Christmas 2014 Is in the Mail!

Happy Ho-Ho-Ho, Readers! 

These are the designs that made it from piles on the floor to produced this year. They went out in the mail this morning.  Maybe a little late for those of you out of state, but its all good.  It was the year of using up the scraps from previous years.  Also the year of little collages built from various small leaf and berry die cuts I've been collecting over the years.  There's some weaving, some stamping both free hand and with the Stamping Gear, die cutting and fussy cutting as well.

I'm still working out the kinks in the new craft cave.  It takes me a while to find this or that, and I'll probably keep finding a better place for one thing or another, but that never really stops, does it? 

Happy Christmas, everyone!

September-23

Hanging out on the sun porch today with my project box.  I've been cooking up a fall equinox celebration card, looking forward to Fall 2014 in a very big way this year.  I think mostly because I've been under construction since late winter with the hope of finally having things settle down come fall. 

This was created using a bunch of different papers from my pile of fall-like, but not quite good enough for Halloween papers.  I blew the dust off of Sizzix's Alphabuckle alphabet die set and wove the letters together with ribbon.  A little bling, some numbers from a Unity Stamp set, and there you have it.  September 23rd...

A little something for the office....

As things progress with the remodel of the new home, I find its important to seek out little pleasures.  You know, something to take your mind off the fact that your living room carpet has been covered in plastic since March, and feels and sounds just like you are walking on Pampers.  Even the cat is sick of it.  Not to mention you've been bleeding cash out of every orifice for just as long.  Last week that little something came in the form of some snarky little stamps from Rubbernecker.  I only picked up a few of them, because of the whole bleeding cash thing, but they were enough to get me into the cave and put together this little clip board desk ornament. 

First is a look at the products used to create the project.  Click to embiggen and zoom as needed to see the details.  That stack of Color Box ink is their collection of blacks.  I love-love-love that set.  Black is not just black, believe me.  All are excellent alternatives when plain old black just won't do or you need black, but with a little twist toward red (Lava Black) or green (Dragonfly Black) to name a few. 

Above is the finished piece.  I included this year's personal crafting challenge, 'everything with ribbon' in an attempt to reduce the obscene amount I own.  I backed the thing in chip board to give it some heft, but you could easily adapt this to a card front.  That chair stamp from Unity came with a sentiment that said, "I like your company" or close to it if not exact.  I soooo much prefer the sentiment from Rubbernecker.  Much more my style. 

I'm still waiting for a LOT of you to produce some refrigerator art for my new kitchen.  So far, my sister Bridget and gal pal Jill have risen to the challenge.  C'mon the rest of you!  I need a reason to dig through those boxes in the basement looking for more magnets. 

The Craft Cave - Redux

Hi Everyone - If you follow me on FB, you've seen the new craft cave, so for those of you who don't, here's a post to get you up to date. 

The move is complete and the new craft cave is up and running!  My very first post on this blog, oh-so-many years ago was a tour of the original cave, posted to prove to you I wasn't just some craft poser.  Now that the cave has been sorted through, packed up, moved, unpacked, sorted through some more, and reinstalled into its new home, it's time to share the updated pictures once again. 

This new space is about the same square footage as the old, but its long and narrow as opposed to the square I had originally.  As a result I've had to replace some of my overhead boards and add a topper to that dresser below in order to keep things from falling on the floor on either side of the cutting station. Its an inch higher now because of the board, but that's fine by me. 

Below you can see the door, once again festooned with my hand punches.  I never understood why Cropper Hopper discontinued the Punch Pal.  That's the organizer I use for my punches.  I have 5 of them all together and they are just the perfect thing.  If you see them on E-Bay snap them up.  A simple heavy duty wall hook in the wall and they hang right up.  Or in the case of the three on the door, they chain together.  I used some over-the-door hooks lined with felt dots (to protect the finish on the door) to hang all three. 

 

I have to thank Simply Renee for inventing the Clip it Up.  I got the idea for hanging all my wafer dies in the picture below from her.  They hang above the standing work table.  I buy metal rods from Home Depot for about $3 each, screw cup hooks to the underside of the 2x10 plank and use her clips to hang them.  I used to use her ribbon organizers in the old space, but here there is just no room for them, so I employed the same thing for ribbon which you'll see in the next photos.



 

The east wall of the room is wall to wall built-in storage and work space.  You can see the shelves and drawers on one end of it here.  Then the sitting workspace is under the window with more shelves and drawers next to that.

Because the room is narrow, I can't get the whole wall in one shot.  The Cricut cartridges are shelved behind the glass doors in the cabinet.  I took the doors off the closet, and inserted a set of folding shelves in place of the hanging rods on one side.  The other side is where the ribbon hangs above all the rolling carts filled with stamps.  Out of the way, yet totally accessible. 

That's the new space.  Its already messy, just the way I like it. I finished up the change of address cards and am already working on the cards to mark the Fall equinox.  Happy Scrapping! - AMK

Shut the Front Door! - Change of Address Cards

The first real card to come out of the new craft cave is in the mail!  Woot!

I used up all the WRMK White Out collection paper I had and came up with the variations on the theme below.  I get my address lables from Vista Print.  They are super easy to costomize on their website and they have a TON of available art to choose from.  I've got a pack of address lables for all the halidays in the calendar, and then some non-secular ones for the every day.  I made them into a little tag on each of the cards,  held on with an artist's safety pin.  The stamps are from Unity, again.  I know, I use thier stuff a lot.  What can I say?  They have cool stuff.  For those of you who know me, there is just no way I was passing on 'Shut the Front Door'. 

Since I just spent a lot of time sorting through and hanging all my ribbon, I've decided that this year, every card will have some ribbon on it.  I have an OBSCENE amount of ribbon.  Time to use it up!

Channeling Scarlett...

Hidey-Ho Readers!  There are big changes afoot for the craft cave.  There's a reason nobody got any Valentine's this year.  The sign went up in front of the house today.  My beloved Cedarburg home is for sale.  I'm going to have to pack up my craft cave and move it to Brookfield in the next 60-90 days.  Gah!  It's just mind numbing to think about.  I don't even know where to start, or if I even want to start.  I mean, if I start packing things up now, then my creativity will be stifled and I'm already stressed out enough.  If I can't barricade myself in my cave when I need to, I might take some one's head off.  But if I don't start now, that bedroom will probably not show too well.  And the last thing I want is a mad dash to pack and move in a hurry.  Ugh.  What to do, what to do?  Screw it -  I'll think about that tomorrow.  Scarlett O'hara's got nothin' on me.