Tidying Up

I bought this shoe organizer from Target almost a year ago for another use. Since then I found something else I liked better and the shoe organizer found it's place on a shelf in the garage. Until this weekend when I dusted off the box and finally put it together. I decided it would be great for organizing my fabrics. It's still a work in progress because I have many more fabrics to fold and put into the cubicles. I cut a piece of chipboard from a cereal box slightly smaller than the dimensions of the openings and I'm using it as a folding template - you know, like the way they fold T-Shirts at the GAP. It makes everything have a tidy, crisp appearance.

Took a little trip to see these two guys over the weekend. Ahhh. . .now this is puppy love!

Friday

Sitting here not getting much done. It's been one of those weeks. You know, the kind where you have all the good intentions of accomplishing a lot when you firstnwake up, but then as the day goes on you realize you haven't done as much as you planned. I have been working in the garage trying to organize the mess that is in there. We don't have a basement, so a lot of the excess stuff gets dumped in there. I bought some of these drawer units to replace the crates that were stacked up and hard to get anything out of.  Hopefully they will make things easier to access and things will get used more frequently. 
I picked up a couple of new books at Barnes & Noble yesterday. I read about Style Statement on Hope Wallace's blog here. Hope is working on a journal with Kari based on this book and I thought I might do the same thing. Creating Your Best Life is a book about self discovery and coming up with your ultimate life list.
Have to do some tidying up around here now as my SIL is coming in from Colorado for a visit. 

National Clutter Awareness Week

This is a picture of my desk. . .well, it's an old picture and the desk doesn't quite look as bad as this. . . at the moment anyway. It's the rest of my craft room that looks like a tornado hit it. Heather refers to hers as "The Pit of Dispair." Holly's husband calls hers a "Crap Room." How many of you know that this is National Clutter Awareness Week? I just learned about this annual "celebration"(?) which always occurs the week after the first day of spring. Who knew? Well, I am fully "aware" of my clutter and don't really need a National Week to notice it. It always seems to win the battle when I try to conquer it, but for those of you who would like to try and do something about your clutter, you may want to check out the following sites:

My Simpler Life

The Clutter Diet

Creative Organizing

Get It Together

Mama Journey

Organize Yourself

1-2-3 Get Organized

I Saw Red - Inchies!

If you haven't already discovered the inchie trend just know, they are a blast to make! You can churn out a bunch of these teensie-weensie pieces of art in no time at all. I first heard about inchies on Lia's blog, Art Junk Girl. She challenged herself to make 1000 of these little squares during 2007 and sure enough she did it! I found making inchies to be a rather addictive activity once I got started. Lia is so organized, she made herself an inchie kit so she would have everything handy in one place whenever the inchie-making-mood strikes. That sounded pretty dandy to me, so of course I had to put together one for myself too. I put all my supplies into this little tote I got at Michaels last summer. Now I can take the kit with me and create inchies wherever I go!

Don't forget to check out the list of other I SAW RED pics and posts on Sara's Sadie Olive blog here.

Inspired by Others

I finally got around to putting some things up on my inspiration board. . .you know, the one I cleared off here. It was getting a bit crowded and although I kind of liked it that way, it was hard to focus on any one thing. Actually the board reflected exactly the way the rest of the room was beginning to look, which is why I began the Big Clean Out in the first place.

Now the board has room for new things, but for the time being I have displayed some of my favorite swap items I've received. I really get a lot of inspiration from other people's art, don't you?

I also added some big pom-pom fringe which are held up by a pair of birds that Cerri (Little Pink Studio) surprised me with last year. I am in love with her glittery birdies!

Who (or what) is that behind the curtain you ask? These are the curtains which I used to replace the closet doors that we removed years ago. I orginally wanted to put the day bed in there, but figured I would loose out on too much storage space. That is one of my daughter's many formals from her high school days. I can't bear to part with them. . .mom is a bit sentimental. The slip is a vintage one I bought mainly for the lace, but it looked too pretty to cut up, so for now it hangs safely on a pretty padded hanger! Open the curtains and this is what you will find. . .three shelving units like this. They used to have doors on them, but I took those off recently too. What is this aversion I have to doors? They were just a hindrance as far as I was concerned, and since the curtain was there to hide the shelves I figured I'd get rid of the doors. I did save them in case I change my mind (which has been know to happen a time or two), but for now I am liking the easy access I have to my supplies.

This corner is on the left side of the day bed and I can hide all sorts of things here because it is less visible. I use a decoupaged metal and wire waste basket to hold rolls of paper. The rose paper covered boxes in the foreground are those paper valises you can get at places like Homegoods. They are handy for storing (or hiding) all sorts of treasures. To the right of the basket of paper rolls is the round table that I showed you here. I forgot to mention that although it looks all pretty and nice on top, it secretly holds more storage underneath the skirt.

The utility drawers shown below used to be hidden away behind the cupboard doors in the base of this hutch. But that proved too impractical because I had to keep getting on my hands and knees in order to find anything. And lots of time I have projects piled on the floor in front of the hutch so I couldn't even open the doors! So beauty gave way to practicality and the drawers were placed in full view. Someday I may get around to painting the blue ones white (or vice versa) but for now they will stay as they are.

The little JOY plaque is from Donna (Under the Red Roof) and although it was a Christmas gift, I am keeping it on display year round because I love the colors and it's nice being greeted by a little joy everyday. In the jar above it is one of Cerri's little Princess Birds which also was a gift. She is in the jar waiting for me to finish a project I am working on with her and the jar.

Speaking of jars, do you all love vintage blue mason jars as much as I do? I think the color is divine and I love the weathered zinc lids too. I use a lot of these up at the cottage too because that aqua blue color is a big part of the color scheme there. I can't resist pretty things that can double as storage pieces.

Below the jars are the shelves my DH built me years and years ago for my rubber stamps. These shallow shelves fit perfectly in the space behind the door to the room. So when the door is open, the shelves are completely hidden and you don't have to look at all the rubber stamps and feel guilty about the amount of $$$ you spent on them. You know the old saying ~ out of sight, out of mind!

Glitter and Grunge

It's November 1st already - {where has the time gone?} - which means that there is a new update over at Glitter and Grunge. I am so thrilled to let you know that along with my little shop at Etsy, I now am selling some items exclusively at Glitter and Grunge. It's a great little group of talented artists of which I am honored to be a part of. Hurry on over there and check it out! Here's a pic of one of the pieces I've been working on. . .

In other news, I finished off my "secret project" and sent it on to the "secret project master." I'll let you know when I can spill the beans about it. As for my ongoing attempt at organizing, I have half the room finished - sort of. I say sort of because once the desk was cleared off I had to mess it up a bit to work on some creations. It does seem to be a vicious circle between dragging supplies out and putting them away again. I believe the key lies in becoming more disciplined at returning things back where they belong before starting a new project in order to avoid the disaster-zone effect that builds up. I usually avoid that step and then things get way out of hand. It's nice to hear that a lot of you have the same problem with keeping art things tidy.

Tidy Up Tuesday {A Continuation of Organization Monday}

I was up early this morning to get a head start on my Studio Project. Yes, this is my desk....is it any wonder why I have been working at the dining room table lately? Now to be perfectly honest, a lot of the stuff in this picture has been placed there during the organizational and sorting process, so that makes it look even worse than it actually is. But still, it was a pretty much unusable surface.
As it gets closer to sunrise, you can see some progress. . .along with the actual surface of the desk! Ta-da! The desk is now clear, clear and tidy! All ready to work on some cool, new projects...Yay!
The little draw unit above is a piece I bought several years ago from Target. On it I keep my collection of vintage salt shakers filled with glitter, a pink glass goblet filled with tiny paper flowers, a vintage pink glass refrigerator box which holds note paper, a sweet votive holder from Anthropologie and an old Holly Hobby porcelein egg given to me by my mother when I was a child which offers daily dose of inspiration - "The time to be happy is now."
Here is my tool box which sits on my desk and contains my tools of the trade. It's an antique sewing machine drawer adorned with a wooden scroll work piece and painted a heavenly shade of blue, which happens to match the wall paint perfectly.

I've got a question for all of you. . .how to you organize the holiday themed items you use in your creations? Do you keep them separated by holiday or just incorporated them with the every day items or do you do something else with them?

Well, I've got a lot more to accomplish in here, so I'd better get back to work before I lose my momentum!

Organization Monday

I am not at all good at this kind of thing. I should be since I am a Virgo and by nature Virgos are supposed to be great at keeping things organized. But whenever I try to organize a space, I seem to make a bigger mess than I started with . . . and have less room to put things back. How is that possible? Above is a conglomeration of stuff that is in "limbo-land" while I try to figure out what to do with it all. By the looks of things, I may not even keep half of it as I am quickly running out of storage space. I have way too much stuff as you can see, but it is so hard to part with anything because I have that typical, "I may need it someday" mentality. That way of thinking is just so paralyzing for me and I end up not making any progress at all. I have discovered over the years, the supplies I tend to use the most in my artwork are the ones that I can easily see. If it is stashed away in a box or behind something else, it is out of sight, out of mind for me. The problem is when you have a teeny-tiny space you can't have very much out in full view, so therein lies my dilemma.

I have made a little bit of progress, as you can see above. I have three of these shelving units inside the closet. (We removed the closet doors years ago to accomodate these units.) There currently are doors on the shelving units, which I am considering taking off. The Rachel Ashwell fabric showing on the right side is actually curtains which I have hung over the closet so I can hide it all if I want. The top shelf shows 2 of my paper scrap drawer units. There are two more on the shelf above. I throw all my little scraps of leftover papers into these color coded drawers. This system works great for me when I am working on a collage and need some pink paper, I just take out the pink drawer, bring it to my desk and make a selection. Because these drawers work so well for me, I went out and bought more of them to organize some of my vintage ephemera items. The boxes on the bottom shelf hold things like my melting pot and beeswax, glass and metal pieces, etc.
The jar pictured above is an important piece in my art room as it holds a fresh supply of pink peanut M&M's. Each year during Breast Cancer Awareness Month these beautifully colored M&M's hit the store and I buy up a bunch to replenish my jar. Of course, they don't last me an entire year. Sometimes I fill the jar with pink strawberry cheesecake Jelly Bellys or pastel colored dutch mints when the pink M&M's are not available. Afterall, a girl's got to have a little sustenance to keep her going during those late night creative sessions. . . or in this case, late night organizing sessions.

Keeping My Word

I did what I said - I stayed home all day yesterday working on my projects! I am finished with one, but have more to do on others. I can't believe I stayed inside with the weather being as beautiful as it was. I did go out on the deck to take photos of my project and I really didn't want to go back inside. A bit too windy to play with paper out there, otherwise I would have moved my latest mess on the dining room table out to the patio table. After I finish one more project I definitely have to get into the studio and shovel things out of there. It's a perfectly lovely creative space - all pink roses and Rachell Ashwell-ish - that is if you could actually see any of the decor. I think I just have to accept that this is going to be a constant battle for me. I was looking through Aby and Whitney's new book, The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker and I couldn't believe that there are people out there with such tidy art spaces...oh, they were gorgeous and organized. My studio is teeny-tiny and I have way too many supplies for such a small room. I read somewhere that you should treat your art supplies like your closet - if you haven't used things in the past year, chances are you probably will never use them. Only keep what you truly love! Believe me, I'm working on it. :)

Just a reminder - all my Halloween items are on sale in my Etsy Shop. You can check them out here.

This and That

The new publication called Somerset Life is out and it is truly another beautiful magazine from Stampington and Company Publications. Some of my favorite artists are featured in it like Anna Corba, Michelle Ward, Pam Garrison, Carolyn Westbrook, and Angela Cartwright. And some new names (for me anyway) like Hanna Matthiesen from Denmark and Corey Amaro who lives in France. How many magazine titles can this publishing company dream up anyway? I love them all so I hope they don't stop anytime soon!

Ali Edwards wrote about spring cleaning in her AEZine newsletter this week. All my friends have decluttering on their minds too. We all collect different things, but it doesn't matter because in the end it all takes up space. It is especially difficult for me because I have a hard time parting with things. I don't usually have things around that I don't like, so what do you do when you like EVERYTHING and can't decide what to get rid of? Then I saw Susan Tuttle's studio space here. What a darling place she has to create in! I love the colors and all the pretty storage boxes and hanging spools of ribbon and how the sewing machine is out and ready to be used whenever the mood hits. Many of you are lucky enough to not have to put the your sewing machine away after each use. I am so jealous! Anyway, after I stopped drooling over Susan's studio, I decided to reorganize my own art room - AGAIN! (Hey, I am a Virgo, so what do you expect!!) However, this time I am going to be much more ruthless when it comes to getting rid of things. I HAVE to be!

I think it is fun to see where other people create. I will post some pictures of my art room when I am finished. If you'd like to share your creative space (or someone else's that you love), why not leave a link in the comments section of this post.