My Craft Room

I belong to a wonderful web group - CricutLovers - on Yahoo group. The ladies and gents are the best around and are incredibly helpful with any question we have whether it is cricut related or not.  They are also some of the most creative individuals I've seen in a long time and I envy the talent each of them possess.

Anyway, there was a thread today about how best to store a Cricut.  For those who are not in the know - Cricut is an electronic die cutting machine.  I have the Expression model so it's quite large.  It took me sometime to find a home for it but I finally did.  My craft room is also my office since I work full time from home.  I have an Expedit bookcase/desk from Ikea which is a must have for any crafter.  However, there was a space between the bookcase (a little behind my chair) and the wall that I needed to put a shelf of some kind.  The problem was I had specific requirements - the width could not be bigger than the existing space, the height perferrably needed to match that of the Expedit, the back needed to open for plugs/cables, and the depth had to be deep enough for the Cricut mat to pass in and out.  It was definitely a challenge since on top of all those requirements I refused to pay hundreds of dollars.  My husband is really handy and is capable of make a custom shelf but after the massive flood we had in Sept 2009 his woodworking shop is not what it once was.  So the search continued. 

We found ourselves at the neighborhood Wal-mart and low and behold they had a chrome 3 tiered shelf for $20.  At first glance it looked like the right size.  I took it home and it was PERFECT!  The only problem it wasn't tall enough.  But the instructions said you could call Customer Service and they would mail you a kit to stack two together - for free! So I ordered a kit and went back to Wal-mart and bought another shelf.  I could not have designed this unit any better had I done it myself.  Here's a link to the shelf at Walmart just in case you're interested. 

Here are the photos of my craft room - it's not a dream room but it's bigger than a corner in the living room I had before!  The room was originally a goldish color but I repainted it lavender/purple to give me more mojo.  Let me know what you think!!

Surprise Pop Up/Spinner Combo

My work colleague, who is also a very good friend, has young daughter who was hospitalized for a week with pneumonia. It was very scary and I only wish I could have been there but she lives on the west coast and I'm on the east.  All I could do was call and check in and listen to her when she needed an ear.  Good news is her daughter is now home and on the road to recovery. 

I wanted to create a special get well card for Abby and because she's an avid figure skater I borrowed a Tilda stamp from a friend and scanned and resized it for the card. Tilda is a beautiful little girl that is just too cute to pass up at Magnolia Stamps. The card is a combination Surprise Pop-Up and Spinner cards.  Tutorials for both are on the "must see again and again" - SplitCoast stampers website. I also used a background/frame from my favorite artist - Dustin Pike. I think it works perfectly with little Tilda skating on a pond. I do hope she likes it!

ABC Challenge

It's another late night and I just completed the ABC Challenge at http://abcchristmaschallenge.blogspot.com/ .  I decided to participate because Dustin Pike is the sponsor.  I absolutely love Dustin's digi stamps. I can't help but buy up all his images. They are so incredibly cute!  He provides weekly freebies along with monthly memberships that are a great deal. Check out his blog and images!!

Anyway, back to the challenge.  The rules of this challenge was to use any of Dustin's images in a Christmas card or project but the catch was that items used could only be black and white. The only color permitted was on the image itself.  It took a little bit of time to figure out what I would do and then decided on a tent card with mulberry paper behind the window.  I used a little bling on the snowman's sombero, glossy accent on the christmas lights, a little glitter on the snowman, and snow marker on the snow.  I hope people like it. 

ENJOY!

Monday Digi

It's been quite awhile since I've posted. Holidays came quick and we hosted family and friends. Last week we experienced a snow/ice storm that shut Atlanta down for a week. After growing up in NJ it still shocks me when six inches can disable a city for so long.  The kids were home all week and today is MLK so it's another day off.  Thank heavens it's back to school tomorrow!

I just completed my first card challenge for HIGH HOPES Anything Goes Challenge.  I used a Dustin Pike stamp along with a fish digi I created.  I've never created a digital stamp before and have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  But thankfully my copics covered up the irregular lines created after I scanned the drawing.

ENJOY!