu

Craftberry Bush

Decorating the Dorchester Way

Love Sweet Love

Small Goods

Wayward Girls Crafts

The Painted Pear

Farm Girl In My Heart

Busily Spinning Momma

Feel LOVD Everyday

My Champagne Taste

Spruce Your Nest

That's What Che Said

My Covered Bridge

Design, Dining and Diapers

Creative Carmella

Feel free to link up anything and everything Crafty, Scrappy and/or Happy! No giveaways or etsy shops please.Check out other links, be inspired and make some new friends!Grab a button if you would!And check Crafty Scrappy Happy for features all next week!!!!

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