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Believe it or not, I did it! I got my pathetic stampin' studio cleaned and organized and fit for visitation. Do you remember those frightening photos I posted a while back? The task seemed and was daunting. But perceverance won the day.
On July 28th: no progress that you can see. Or that you can't see.
But today, August 15th, My Country Loft is ready for prime time once again. I have a class in my stampin' studio on Wednesday, the 17th---and I'm away from home on the 15th and 16th. So.....that meant I had to pay attention and get this room in order before leaving home at noon on Sunday.
Lookey lookey: a table top!
Below: All of my paper is in place with cubbies labeled for the new 'In-Colors'.
For at least a year I've wanted to thoroughly go through what I've accumulated in these drawers and the ones under the big window (second photo) and this last weekend I did. I even have several empty drawers now but that won't last for long.
The main reason for photos in all directions is to prove to myself that I eliminated all of the boxes and bags from along the walls and drawers and either put away, threw away or set aside the contents for my upcoming 'garage sale'. What a great feeling!
Now someone please tell me that you've experienced this same thing. You stamp, you sprawl, you don't aways clean up before leaving your space, repeat. And before you know it you have a major job ahead of you.
Actually, I'm doing the same thing that I was doing Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday! Cleaning this awesome stampin' studio that I normally stamp in. I keep coming upon great idea fodder: some great tins for holiday gifts, stuff I haven't used in a year, that missing stamp set, cards, cards, cards.
Sigh. This is what I'm doing. I trying to usher in the new catalog year products as well as reorganize. Not a brilliant combination I've decided. But I really MUST clear off all flat surfaces before I get going on new projects. This will only last a few days longer.
And believe me: I'm open to a helper. Will feed and house. Applicants must be serious and ready to work. (But not hurt me!)
And do you know what's in those Lucky Limeade bags lined up on the floor? Goodies from convention. If you're in my downline, and weren't at Convention, there are a few goodies in there for YOU! But not until I find the clean tops of all flat surfaces. What a mess! What a task! All mine.
OK, back to work. I just wanted to share my pain. Or at least what I'm up to this week. I will be back tomorrow with something cute. :)
With the transition from the Occasions Mini Catalog to the Summer Mini Catalog, I need to make some serious transitions in My Rubber Loft. Before we know it, it will be June 30th, time for a major transition to the new Idea Book & Catalog. It's daunting for me for sure. If you receive my newsletter you would have received May's issue yesterday. It was a good one if I do say so myself! :) Anyway, I shared my excitement in reaching my 15th year as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. Way way cool!
Can you believe that there's a "downside" to being a Demonstrator for 15 years? Accumulation!!! I have accumulated lots. I LOVE everything! And today I am forcing myself to face my accumulation and purge just a little bit, or, hopefully, a lotta bit. Do you have a little spare time to come by and crack the whip?
So now, you can vicariously participate in a little of this workout with me.
8 a.m.: a mess
As you walk in the door, there are my work tables.....and the accumulation of tools on the walls and in the storage units.
Looking over to the left as you walk in the door. The cabinets hold stamp sets. Hundreas of stamp sets! The box on the table: my first order from the Summer Mini Catalog.
Looking back toward the entry door--convention bags and 'stuff' that needs to find a better home than the floor.
Again, facing the entry door, but to the left. There must be 8 varieties of vests/jackets on that chair! Printers are there. Neither are attached to my new computer yet. :( Perhaps I could work on that! But first: clean up!
9 a.m.: a discovery! I had set aside this darling sticky note holder for ................ for today I guess. I've found quite a few "set aside for......." treasures for updating in the future. This was made by Gail Beezley, a fellow demonstrator from Texas.
You'll need the Big Shot, Top Note Die, a 4" x 5" piece of Designer Series Paper and the same size piece of coordinating cardstock. Overlap the two pieces and adhere them with Snail adhesive. Score and fold each piece at the 'point' on the longer edges. Attach a 2-3/4" square Post-It (TM) note pad in the center, inside. Position magnets for closure. Attach a punched embellishment with several Dimensionals. Done. How cute!
If you receive my Newsletter you'll see another cute Sticky Note Holder, complete with instructions, that I made last week. If you're not receiving my newsletter, click on the mailing list button on the upper left sidebar and get on my mailing list. Each month you receive 3-5 newsletter- only project ideas and Stampin' Up! promos plus a few paragraphs and photos about what's going on in my life.
Back to cleaning now. I'm making progress and it feels so good.
9.15 a.m. Back to work.
Make that 10.15 a.m. Back to work. Hubby needed my help in pulling a bent over cedar, victim of March's heavy snow, back to the upright position. See why I never finish what I start???? LOL
When you are positioning yourself to start a stampin' project, what tools do you have 'at the ready'.....tools you can't really happily function without? Your 'go to' assistants at your table?
Mine are
Stampin' Scrub
Stampin' Mist
Grid Paper
Personal Paper Cutter
Snail Adhesive
Paper Snips
Stamp-a-ma-jig
Adhesive Remover
Then comes the fun stuff, tools that make the project:
Rubber Stamps: wood or clear mount, regular or jumbo roller wheels
Stampin' Pads: SU! Classic or Craft, ColorBox, VersaMark
Stampin' Markers
Cardstock
Designer Series Paper
Big Shot Die Cut Machine
Big Shot dies of all sizes and types: Bigz XL dies, Bigz dies, Embosslits, Impressions Embossing Folders
Embossing Powders
Embossing Buddy
Heat Tool
Embellishments: Hodgepodge Hardware, Pretties Kit, all sorts of brads, all sort of eyelets, clips, glitter (bling), buttons, ribbons, chipboard
And there are so many more but I'll leave those up to you. Yes, I use them, but these that I've listed I use ALL the time! Not EVERY time, but I do use them frequently.
Below is a glimpse of my frequent reality. Sometimes I can keep my stampin' area neat and tidy but sometimes.............it just gets away from me. This was the final rush in getting my Christmas cards completed in time for mailing. I still managed to miss a few.
What are your favorite tools? What do you find yourself using the most---something that really gives you that satisfying 'bang for the buck' so to speak?
It's kind of frustrating, being away from home and not being able to spread myself out at my work table and create at least a mess, and hopefully a finished card or two.
Tomorrow I've have some pictures again. I'm determined to do some stampin' with the few supplies I brought along with me! See you then.
I've had several questions about My Country Loft this past week. One today (Hi Katie!) asked if I had any pictures on my blog. Well, I really thought I did. And those pictures were when the room was as it should be all the time: neat and tidy. That said, I took some fresh photos just now. If your stamping area is never messy please don't read any further than this. But if your work area gets as messy and cluttered as I read so often on line--and as I know mine does--then you're welcome to have a look inside my playpen.
Let me begin by saying that this room is over our garage and was once "the boys' bedroom". When we decided to move to this house full time (it had been our 'cabin' for 15 years prior) and my son was married, it was a no-brainer to take over the room and make it MINE! It is filled with mish-mash from many phases of my life.
Ready????? Now trust me....it has not been tidied up for company this morning. And I'm leaving town for a few days this afternoon so it's just going to have to stay the way it is till next week. :)
This is where you walk in, across the deck from the house. I wanted to get the view all the way through the room to the window and then outside. Didn't really work. My blog banner is a better photo. If long-time demos look around they'll see some really 'old' SU! goodies in the room. Like the tote, on the floor in the entryway to the room, that many of us purchased around 1996-7 when the DD Fruits and Flowers were so popular. It now holds stampin' supplies for my 5 and 2-1/2 year old grandkidlets.
Just before the door. Obviously.
Now a look across the room to the right. There are 2 dormer windows in the room where dismantled bunk beds used to live. The one under the SU! banner holds my cardstock now. The one on the right, that you can't see right now, holds a small desk, my laptop, and my printer. Yes, that's an in progress mess on the table! :) I'm going to use the Big Shot doctor's bag as my carry on tomorrow. Think it'll start up any conversations? That tall white cabinet with the mirror, to the left of the SU! banner, originally held my children's CLOTH diapers. They're now 36 and 38!
And now here's a look toward the left. In that little bookcase on the far left I have ALL of my old Stampin' Successes and Catalogs. Second shelf holds a few Forget Me Not Keepers full of card fronts. (I just sent over 300 card fronts to Cards for Heroes and still have more to sort through and send.) The stove is propane and is really necessary in winter when it snows.
When the door is closed you can see where I hang my larger punches. I also hang new cards on the criss-cross thing hanging on the wall on the right. Again, I have to find a way to utilize that slanted wall. Customers and class attendees go right to it to see fresh cards. I just pulled everything off from the old catalog. It's usually quite full. See my ribbons on the rain gutter below?
Oh my gosh, this is a sight!!! This is taken from the far end of the room toward the door end. You can see the other dormer window and my printer to the middle left. The cabinet under the TV came from Folsom Prison in California (via an old neighbor) and was used at the prison for sorting mail. I keep my Craft pads, VersaMark, StazOn pads, reinkers, Art from the Heart CDs, and more 'stuff' there. The closed cabinet to the right was from another neighbor's garage sale. Perpetual birthday calendars (one old, one new) are on the doors. Inside is 'stuff'. :)
Here's my paper storage, the retired SU! holders for brads, eyelets, buttons, etc. Does anyone have ONE to sell me? I need one more to fill out the pattern. These walls are slanted so the only way I can make use of them for storage is either magnet sheets (Ikea) or these retired SU! holders.
Opposite wall: these are the cabinets my husband and I built the summer before moving up here. The interior of each one is painted a different color of left-over paint inside! :) The wall used to be solid but when we moved in we had 3 skylight windows installed---reason one: for light. Reason two: for a view of the beautiful forest outside.
Back around again to the other wall with the magnet board. Above is the "Creativity" Décor Element in its stretched out mode. I have no other wall space to accommodate it!
UGH! See all the stuff? My stamp-a-ma-jig, tubs of embossing powder, extra Stampin' Mist, Crystal Effects, envelopes, and SU! bags for packaging up orders are the most important things in this cabinet.
Looks better with the doors closed.
And now you know!!! I really shouldn't have shown you my mess, but........it's a reality. Any volunteers to help me tidy it up?
It took me a year to get my blog off the ground, and then it's taken another year to figure out what I'm really doing. I still have a long way to go but.......I've come a long way Baby! And now, I'm getting excitingly close to having 10,000 'hits' which to me is amazing. In honor of you, my readers, I'm going to give away some blog candy.What's that you say? Ohhhhh, I'm sure many of you know. It's a little treasure chest of stamping goodies to add to your stamping pleasure.
Just leave a comment to this post, what you've liked, disliked, would like to see more or less of, something you'd like me to know, on my blog. Or just say HI! When I hit that magic 10,000 mark, I'll select a random number and that comment writer will be the recipient of my blog candy.
While you're waiting, I'll show you where I stamp. Come on in...... This is the doorway, off of the deck from the house. If you turned right, rather than walking into my room, you'd go down the stairs into my husband's playroom: the garage.
I was lucky enough to be able to convert a bedroom over our garage into a studio for all of my stampin' stuff, classes and activities. The previous owner/builder of our 'cabin in the woods' (we border the Stanislaus National Forest in Northern California) had designed this space as a craft room for his wife so it has lots of electrical outlets plus one in the ceiling! My husband and I built some very custom cupboards, to place under the roof line (lots of 'dead' space just waiting for our project), for storing my current and retired stamp sets and some supplies. We painted the insides of these cupboards with leftover paint so each is different inside.
I keep my Stampin' Up! currentribbons in a piece of plastic rain gutter which hangs just at the roof line bend in the wall, above the cupboards. This room is quite difficult for storage since the walls over 3-1/2' are pitched, following that roof line.
I have a great collection of Elfa storage system drawers that are seeing their 4th or 5th incarnation, this time as storage for stampin' supplies. I've had these for nearly 25 years so they've really paid for themselves. On top of the set of drawers under the large window is a door which serves as a counter top.
To the right of that (photo on the right above) is an old 'diaper cupboard'. It was in a house we rented when first married in the late 60s and has been with me ever since (with permission from the owner of the rental to take it when we left). I used it in my childrens' rooms literally for storing their diapers and other baby paraphernalia. Now it serves as another type of storage unit for swap cards, retired eyelets, and things I just can't (but should) let go of. Just keep the door closed! The lower picture above shows my cardstock storage: alphabetically, left to right, 2 colors to a 'cubicle' and one of my favorite uses of slanted space: Stampin' Up!s Stamp 'n' Stack units, 7 of them hanging up on the wall. I keep all my buttons, brads, eyelets, and beads there, right where I can see them and easily reach them.
As you walk in the door, on the right is a very unglamorous, but much loved, cupboard that I salvaged when friends left San Jose CA for Virginia Beach VA. I store my envelopes, and gobs of other supplies in there. It's really due for a purge! The fruit crate on top of it holds my background stamps.
Next to the "Bill & Susan cupboard" is one of my favorite pieces: a mail sorting thing a former neighbor (who got from someone who got it from Folsom Prison in California) offered me. I store all kinds of things in it: CDs from Conventions (like Art from the Heart), my Craft Pads and reinkers, various other stamp pads (Versamark, StazOn), and other random supplies. It also needs to be cleaned out a bit. I keep a flash light handy (power outages) and my trusty-dusty hammer/screwdrivers when I need to become Ms. Fixit, in one of the cubbies as well.
Inside the door and behind it, are my punches and word/alphabet stamps and catalogs. I got the shoe hanger thing-y at Bed, Bath & Beyond (nice heavy plastic) and my dear husband placed wood bars under each row to give it stability and strength.
Here's where I sit and do my computer work, when I'm not in the house. I'm on dial-up so have to be near the phone plug-in. And I watch out the window (over the driveway) for my favorite guy in brown---Lucky, the best UPS guy in the country.
And now, as your reward for getting through all of this, here's a photo from Stampin' Up!'s 1997 Convention which was themed "Good Olde Summertime". There I stand, between the costumed Shelli and LaVonne. This was way before I finally started to color my hair. :)
I just went into my Convention files and found the registration form that we had to FAX or MAIL to Stampin' Up! in Kanab, Utah. Early registration fee was $140; regular fee: $165. It was held in two sessions. Location: Flamingo Hilton, Las Vegas, Nevada.
OK, the tour is over and I'm off to collect Blog Candy. Be sure to leave your comments. :)
