Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend ... because Monday is President's Day, we have a three day weekend here in the US. :)

After a morning hockey game, we are having a quiet Valentine's Day at home ... watching the Olympics by the fireplace and snacking on way too much junk food.



Just wanted to share the cute mail boxes I made for the kids for Valentine's Day. Mailboxes from Target's Dollar Spot and template from iKari Designs found here at JessicaSprague.com.

These cute little mailboxes were so easy to make because of the template. I just filled them with yummy goodies. Adorable!

Mission Accomplished ...Almost

I nearly completed my major task of cleaning and reorganizing my studio space. Here is what it looks like from just outside the room.


Below is the right hand side of the room. I have two sitting chairs tucked under the windows.


I call this the Storage Tower ... love having ample room to hide things behind doors so the space doesn't look overly cluttered. I took the storage blocks right up as high as I safely could.


Here is a close-up of the Storage Tower. All this white space gives my eyes a place to rest in my otherwise visually stimulated space. Keeps my eyes happy. :)


Moving along the far wall to the desk ... this section of my work surface area is where most of my creating takes place. I have almost everything I need within arms reach.

The corner section of the work surface area is where my laptop resides. I have my printer and shipping supplies within reach ... so this is the perfect spot to prepare my accessories for their journey off to their new homes. I love sitting in this corner under the large window.

Moving along the left wall ... you can see my printer, sewing machine and the edge of one of the two ribbon racks my Dad made for me several years ago. Under the table are two containers chock full of felt ... however the felt needs to be better organized and I just didn't have time to get it done. I also desperately need to redo the spools of ribbon on the two ribbon racks. I'll have to save those two projects for another day.

Here is another storage tower. This one is from IKEA. You can see a big pile of lovely reclaimed wool awaiting a new life in the basket on top of the storage shelves. The vintage basket on the floor is stuffed and overflowing with wool roving in every color of the rainbow.

My island in the middle of the room is directly under the chandelier and provides yet another work surface and storage area.

My studio is actually the formal living room of my home. I choose this space because even though we have a finished basement, I am in my studio so much that I really needed and wanted my space to be in the heart of my home surrounded by my family rather than down in the basement where I'd feel disconnected from everyone. Since there are no doors I decided to add some curtains (also from IKEA) to frame out the entrance to the space and set it aside from the rest of the home a bit. And when things are really messy in there, I can close the curtains down. A big plus!


That's it for now. I'll have to go back and take some more shots of some close-ups areas. Hope you enjoyed taking a peek at my creative space.

Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.

So we all had a snow day yesterday ... everyone was home. (The big bad storm only amounted to about 3 or 4 inches, even though it seemed like it snowed all day. Whew!) The Mr. worked from home and the kids had a day off from school. I've learned a long time ago that having everyone home in the house does not lend itself to a productive day in my studio. I just can't seem to get the time to concentrate long enough on new projects because someone is always in need of something. So, after putting in just a few hours doing only the necessary ... I decided to take apart my studio. I thought at least I would be accomplishing something, and it wouldn't be a big deal if I had to stop and restart a million different times. I started removing things from shelves and drawers and making huge piles all over the place in an attempt to clean and reorganize my studio. Now, I know when I started there was a master plan in my head ... but amidst making meals for the kids, refereeing moments of sibling rivalry and keeping the kids entertained for the day ... somehow that master plan sort of dissolved along the way. Here's some photos of how bad and totally unorganized things looked only 1/3 of the way into this project.



I finished another 1/3 of the reorg today. And hope to get the rest done tomorrow. Hopefully the next time you check in, I'll have photos posted of a neat, and tidier new studio. :)

Making Valentines

I think this might be the last year for my daughter to bring in Valentines for her class. Sad!



This year we decided to print out some cards that I found online as a freebie. There was a cute pink and brown set with little birdies and cupcakes for girls & a pirate theme in black and red for the boys. This worked out perfect because I purchased Hershey Kisses and Hugs for the treat. The Kisses and Hugs came in pinks and reds ... so we filled each boy classmate's Valentine Goodie Bag with red ones and each girl classmate's Valentine Goodie Bag with pink ones. How sweetly they matched. We simply cut the square Valentines out after printing out the sheets. We also cut out white squares from cardstock as the backing. We filled little clear bags with a few chocolates, lined up the printed Valentine square on the front of the bag, lined up the white cardstock square on the back of the bag ... allowing the top of the clear bag to be "sandwiched" in between the two paper layers and stapled! That's it.


How cute are these? Handmade ... no store bought Valentine's here! Here's the link for the Valentine Freebies in case you haven't gotten around to making your own Valentines yet.