Craft room chaos - is no more!

Well I finally got it done. The room that has been my 'dream' to have (other than the baby-room that it will one day be)! I had been telling my sweet husband all summer that I would get to it. He finally looked at me one day and said something along the lines of... "you know we have a month left in summer... and you are busy at least 3 of those weeks!" I gave him a list of excuses such as: 

• I took a week off to recover from the last month chaos of school and prepare for the bike trip. 
• A little thing called Riding my bike 200 miles along Historic Route 66 for 10 days!
• Recovering from the 200 miles. 
• Doing SOOOOOOOOOOOO much laundry
• Getting an infection on my belly. (blog to come)
• Lunches with the girls.
• Catching up on Facebook
• Going to the doctor in Tulsa every day for a week. 
• Preparing and decorating the guest room. 
• Cleaning the house a couple times. 
• Preparing for a family trip to Branson to celebrate my Grandparent's 50th Anniversary. (blog to come)
• Shutting the door to the craft room every time I walked by. (If I can't see it; it doesn't exist!)
• Learning how to use Picasa
• Resting from trip to Branson.
• Preparing for Camp Cousin Heather. 
• Preparing for the possibility and hope that I'll be teaching next year... 
• Reading my Kindle
• Sticking more stuff in the future 'craft room'
• Getting my beauty sleep... 
• Planning crafts to do once the room was done... 

I'm sure there were more. But ... He gave me the 'look'! I knew that if I didn't do something about that room that he would go in there and turn it into a shrine to his precious golf clubs. His only request was that it also have an 'office' space so we can store our bills, computer and do some work at. 

My friend Jamie recently tore the tendons in her foot. This has left her fairly limited on the things she can get out and do with her three kids. I mentioned to her that I needed to clean this room out and she offered to come over and help. She is a natural organizer. It comes easy to her. MAKES ME JEALOUSLY SICK! I so wish organizing came natural or easy to me. 

She came over and brought her sweet daughter and they were amazing! Jamie sat a lot and that helped cause I could just show her something and she would say "toss it" or "keep it". And I LISTENED. By lunch time we had about 10 piles in the hallway, everything from Andrew's stuff, garage sale, teacher things, holiday stuff, wrapping paper... so many piles. Jamies daughter was our 'runner'. She did great putting things in places so we didn't have to climb over the junk. By the time we were finished here is what we had accomplished... please feel free to be HUGELY impressed! 

This was the BEFORE picture... see all that JUNK! 

We found so many Colored Pencils, Sharpies and Pens! 

We also came across many other random things in multipuls such as:

• 42 unopened rolls of ribbon
• 79 open rolls of ribbon
• 3 hot glue guns
• 3 open bags of glue sticks
• 4 bags of rubber-bands
• 1 box of diapers
• 4 boxes of pins
• 5 pairs of scissors 
• 3 bottles of sliver glitter
• 8 bottles of glue/glue sticks
• 12 baskets
• 52 pictures (in the first bunch I found... I found 3 more shoe boxes full and then another picture box from hobby lobby full later that I didn't bother to count!) 
• 4 rulers
• 2 small scrap-booking paper cutters
• 239 crayons 
• 42 note pads
• 398 pieces of scrap book paper
• 1,987,387 sharpies 
• 289,345 pens
• 1,890,334,236 colored pencils
• 368 sponge brushes 

Quantities might vary + or - in either direction. You can come count them if you NEED to know.

Apparently when I was young, stupid, rich and single (the good old days hehe) when I couldn't find something in my naturally unorganized life... I just replaced it. Thus the multiple things. So in theory... this organizing day has saved my husband money! Ding-Dang-Dong I should get a raise!! 

This is my crafty organization. I have cense fixed the "SCHUMACHER" sign,
picked up the flipy-flop and put away the vacuum. 

The top of the buffet cabinet. I made the "Schumacher" about a year ago but I hot-glued the letters on... (besides modge podge... hot-glue is my next favorite thing to use!!) However, when it got stored on the back porch during the rooms renovation ... many of the letters popped off with all the heat... ugh. I have now discovered this liquid cement stuff and the sign is now fixed! 

This is the bottom of the buffet cabinet.
Look at the organization. I LOVE it! 

Ahhhh how relaxing is that?? A place for everything and everything in its place. Ahhhhhhh...

I found this buffet cabinet when I was moving into my last single apartment. A friend and I were out and stopped by an Estate Sale and she managed to bargain them down to just $100 for it. It is beautiful and has so much character. I hope I can always use it somewhere in my house. I would hate to get rid of it.

These are my 'teacher' things that will be back in my classroom as
soon as I get the promise that I will indeed be teaching next year.

These shelves were a discount buy at Target a few years ago.
They have been through the ringer. So many knocks, bumps and bruises.
However, with a fresh coat of spray paint and some fun detailing
... they will be fabulous! 

I was putting these canvases and my Owl themed scrapbook paper up at the same time when an idea HIT me! Use them to decorate my craft room! I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. It was fun to be crafty in an organized setting... knowing right where everything was and where it went when I was done. Ahhhhhh... 

These are the framed Owl Papers after they are dry and laying on the
table they will hang above. I want to paint the table more of the
green or orange color and do some type of detailing on it
... but I'm still thinking on it.  

On Pinterest I came across the idea to cover empty (clean) cans with scrapbook paper and using them to store things. So... I got my crafty on again and made it happen! I LOVE LOVE LOVE how they turned out! 

Here is a can up-close! Isn't it precious! I just love the owls
and wish I had jumped on the Owl bandwagon
last year to decorate my classroom... oh well. 

This is our "precious things" chest.
We have all the things that are special to us in there.
There are pictures, memories, notes, wedding plans
... all sorts of fun things. 

On top of our specail things chest is a basket of ribbon... 79 total rolls of ribbon!
And yet I still had to buy some more to use on a diaper cake... go figure ! Also included on the tray are a few pictures that are special and I want to always be able to see!
Besides that is a small tub with all my bags, tissue paper and ribbon for wrapping gifts. 

A collage of the finished room! Well kinda finished room...
I did more the next week to finish it off a little more
and I still need to add some paint detailing! 

I am slowly learning that ... you are never fully saticfied with your house. There will ALWAYS be something that I want to change or re-do. This is just part of home-ownership. I guess that is something I can learn to enjoy and use my love for 'planning' to work with.
If you ever need a glue gun, glue stick or pair of scissors ... please give me a call. I have a few laying around. :)