Sunday, September 13, 2009

A Long Overdue Project!

Something that was long overdue in my house was cleaning up (and out) my craft room. When we built this house, Cecil really wanted a nice fireproof gun safe in our closet (you know the kind that has a humidifier and such in it...) and I really wanted a craft room. The easiest way for this to happen was for me to say to him that he could have all that "man" stuff if I could have the "fru-fru" craft room. It worked.

Only one problem. I had 2 small BOYS and no time to actually craft. Hence the reason I'm about ummm.....5 years behind on Nolan's albums and well...poor Carter's baby book isn't even done yet. Those that know me know that this is just about too much for me. I'm an extremely organized, controlled, errr...controlling person and to be that far behind on my kids' albums is just pathetic. I keep saying that when hunting season starts and their daddy takes them hunting, I'm going to sit down and scrapbook the nights away....I'll have to keep you updated on that (if it actually happens).

Back to the main idea here. I need to clean-up the craft room! It was atrocious! Here's a few pictures of the room and what it looked like before clean up. (keep in mind these pictures were taken half-way through clean up and it looked worse than this).



A few more pictures from the doorway showing just how bad it really was.



I love this room. (when it's clean). I love the purple walls and the white cabinets with purple/blue countertops. Yes, people. I said purple. I LOVE PURPLE. Since I only had boys and would never get to do a fru-fru room, I figured this was as close as it was going to get. So...I painted the walls a very light purple and made it girly. Two of my favorite items in the room are this swag with 3 wreaths that I found years ago at Lands' End and this purple/white wreath that I found recently at Michael's.




One of the best tips I can give you for organization is to get a box of Ziploc bags and stuff them with grouped items. For example, what I do is for Nolan's 5th birthday, I'll get a baggie and put all the bday cards in it along with an invitation or other knick-knacks from the party and label the bag. This helps me to easily locate all the "5th bday items" when I'm ready to scrapbook that page. You'll see in the above pictures that I have a ScrapRack system, so that's where all my stickers and paper are, but if you don't have that kind of system, you can put bday scrapbook paper, etc. in the baggie so you can do the whole page all at once! See examples below......



After a few hours of sorting pictures into stacks and filing them to the appropriate person's box and bagging up events (see paragraph above), putting ribbon in the drawers, glitter away in the cabinets and filing away paper and stickers, etc. , here's what I'm left with!!


Looks pretty good if I sayso myself. Whew! That was hard work, but it sure was a nice walk down memory lane when I saw old pictures of Disney trips, etc.!! What about you girls? Any tips and tricks for massive organization?

~CB~

6 comments:

  1. GO YOU!!! Personally, I love your purple craft room. Someday when I'm living in my own glorious house (and not a teeny tiny 1980-something trailer) I fully intend to have my own girly craft room, too! Your is truly beautiful :)

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  2. Oh, I am so jealous! I would love to have a craft room! Thanks for the great tip on grouping birthday items in a ziploc! I am ashamed to confess that I have yet to get all of Allie's pics in albums and she is almost one! Sad, I know.

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  3. oh you just don't want to get me started!! I got all tingly when I started reading about your organization project! I love it... and it looks amazing.

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  4. Oh sister totally. You know how funny this is... well maybe you feel this way too, but do you know how you have all these amazing blogging friends and you LOVE THEM ALL, though you don't know them, yet for some reason you have a few that you just really and totally connect with right off the bat for some unexplained reason and you KNOW you would be friends if you knew them in real life? Yeah... that's us.

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  5. Uh yeah... that homemade trapper keeper? There is no picture, cause it ain't pretty.

    Once I make it pretty THEN I'll show a photo. Imagine a binder with tons of papers, folders, and file tabs. Imagine sticky notes, and lists, and scraps of paper. Imagine an address book, stamps, and card with envelopes. Imagine school forms and reciepts. Imagine grocery lists, and blog ideas. Imagine chocolate.

    Okay, there is no chocolate in it, but still... there should be.

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  6. I found your blog as a follower of Lemonade Makin' Mama. Sasha's mama is a dear friend of mine. We lived in the same town when Sasha and my daughter were little girls. Sasha's blog has been an inspiration to me to start blogging so I'm slowly figuring out how to do it and have started one called Celebrate Imperfection. I would like to get more readers to share with. Even though I am probably much older, from your profile it seems we have a lot in common. I loved your recipes and also reading about your craft room. I am in the process of making an unused bedroom into a craft room and for many months now have been piling various craft projects into different piles. If you think your room was bad, I wish I had a picture of mine to show you. I am getting it organized little by little. My scrapbooking supplies are the biggest thing I have to sort. I bought a ScrapRack system last year but have not gotten it put together yet. Your pictures and blog have inspired me to get to it. I'd love to hear from you

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