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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ABC Artwork

I wanted more artwork for the playroom and originally wanted to for the 3rd time re-do the cardboard ABCs I had in my son's room. (Which originally were bright red, blue and yellow for Little Man's Dr. Seuss first birthday!!!) After realizing how much work I had already put into that set, I decided to just buy a new set and keep them original set matching Little Man's room!

So I again painted a red A, blue B and yellow C. I tried and tried to think of something that started with the letter A to cover the A but I could NOT think of anything --- so if anyone has any suggestions PLEASE let me know!!!

SO I covered the A in fabulous thick red yarn, the B in buttons and the C in Crayons! I was surprised how long each letter ACTUALLY took!!!

The A was easy but it just took more time than I thought it would. After hot gluing a tiny piece to the back, I started wrapping the right side of the bottom of the A. The perpendicular parts of the A I just cut small pieces and glued several rows of yarn and covered up the rough edges with the main run of yarn. Sorry for the horrible pictures!!


Example of what I did for the top. And then just covered up the edges later.

The B was probably the easiest! I just glued a ton of buttons on my B with hot glue!! (My first time using my new hot glue gun with the "low" setting and (YEAH) I did not burn my fingers this time!!!!!!! ) In some sports I added 2 layers of buttons for some extra details! Super easy!

The C was easy enough but cutting the crayons was a bit challenging. I found that warming my sharp pairing knife up with hot water worked best and using the back part of the blade (closer to the handle) allowed more force to snap the crayons in half. I had a problem with ripping paper but it got easier as I went a long. I eye-balled where to cut the crayons. Once cut, I just glued them on! The easy part!!!



I am happy with how each turned out. I was hoping to put them on these painted shelves I have in the play room but they are heavier than I thought they would be so they need to be on a flat surface (that my cheap shelves do NOT provide!)



I made the bunting in the background! I will post that later. I am sort of obsessed with bunting lately!!!

Little man is going to love them!! He is very into the alphabet right now!!!

Linky Followers Blog Hop!

I am finally going to join the Linky Followers Blog Hop! I can't remember where I originally found this party but it's an awesome idea and all over my favorite blogs! It was started by It's So Very Cheri. Now is the time especially since Google Friend Connect will go away for some on Feb 29th! Only a short 18 days!

Here are the RULES as stated on It's So Very Cheri's website!

GOOGLE Friend Connect will go away

on Feb 29 for any one that is not with blogspot

but rumor has it that it is being completely phased out for everyone soon

BUT

there is good news

There is a NEW awesome tool–Linky Followers

It has so many amazing features (that GFC never had). If you have not signed up you should. (yes you can have both.) I love the new tool so much and want everyone to enjoy all the new features.

…and did I tell you its super easy and FREE!

What better way to celebrate a fun new blogging tool than to have a party

so break out your poodle skirt and saddle back shoes cuz’ we’re having a LINKY FOLLOWER PARTY HOP

1. you MUST have the LINKY FOLLOWERS tool on your site to participate.

{You can have both the LINKY FOLLOWERS & GFC on your site but you must have the LINKY FOLLOWERS to participate in this party hop.}

2. You MUST follow the person who has the party on their site as a thank you.

3.Just add your blog button to the LINKY PARTY below.

4.Then grab the BLOG HOP code

You will find the code right under the Linky Party where it says CLICK HERE TO ENTER–

just under that it says: WHAT IS A BLOG HOP? GET THE CODE HERE

Click on GET THE CODE HERE and enter it into a post on your site.

You can grab the party button code in the FOOTER at Its So Very Cheri

You can grab info from my post if it helps you with your post.

5. Then you follow other bloggers–(as many as you want)
–leave each one of the blogs that you follow a comment letting them know you are following them and ask them to follow you back.

If you want to add the BLOG HOP to your own site you will get lots of new followers–(see rule #2)

Week One 29 Day Organizational Challenge

I am very excited about the Org Junkie 29 Day Organizational Challenge where I am organizing my craft room. Technically this started out as an office, but we don't really need an office and I do need a craft room!

So it will still have to hold those things that would have gone into an office - which is not all that much but includes printer, office supplies, lots of books, and my husband's law diploma.

The printer and office supplies are not a big deal and work with a craft room. The books we will talk about later! The law school diploma works great in an office but maybe not so much in a craft room, but we really don't have any other place for it... unless we put it up in the basement family room part.... We could put it some place were everyone coming into our house would see, because I am so proud of my husband for going back to law school after being away from school so long! But he would never go for that! And it might seem a bit bragy to have it in your living room! So for now it will have to go in the craft room...

I started asking myself a few questions about how to organize the room. The first one was should I take things I don't know what to do with and move them to another spot, or should I really figure out what to do with them... meaning all of those photo albums including the wedding photos. What do I do with them?

I already bought the negatives from the photographer for our professional pictures, paid to have them scanned and made my own 12x12 photobook which I love. But I still have the large proof book and the 8x10 formal picture book in this room, and a photo album from our honeymoon, our shower, my bachlorette party, my graduation, and a few more...

I am thinking I will make photobooks for our honeymoon and maybe our rehearsal dinner / showers.... but we will see. I have already started a honeymoon photobook. (YEAH ME!!!) Photobooks take up a lot less space than big photo albums - as you can see in this picture!!

Question: Can I throw away the original proof book from my photographer, even though I have the negatives in a fire proof safe, I have the digital files backed up and I have the nice 12x12 photobook I created?? Opinions, pretty PLEASE!

My progress so far

I started a garage sale box...So far it mostly includes books. I cleared 2 book shelves of books we have not touched in 4 years... Ok we touched then.. They were packed and unpacked at least 2 times in those 4 years! I did keep some books I do eventually want to read and moved those into our guest bedroom, but I still need to figure out what I will do with the books I want to keep that don't work in the guest bedroom. But I did put more than half of my books in my garage sale pile (and I know books never sell at garages sales, so maybe I should just donate them now!!!)

I started a plastic tote for "Memories" that I will store in the basement. So far this includes scrapbooks I made in my teens.It also includes planners from the year I was married and the year I had my son. I can't get rid of these 2 planners. Sometimes I think I hold on to too many things, other times I don't think I keep enough things. I am not sure if keeping planners makes me a hoarder or a normal person :)


I have made progress on clearing the floor of clutter by moving some of it out of the room... so you can see the floor again!!! I moved a pile of photobooks I already made (AND LOVE) to our living room so we can ENJOY them and anyone coming over can look at them! (Isn't my little man so cute!! He was only 4 months old!!)




I threw away most of my Honeymoon pictures. I did keep a stack that went into the Memories tote in a picture box. Pulling pictures from photo albums is a lot of work... but worth it to remove the clutter!!!

Now just to decide what to do with those wedding pictures... and the broken album!!!


I am excited with my progress!! Can't wait to see the rest and be organized!!!

29 Day Organizational Challenge - craft room addition

My craft room is in DESPERATE need of an update! So I am participating in on the Org Junkie 29 Day Organizational Challenge!

My craft room is a mess! Plain and simple, a mess! Unorganized and a mess.

Taking these pictures I was thinking how I REALLY wish I had just taken everything and thrown it on the floor.... because that's sort of how this room looks right now. There is no organization and its SOOOO uninspiring to create in this room. So this room NEEDS help!

Last week against the window I had a toddler bed! So that added even more junk to the room. I brought up the black shelf against the window in attempt to start organizing.

Goals for this room:

1. Organize

2. Remove extra junk

3. Remove books that have not been read in over 3 years

4. Create a way to KEEP organized

5. Create a gallery wall

6. Add some style to the room so its inspiring and feels creative

7. Organize!!!!!!

This room makes me feel like I should be on Hoarders!

I already made a little room on the floor! - if you can believe that! I hung my stencils behind the door! Yeah to an organized behind the door - a place no one sees.....

22 more days to go and this room will be organized and STAY organized!!

No more stencils on the floor...

This may not be a brilliant discovery, but my large stencils were driving me INSANE! I did not know where to store them, my smaller stencils I store in a magazine rack, but I have a few that are WAY too large... last night I had the brilliant idea to hang 3 command adhesive hooks behind more door and hang my stencils...
They fit perfect!!


YEAH! No more large stencils taking up valuable floor space in my INSANELY messy craft room... Just open the door all the way and they disappear! Like I said... brilliant or not brilliant I am not sure, but anything to organize a bit is always an awesome thing! And it again goes to remind you to use those random places you sometimes forget about!

Little Man Car Shirt

While shopping online I found a child's shirt that held 8 little matchbox sized cars that was around $38! It was so simple and I figured with my limited sewing knowledge I could easily re-creative the look. Here is the original.

I started by making a template out of paper to make sure it would fit 4 cars across and still fit on the t-shirt I purchased from Target.

I ended up leaving 1/2 inch seam allowances on each side, and the bottom and then left 2 inches for each car, so my pocket was 9 inches long by 3 inches wide.


I then cut my fabric with extra for creating the folded behind pocket.

I sewed the top portion of the pocket twice for something different.


Once the top was finisihed I pinned the entire pocket to the size of my template card.


The first pocket I pinned I pinned the pocket on the wring side (the side that was placed on the t-shirt, so it was hard to remove the pins as I sewed, so I learned for the second pocket to pin on the right side!!)

I then pinned the pocket to the t-shirt and sewed around the sides and bottom of the pocket. Again I did a second row of sewing because I liked the look.

Then I sewed every two inches on the pocket to create the 4 smaller pockets for the car. And then repeated for the second pocket.

I then used my Silhouette Cameo and cut out "Liam's Cars" onto the Heat Transfer material. I REALLY had to iron this on and I hope it handles the wash...

The shirt is even fun to play with while not on!
Getting a two year old to pose for a picture is very difficult! I believe he was into a Curious George episode while these were taken....