Craft Room Wall Art

I've had these wall stickers for awhile now and didn't know where to put them. But once I redid my craft room, I knew I wanted to put them on the walls.

I got them at Dollar Tree ($1 each) and I used two of them in my room.

The first one allowed some room for moving it around, so I carefully cut the pieces apart and arranged them on the countertop first. I highly recommend this since I would have overdone it if I had just gone by the drawing I made first!

Here it is on the wall, just above my fake window frame (an "old" Home Interiors purchase).

And here is the second one that didn't have a lot of rearranging possibilities, so I just did it as it was. I really, really like the arrangement!

I do have a few tips if you plan to use these (or similar) wall stickers.

• Most of the letters are individually cut, meaning you have to align them carefully. I recommend you measure carefully and draw a light pencil line on the wall to make sure you're getting them on straight.
• Take the stickers off the backing very carefully since it wouldn't be hard to rip one. (I didn't, but I'm pretty familiar with stickers, thanks to scrapbooking.)

One of the nicest things about these stickers is that they are removable so I don't have to worry about putting them on the walls in our parsonage.

Craft Room Re-Do

I have the flu now, but I'm feeling a little bit better now that the Tylenol has kicked in. I'm getting stir crazy from sitting in bed doing nothing, so I thought I'd come and post this while I feel up to it.

I looked for the "before" pictures, but I can't find them anywhere. I must have deleted them. Sorry! Just believe me when I say it wasn't working and was a total wreck most of the time.

So here's the new re-do as you walk in the door:

And here's the wall of bookcases that I love. They used to be scattered around the room (mostly because I bought them at different times and added them where I could), but it creates a much more pleasing effect now that they're grouped together.

And here is the wire cube grouping to the left as you walk in the door. The arrangement of items in the cubes is up for negotiation if I find another arrangement will work better. Sometimes I just have to use things awhile to figure out what works and what doesn't.

I have so much more space to work with now than I did before. One of the main reasons is that I took out the computer and desk that I haven't used in months.

So here is my frugal take on the the "ultimate" organized scrapbook room. :) The only thing I bought was the z-line cart (which hasn't come just yet) to organize my paper. Everything might not be quite as visually uniform as those scrapbook room re-do's in the magazines, but you can't argue with the price!

How to Decorate with Ten Balloons

As I was grocery shopping today, I was hoping to find something to help me spruce up the house for our February ladies' meeting tonight. Of course, the theme was Valentine's Day and all Valentine's Day merchandise was 50% off today.

I just couldn't bring myself to buy any of the valentine-theme plates or napkins that I found because I thought they were so horribly ugly. I'm definitely not into the child-scribbled-art thing. So I bought some red plates and cups from Dollar Tree to supplement the valentine napkins a friend had purchased last year.

I still needed something to decorate with, so I decided to pick up a package of ten balloons for $0.50. They weren't quite so bad in design since they only had one heart on them instead of the fifteen zillion overlapping hearts on the tableware.

I got them home, blew up all ten balloons by myself and then tried to figure out what in the world I was going to do with them. I knew Meredith would have come up with something fantastic, and I tried to think about what she might do with them. (She's my hero when it comes to table decoration and food presentation.)

Let me tell you, it was hard. I tried taping them to several surfaces, but the tape didn't want to hold. I tried laying them on several surfaces, but you know what happened - they blew off as soon as I walked past them.

Since I didn't have a huge arrangement of flowers to work with, I wanted to make something similar with the balloons. So I had the brainy idea of taping them to straws to keep them upright. That worked pretty well, but I still had to work with them a bit to make them stand upright in this vase.

It took me awhile, but I did like the end result.

I still had seven balloons leftover and plenty of space to decorate yet, so I decided to go for the biggest impact and attach them to my chandelier. After I added some curling ribbon and Kleenex roses, I was pretty pleased with it, too.

It's not Martha Stewart, but it is original with me. And I was pretty pleased with what $0.50 did for my party decorations!

12x12" Hanging Storage

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm working on organizing my newly rearranged craft room. I'll post pictures when I'm done, but there's no way I'm posting the mess right now! (Imagine boxes and bags sitting in the hallway waiting for me, and you'll get the idea.)

One of my biggest challenges has been storing my 12x12" scrapbook paper. I have to have vertical storage. Nothing else will work for me. I was working out of a Creative Memories Workshop Organizer from my years as a consultant, but I got tired of not being able to read my labels once I started adding 12x12" paper (as opposed to the 10x12" it was designed for).

I had seen this idea before but didn't like the idea of my paper being stored in folders full of acid and lignin. Then I got to thinking about the packaging scrapbook papers come in - most include a piece of cardboard that's full of acid and lignin. And how long have they been packaged like that? Depending on where you buy them, it could be years.

I compared what little is available devoted exclusively to scrapbooks.

The Crop In Style filer cube averages $60, not including 12x12" hanging files for an average of $1.30 each. Since I figured I'd need about 14 files, that would average $78.20, not including shipping and tax.

So, back to the original idea of making files from regular legal-sized hanging files ... I bought 3 packs of 10 folders at Wal-Mart for $9.00 total. That will make 20 hanging files, averaging $0.45 each.

Then I bought the Z-Line Alero Mobile 2-Tier File Cart from Staples. (This is the cart mentioned at the bottom of the article on making your own file folders.) They didn't have it in stock at the store, so the manager ordered it and had it shipped to my home, next-day delivery. Since I'm a member of Staples Rewards, the shipping was free (regularly $8.00). And since I was able to pay at the store, I was able to use $9 worth of coupons from recycled printer cartridges and ended up paying $22.79 for the cart.

My ending cost: $31.79 for the cart and 20 files.
What I would have paid for the same number of files and cabinet: $86.00
My savings: $54.21

Bonus: I'm selling a bunch of organizers I haven't used since my days as a Creative Memories consultant, and I can use that money to pay for this system (with plenty leftover).

Double Bonus: I bought the hanging file folders with a gift card I had received for Christmas, so they didn't really cost me anything.

Book Spotlight: Organizing for the Creative Person

I haven't read the whole book yet, but I got something interesting from Organizing for the Creative Person today.

I am not a left-hander (as most right-brained people are), but I am a creative person. I have always been a very visual and hands-on person, both in learning and in real life. When I'm crafting, I like to have things where I can see them. According to the book, this is characteristic of a right-brained thinker.

Now here's the part that comes as an "aha" moment: creative types like to stack things into piles rather than putting them away so that they'll remember what needs to be done. I can't tell you how many times I've done that, but I never knew why. I was afraid to put away all those items cluttering the top of my rolltop desk because I was afraid I'd forget - forget to return library books, call the HSA representative, charge the cell phone ...

Now lest you think my house is a disaster all the time, I have to say (in my defense) that these kinds of things are usually stacked in neat piles - but they are still piles. And I have to admit that I have a love-hate relationship with clutter. I'm a clutterbug, according to the book (no surprise here). But I can't stand to see clutter.

So I'm sure you're wondering the solution advocated by the authors. It's easy enough: write down what needs to be done and then put it away. The list (someplace prominent like the refrigerator) helps you remember, and you know right where something is when it's time to take care of it. What a great idea!

Now I'm off to reorganize and purge my newly rearranged craft room ...

Sugar and Spice Popcorn

I've been working on the larger doilies for my husband today, and I just finished one. I'm going to see what he thinks before I make the other two, but I'm hoping it's big enough. I just invested an entire half day of my life into this doily ...

Anyway, since I didn't have time for a lengthy post (and don't have the doily starched and presentable just yet), I decided to post the recipe for munchies that I made today. It's supposed to be low-fat. I do know it's economical and it came from Light & Tasty magazine a few years ago.

Although the recipe calls for it to be served warm, I like it almost as well cold. That's good, because it makes a lot. We eat what we like while it's warm and then I put it in zippered baggies for a snack for another time.

Sugar and Spice Popcorn

1/2 cup popcorn kernels
3 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Air pop the popcorn and place in a large roasting pan coated with nonstick cooking spray.

In a saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add the sugar, water, cinnamon and salt; cook and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Pour over popcorn; toss to coat.

Bake, uncovered, at 300 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 quarts

This is my current favorite picture of my daughter.

What makes it so special? Just that it's how she looks every day. Yes, I comb her hair and fix it every morning. But somehow she manages to lose the barrettes and "gumbies" by lunchtime. She's very much of a free spirit, and this picture captures her so well.

I was setting up to take pictures of a 6-month-old when I took this picture. I asked my kids to step in front of the camera so I could check the lighting. She happily obliged, even claiming the teddy bear prop! How could I resist a picture like this?

So my tip for this picture is:

• be sure to take pictures of what your kids look like every day, not just when they're dressed up for portraits.

Sure, you can take those kind of pictures any time. But notice how the traditional portrait features - uncluttered, solid background and great lighting - highlight her. So if you ever get the chance, by all means photograph your child as you will remember them ten years from now.