Kerry’s Paper Crafts

seriously, how could I not let this face have a little spot of his own on my messy desk?

He’s the King.

Craft Room, Other

WARNING: the contents of this blog posting are somewhat scary. Yikes.

This weekend I knew I had to start tackling my re-organization project. See, there’s a guest bedroom off my craft room - it’s a great room. The problem is that it’s been sort of a catch all for my crafting CRAP. In other words: this past season on Craft Fair Madness was NOT kind to this room. LOTS of things were dumped here. Various unfinished craft projects, craft mistakes & disasters….unused boxes…shipping boxes that I *might* use someday…random unused craft materials, etc.

This shelf was the worst. It was where most EVERYTHING got thrown. To add to the madness, I still had Christmas wrapping paper & accessories sitting in this room - just hadn’t gotten around to lugging them back up to the attic. ARGH.

So this weekend I tackled the beast:

*shudders*

So, what did I do? Well, here are a few tips that I can pass along from my weekend:

• THROW THINGS OUT. Seriously. Are you going to use that? Have you touched it in the last 6 months? Take a long hard look at that crafting project that you THOUGHT you could salvage. Chances are you should cut your losses & move on - it will allow for a new spiffy project to make it’s way into your crafting life…
• Boxes - do you really need them? I was saving some empty boxes for potential shipping purposes. But really - all they do is take up LOTS of space - and looks really ugly. The Post Office has boxes - so why am I saving these?
• Wasted space: certain items were taking up silly amounts of space - simply because I didn’t have them sorted properly. I took all of my “Craft Fair” type alterables & materials & placed them all together. I grouped them into baskets & boxes so they are all in one place. Now I know what I have - and they are easy to find. (ex: wooden purses, little clay pots, chipboard books, etc.)
• Sell old items you no longer use. I have a whole box full of stamps & other crafty tools that I no longer use. They were great - but I’m ready to make room for more new stuff. I hope to post them on here soon so if any of you are interested in a good deal on stamps - check back soon!

The above strategy produced A LOT of trash. This is just a small sampling…

And after all that…I give you…the newly organized shelf that I so bravely tackled:

TA DA!!! - I’m so proud!

I really hope to keep it this way. You do not want to even know how many bags of crap I really had. There was a lot more: so much more that we couldn’t fit it all in this weeks outgoing trash. LOL. (in my defense - what started out as my one shelf turned into my shelf, plus the closet…plus the computer desk, plus another closet….Pete got into it too!)

So there you have it. I cannot believe I’m actually showing these photos on my blog - but at the same time I want you to know that I’m a real person & my craft space does NOT always look clean (in fact, clean is pretty rare). I don’t think it needs to always be 100% clean - but it does help to have some organization.

While we’re on the topic - I thought I’d share this again. I twittered about it last week but wanted to post here too in case you missed it. The lovely ladies over at the Crafty Storage Blog have a great thing going. They feature all kinds of creative rooms & ideas. I’ve seen some really neat things on there. They were kind enough to feature my space last week. Be sure to check them out & leave ‘em some love! (my FAVE was this idea that I saw HERE.)

thanks for stopping by!!

Craft Room, Organization

what I will be doing this weekend…

re-ogranzing is high on the list of priorities. Because as of tonight - THIS was the state of my crafting desk.

I will try & take photos of any progress or tips I stumble upon along the way.

::dons biohazard suit & gas mask::

Craft Room

Thought I’d just do a quick update on my craft room (which happens to be a bit of a disaster lately, yikes!)

This is how I film my videos. It’s super sophisticated ehhh?? Basically I just attach my Flip Camcorder to my Tripod & angle it downward onto my work surface. I film the video & then I use iMovie 09 to edit. I have to flip all of my videos around so that you aren’t watching me work upside down…!

Sometimes I have enough natural light when shooting a video so I don’t need any lamps. But mostly I use 2 desk lamps & just angle them down so they are giving me enough light for the video.

(notice all the CRAP surrounding my work surface?? Yeaaa….that’s mostly how I roll. I’ve convinced myself that I’m just so darn artistic that I can’t be bothered to put stuff away as I craft…yep, that MUST be it!! )

And here’s where I shoot 99% of the stuff that I make. Normally I have my Cricut on this table & do all of my die cutting here. When it’s time to shoot photos, I just take my Cricut off the table.

It’s the best spot in the house - mostly because there’s lot of windows in this room & lots of natural light. I almost NEVER shoot with artificial lighting - photos always turn out best with natural light. See that shade that’s half down? I usually pull that ALL the way up - as high as it can go - letting in as much light as possible. (sometimes I forget to close it though, and it’s a little creepy b/c I’m sure my neighbor can look in & see my disaster craft room…so yea, I try to remember to always close it! Privacy is key people!)

That black cloth is just a black sheet that I threw over a board. (the board came out of the back of a large poster frame - so it’s almost like a hefty piece of chipboard that’s roughly the size of a poster). This makes for a decent backdrop - one that I can lean most anything against, such as matching designer paper, etc. If I don’t find anything that I like for matching paper I simply stick with the black.

Oh and that project currently sitting there being photographed…? That’s a Valentine’s Day project that I created - I haven’t shared it with you yet…so ssshhhh I will be sharing soon. They are fun & cute for kids.

Thanks for looking!

Craft Room, Photography, Videos

this is actually mild.

i did not dare pan out & show you the rest of the room…

Craft Room, Other

OK as promised, here I am with a big post about my Craft Room!

I have lots of pics to share, and 2 little videos to give you a “virtual tour” of what it currently looks like. I just finished re-organizing a bunch of things with new goodies from IKEA - and I’m really happy with how it all turned out!

To see a full gallery with all of the still photos of my scraproom, click HERE. Now, on to some pics…

Here is where I mainly sit, it’s sort of my main wall with my desk & lots of shelves!

Die Cutting Area - Cricut, Cuttlebug, BIA, Mini Sew-Machine & Paper Cutter:
Older desk that stores most of my SU! Cardstock, White Cardstock, and Bazzil Cardstock. I also keep my main paper cutter on this desk:
Up close view of my SU! and Bazzil Cardstock, sorted by colors:
More shelves on another wall - with my new storage system for unmounted stamps:
Towel Rod is from IKEA, and so are the little clips that hang on the rod. I clip them onto the packages of clear stamps and hang them off the rod. It’s much easier to access my stamps and see exactly what I have this way:
Storage of Cricut Cartridges & other tools/accessories:
Up close view of the clips that hold my unmounted stamps:
The shelves below hold all of my SU! Stamp sets, and containers where I store brads/eyelets and sponges:
More storage cubes (from Target) where I store all of my SU! scraps. I keep them sorted by color and try to always keep all my scraps. This way they are easy to grab when I need ‘em. I also keep magazines, Cricut Mats, Cutting Mats, and other general stuff in the top:
Up close view of some of my scraps:
Some more IKEA towel holders that I just installed, which hold punches, Copic Markers, ribbon & other tools:
White shelving from Making Memories or Target…holds all of my ink pads, glitter, embossing powder, Primas, Adhesives, Punches, and other misc. items:
Another view of my desk (unusually clean. trust me, it does NOT normally look like this):
a view of the vinyl wall-art that I created with my Cricut. I used Plantin Schoolbook font for the word “CREATE” and Accent Essentials for the swirls. Super easy to do!!
The wire hanging across is once again IKEA - I hang some projects from the wire for display:
A view of my 1st ever Published Card
OK those are just a highlight of the photos - as I mentioned before, you can catch more in the Gallery. Now, onto the videos, where I sort of explain this all a lot better. (or at least I hope I do!!)

**note - you might be better off heading directly over to YouTube to ensure you are watching in High Quality**

PART ONE:

PART TWO:

I hate the way I sound on video, so bear with me…hopefully it’s not too horrendous Thanks for checking it out, please leave me a comment & let me know what you think or if you have any questions/suggestions.

Craft Room