Going to the craft room and I'm going to get tidying....

Sing the title of this blog post to this tune.

I've finally made it back up to the craft room after leaving it to itself for a few months (depression/lack of motivation etc) It feels good to be back in there but goodness me it was a mess!

This is the space in front of my desk.

This is the doorway (I am aware that you are meant to go through doors!)

This is a pile to be sorted - a mixture of packaging and stock.

At least I have an eager helper!

A couple of things

It seems that Harry approves of my messy desk! I didn't look at his face while taking this so I didn't see if it was disgust or joy at my messy desk. Or maybe indifference, he is a dog after all!

I also did some mending. This dress has had a stain on the boob for a while that was really obvious (I think the previous owner dripped tomato soup down herself!) and while I wore it a couple of times, it was glaringly obvious. The pocket came from an old apron that had a hole in it (the rest has been used for chickens which you will see soon) and while it doesn't match at all, it looks quite good. It doesn't jar quite so much in real life :) I'm probably going to wear it today so I'll try and grab a photo.

That's my two things - do you have anything nondescript and not that exciting going on in your life at the moment?

Damn captcha!

I'm having to turn the captcha comments back on for this blog as I was being bombarded with spam comments and even though I have to moderate comments, some of them were sneaking onto posts and I have no idea why! So apologies for that if you find them tricky but for the sake of my sanity, I had to do it. It will hopefully mean I have more time to blog :)

Look at my tidy spool rack :) It's a lot fuller than that now thanks to my trusty sidewinder bobbin winder!

Look - tidy drawers :) The small ones at the top are for bits of paper that have been cut out to be stickers but that are waiting to go through the sticker machine and the bottom drawers are for half finished gift tags and mini envelopes. Now that I have somewhere permanent to put them, it might stop them spreading round the house and living on trays and in boxes!

And see I was clever to show you the tidy bits before I showed you the mess. Feel free to ignore the two pictures below!

I am continuing to tidy the studio today so hopefully next week I will have tidy pictures to show you!

This book was surely written for us!

It had to come home with us from the charity shop the other day :)

Although our stairs are pretty tidy at the moment. And yes, that is tidy as there are only a couple of trips needed to clear it. Normally to clear the stairs, we play a game called Wicked Stepmother, where I am the aforementioned Stepmother who bosses two Cindereallas around. And yes it still works even though they are 8 and 5 :)

Real life

Just in case you think this blog is ever in danger of becoming selective with the photographs used ( although why you would think that I have no idea!) here is one that was taken on the 20th January to show you a bit of perspective.

This is the view of our bedroom as you come up the mini set of stairs from the half landing. Ok the clothes on the bed have now been put away (soon to be replaced with new ones I'm sure) and the bedding is different but the same view would be had now if you wandered up those stairs. Exactly the same view and yes that does mean that the Christmas tree and box(es) of decorations are still there on the 10th Feb. I do have an excuse but it will just sound flimsy so lets just call me slovenly and be done with it ok :)

Tidying time :)

I have declared this week (or at least the start of this week) and tidy and sort week in this house. We are going through both girls bedrooms, our bedroom and the front room and tidying, cleaning sorting, putting to one side for the charity shop and generally making our home feel nice, clean and stuffed with less clutter. Hopefully we will be combining this with visits to pick blackberries and visits with friends but we will see.

This photo is from two years ago but you get the general idea!

Wish me luck and see you on the other side.......

Picture diary of the new (nearly) sorted craft room!

Finally!

The before picture of that side of the room - a never used desk piled with crap.

The cleared desk which now has a home in Anya's room.

All gone! Note the crap on the back of the door is still there!

Crap from door gone - white chest of drawers in it's place :) I got these drawers at Ikea in the bargain corner as the top drawer is missing. Not a problem as it is now filled with small boxes full of pens, paper etc. This is where the drawers were going to be but we shuffled furniture around a lot of Friday and Saturday!

I'm pleased that the bottom drawer is large enough to hold my flowery wallpaper samples that will one day become a patchwork wall in our bedroom :D

Then my thin drawers were going to move home (due to the stock boxes moving up from the dining room) However, in the end they don't end up there!

The 'missing drawer' drawers are on wheels so they are perfect to go in front of the door leading to the eaves storage. We rarely go in there so extra space is always good for me! The stock boxes are in their new home on the right behind the cushion.

Ta da! The new shelves :) They may look wonky but they aren't as I checked and double checked each one with a spirit level as it went in. It's probably the floor that is wonky knowing this house :)

I have been sorting everything in the craft room (and there is still quite a bit to go through) but can you see that gap on the fabric shelves?? I can't quite believe how much fabric I have got rid of! I even went through my scrap basket and two large boxes and got rid of a whole load more that is just the wrong kind of fabric for my business cards.

The shelves full! This is the top of the shelves.

This is the middle (note gaps on some shelves!)

And this is the bottom. The stuff on the white drawers to the right isn't staying there and I'm not sure if I am keeping both cushions. But apart from a bit of tidying, that end of the room is done*

We'll say nothing about the other end of the room shall we? :D

*and apart from a few bags and boxes of stuff to sort and a few things to move up from downstairs, the craft room is done! I am pleased to have done it so quickly and hopefully in a day or two I can show you more pictures (there may even be a video of the room too!)

There's a desk under there somewhere...

Apparently there is a desk under there somewhere..... Oh yep......

There it is :) The desk is going to be moved downstairs to go in Anya's room and I am going to have a set of drawers and lots and lots of shelves for lots and lots of goodies*. Possibly a large floor cushion or two as well! Yeah for sorting.

*said goodies are being sorted at the moment so expect to see some popping up as giveaways. It may be a while though as I have only bought part of the shelving system and all the stuff that was on the desk is now in a big pile on the spare bed in the study waiting to be put back. Hoping no-one wants to come and stay!

Progress in the craft room!

There is progress - really!

Look there is a clear desk! Of course it isn't now but the things that are on are just waiting to be put away and aren't piled there for the long term.

The scrap pile isn't threatening to fall over as much as it was before. It has been re-homed in a bigger basket and a lot of scraps went up to school as they are materials that fray easily and therefore are no good for business cards.

The drawers have come back into my craft room (they were originally near the door but kept leaning over) Now that they are wedged between the fabric shelves and the desk there is no room for them to fall over and it gives much needed storage space in here!

And the shelf that was wedged between the shelves and the desk has been turned on it's side and is now home to my ever growing button collection :) It's good up there actually as it means I don't need to stack button jars on top of each other and I can get to them all easily. However I do have 5 boxes of buttons that need to be sorted into these jars which will take a good while!

Next time the blog post might just be about something I am creating rather than just about the craft room being sorted :) I might surprise you!

My creative space

What I would love to be doing today is re-arranging my craft room to make room for these two fabulous creatures that arrived this morning.


Long 'Stretch' Johnson who hails from the Cirque de Chaussettes.


And The Mad Catter who hails from The Other Mousie. Both are the creations of the lovely Sarah and as soon as I have more money I will be back to bring some of Mr Johnsons friends over from the circus!

However what I will be doing is tidying this little mess up in preparation for making some more envelopes later!

See more creative and hopefully less messy creative spaces over at Kootoyoo.

2 hours by myself

I will have 2 hours to myself today as Tara will be at nursery :) I could do plenty of things but I am thinking that I should tidy up my craft room a bit - what you you think?