I moved my scrap room.

So I haven't blogged in 9 months and I'm not sure when I will again but since my last post, I have moved my scrap room from my basement to my empty loft space upstairs. See those pictures HERE. The reason I was in the basement originally (in 2005) is because I had a 2 year old and a newborn baby. I needed a place where I could shut the door and not worry about the kids getting into my stuff. While I did love my basement space, it got harder to scrap, since my kids are now 7 and 9 and like to play outside. This loft space is probably 10x12 feet with only one full wall, the other wall holds a big window and there is a railing to the left that looks over our family room. It was challenging at first but once I found my furniture, it became easy.

So don't hate me, but I am SO lucky to have an Ikea in our town. You'd think that I'd be there all the time, but its not a store that you can just "run in to quickly". Right? I got this island and the 3 Billy bookcases from there. They just came out with a deeper, 13" depth to it, so its perfect for crafting.

I put the island facing the windows so I can watch my kids while they play outside. The top of the island is a butcher block and has two stainless steel shelves behind it. I love the metal lockers I found from Home Goods, because I have a TON of punches and they need something sturdy to hold them. 

I got one set of glass doors to protect my paper and anything that can stain like markers and paints. My dog is good but how horrible would it be to find my paper collection in shreds and paint all over my new carpet? I actually would like to put the glass doors on the rest of the shelves to protect everything but a set of glass doors costs more than the shelves!

I switched to a horizontal paper storage system a few years ago and I love it. I keep my large SU cardstock collection in the red Ikea Kassett magazine holders. The rest of the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy the tour!

  Clip it up lives on top of the Michael drawers.

 Adhesives go in the metal bucket and washi tapes in basket.

OK, below starts some pics of my most recent addition! I asked my step father, who is handy with wood, to build a table top organizer for me. It was measured to fit my shelf and holds my most common supplies used for Project Life. I designed the dividers to fit my supplies and I love it. Here it is on my shelf filled:

I can take it off and put it on my worktable while I scrap. Here it is empty:

 Filled with products:

 Hope you enjoyed the tour. I gotta admit that I haven't had the scrapbooking bug like I used to but I have been doing project life all year and I'm pretty happy about that. Its nice to have a sunny area that is among the normal part of the house.

Project Life Weeks 2-3

Stopping in quickly to post weeks 2 and 3. I am really keeping up with pics and even have extras. Sometimes I think I won't have enough pics and then I realize that I'm OK. We got really pelted today with snow and yesterday we got into the single digit temps. I have the accuweather app on my ipad and I took a screenshot of the low temps. Yesterday when I was getting gas, I left without a receipt (which is normal for me) and I realized how cool it would be to keep a receipt like that for the album. I remember how the country was frantic when we reached $1.00 for gas. Who knows how much it will be 20 years from now, right?
I use a calendar book to keep track of my pics, I've also been putting little trinkets here and there, like a receipt from the library, Kendall's spelling words, etc...things like that.
Hopefully I can take some pics of my album soon to share.

Project Life Week 1

So the first week of project life is done...only 51 more weeks to go! :) I figured that I would make a collage for my blog instead of posting each picture individually.

I gotta tell you, even though I captured a lot of great moments, I didn't get great quality. One thing I did this year is buy a calendar that had enough space in each day to keep track of my project. I mark down the subject of the picture and whether I edited it and ordered it. It really helps to keep track of my pics. I also am taking extra pictures when I can and I write the subjects on a post it note in my calendar. There will be days that you are missing pics and its nice to have some extra shots. Like this...

My pup Maui wears the same thing everyday, you can't tell when this was taken, lol. She has these super long back legs and I just love to capture them on pics :)
Another piece of advice I can give is to keep a camera phone or small camera by you at all times. I really wish I had an iphone, that would help a ton. Also, get the family involved. Give the camera to your kids, tell you spouse to take pics...ask for help! On my next post I'll include a list of picture ideas for you. But for now I'll leave you with two layouts I did...

Aydan with his first grade teacher. We just love her to pieces. She was also Kendall's first grade teacher. I included a picture of both kids with her two years ago! So cute that she's known Aydan since he was four. I included a pocket from KI to include some post cards that she's sent and some extra pics of the classroom.And one from Thanksgiving. I don't usually scrap holidays...well, I'm not a huge fan. But when I do, I like to change it up and use non-traditional colors. I LOVE this gray text paper from JBS, I could use it for everything! I paired it up with some fushia paper from Amy Tangerine's line...such fun colors.