Craftyminx

Happy Halloween!

We decorated quite a bit this year since we had a Halloween party. 

We didn't have a lot of time to do everything ourselves so we only made a few things this year. I have a list of things I want to make for next year though!

Studio Progress

Paint from original to now.

We've had two big painting sessions. One for ceiling and trim and last night we had to do two coats of primer to cover the squares.  This pink is behr candy coated, it was my original choice for the room, because I didn't want to go to dark, but then I decided to go for it so the final color will be the watermelon pink. This is solely my room, so I want it to be completely me and the darker pink is my favorite.

We went to IKEA in Frisco on Sunday where I bought the chairs for the room and I found some cute curtains. They were $15 for two which is much better than the $80 that the tuxedo ruffle curtains at UO will cost. Plus they have  a print. With so many solid colors in the room, it will be nice to have a pretty print to catch the eye.

I'm picking up the shelving, lighting, and the peg board on Thursday. My goal is to have the shelving up and some of the room put together by Saturday. My mom is coming into town to make the muslin of my wedding dress so I need to at least have the sewing stuff together.

So this will be the last update until the room is finished. I want you to have the full effect of how different and wonderful it will be :) Wish me luck, this is quite the undertaking!

The studio makeover

Well the craft room is now empty...a clean slate... ready for me to work my magic. Our garage is full of tubs of craft supplies. I had no idea I had that much stuff in this tiny room.

So here's the full plan... I want to work on it this weekend. There's no better way to say I love you than with physical labor right? I'm hoping Sheldon agrees :)

p.s. I'm loving these washi tape frames from kitschy digitals. I almost forgot I bought them.

I bought the paint last night. I'm hoping to get the pegboard and those ugly industrial shelves from home depot after the paint dries. About those ugly shelves, if you know of something better that I can get two of for $160 and will be 4 feet wide let me know. I like to buy those track system shelves from rubbermaid, but they really are expensive once you start to add up all the pieces and the shelves are only 12 inches deep. I like the idea of having shelves 24 inches deep to hold all of my crap. Since these are such a good deal, I'll probably just end up painting them, putting white sticky shelf liner on the mdf and adding some cute fabric scallops or something to the front. Eh, there are plenty of ways to make them look less garish.

I really wish I could redo the floor while I'm at it, but the brick and black tiles will just have to stay a little longer. Eventually, I plan to put laminate wood down in the dining room, studio, and the hallway of death so the back of the house will match the laminate in the kitchen and the rest of the natural wood floors in the front part of the house.

I am still trying to decide how the layout should be. Right now, I have the table on one wall and shelves on either side. the sewing station and fabric shelves are on the other side. I would like to have the table in the center of the room, so I have have people over to craft with me, but with the room being so narrow I don't see this as an option. I guess visitors will just have to craft in the dining room.

We're also painting the dining room the Sea Life color. We both agree that the aqua with the already red everything else will look good and have that retro flair we like so much.

My big question is lighting. I have to change out the overhead light but I have no clue what to put in. I have two windows that get pretty good daytime light, but since I have a day job, I do most of my crafting in the evenings. Any suggestions? What kind of lighting do you have in your studio or craft space?

This happens entirely too often...

Look at that, My craft room has exploded again!

It looks like it is time to purge.

Paint is also in order. I'm thinking of these colors:

A bright pink and a light gray. I'll probably end up painting the trim white as well. This is the only room in the house that doesn't have white trim.

And I must have these in aqua or yellow.

A new chair would rock my face off too.

 
  But first, the cleaning has to begin.

And since I assaulted your eyes with my messy studio, have some cuteness:

 

 

Year end review (in lots of pictures)

January
 
My uncle made some awesomeness for my bedroom!

I turned 26 and sheldon got me Hello Kitty Cupcakes - thus proving that I would marry him one day ;)

February

I made meat cupcakes!


Sheldon and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day together.

March

I made a pretty baby blanket in awesome colors for an awesome person.

 
 I got my first tattoos!

April

We went to Vegas for Viva Las Vegas... Yeah that's pretty much all I did.

May
 
I made a lot of these in preparation for the May Deluxe.
 
 
Sheldon moved in.

 June

Sheldon's dog Dewey moved in.


I made some family silhouettes for our bedroom. 

July
 
We spent a lot of time with Sheldon's family in Muskogee, OK where we found this awesome cabinet that now holds, dvds, cds, and ps2 and 3 games.

 
 We had our first dinner party as a couple.

August

I decided I needed to embroider more, and I started by adding embroidered animals to my knitted baby blankets.

 
I started my next big embroidery project/tattoo design

September
 
Sheldon proposed! We'll be getting married September 18, 2010.

 
I decided to try my hand at quilting.

October
 
 I crafted this awesome costume!


We had a family pumpkin carving party!

November
 
Amy and I taught an embroidery class together. We had a great time!

 
Sheldon and I started our own Thanksgiving traditions. Including friendsgiving with my friends.

December
 
I participated in my 3rd Deluxe Indie Bazaar.


Most recently, we had our first family ordeal. Dewey bit Bella on the 28th, resulting in a freaked out mama and 7 stitches to Bella's noggin. She's doing great now. I'm sure it was an accident, where he snapped and accidentally made contact. If it was on purpose he would have done a lot more damage.

Anyways, thanks for reading this year and next year will be full of more crafting, and definitely more wedding planning! Come back tomorrow to see my 2010 goals!

Christmas?

Look at that! Ok so really the only reason I already have Christmas stuff out is because I bought the wreath and didn't want to mess it up and I had to make the garland for the tree and decided to leave it out.

I've been working hard preparing for deluxe. And I decided to make some Christmas stuff this year.

Want to see a deluxe sneak peek? These are my ornaments...

I will have these three styles of snowflakes in an array of colors. I'm all about color for Christmas this year, and think everyone else should be too! ;)

What are your Christmas decor plans? Are you keeping with the old or trying something new?

8 Months Later

I closed on my little house on September 26, 2008. Since then, there have been many changes and I have really enjoyed making my house a home. At the beginning of May, my boyfriend moved in and even more changes have been occurring. The main thing now is to make my cutesy little home into our home. Thankfully Sheldon doesn't absolutely hate the cute or the pink and I don't hate his pint glass collection being on display.

So let's go on a little journey... I thought it might be fun to show the listing photos, the photos of when I moved in and the current photos.
The house is an 884 sf traditional house built in 1928 with an attached garage. I live on a corner lot, which I absolutely love. The backyard is huge, but very plain. We have big plans for it and hope to start those this summer.

House Front

April 2008                                           September 2008   

May 2009

Living Room

April 2008                                           September 2008  

May 2009

The bedroom with windows (our room)

April 2008                                                                September 2008

                         May 2009

The Bedroom without windows (the guest room/ dressing room)

April 2008                                                                September 2008

                 May 2009

Bathroom (no listing photo)

                                       September 2008                            May 2009

Kitchen

                          April 2008                                          September 2008                    May 2009

Dining Room

                      April 2008                                          September 2008            May 2009

Studio

             April 2008                                                 September 2008            May 2009 (I've had 8 months to make it really messy)

Garage (no listing photo)

                             September 2008                           May 2009 (this is what happens when you let your boyfriend move in)                  

Mud Room (no listing photo)

September 2008                            May 2009

There you have it. I hope you enjoyed my little house tour. I really love this place and intend to be here for awhile. I can always build a studio in a backyard to give us more room. To see the full transformation and more info about the house check out the photo set on flickr!

Oh and just so you know the dining room chairs and my dressing area are finished thanks to a trip to IKEA this past weekend. I sooo love my dressing table and freshly spray painted blue mirror. It is just perfect for me and really helps free up some space in the tiny tiny bathroom.

my crafty family

I'm not sure if I have mentioned how crafty my whole family is. I know I've told you all about my mom and her master seamstress skills. She was recently elected the president of her local quilting guild. W00T! My dad is a true renaissance man. He can do anything, and I'm not just saying that because he's my daddy. As far as I can remember anything I needed he was able to make. I had the greatest school projects because he would help me build the most awesome things.

Moving forward, I had been sending my mom random links to things I wanted for my house for Christmas and my birthday. I desperately needed a pot rack so I sent her this link she said she would see what she could do. I knew my dad did iron work and thought he could make it for me. He said that it would be awhile because he would have to order the components to weld. Christmas came around and I didn't get a pot rack. I was a little bummed. But I figured he would get around to it at some point. Truthfully, I kind of forgot about it until he brought it into my house today...

Is it not a perfect reproduction? And I can guarantee this thing is going to be way higher quality than the one they could have purchased. And my dad made it entirely by hand. He bent the curly parts and the S hooks by hand. No, they aren't perfect but that is what craft is all about and I LOVE IT!

I also sent my mom a link to the Hensvik bookcases from IKEA. We were all set to buy two of them for me for Christmas and found out that IKEA has a minimum carrier and handling fee of $265 for Oklahoma. We briefly talked about driving to Dallas to pick them up, then my mom suggested we get my uncle to build them for us. My uncle is really great at wood work. He has built many well crafted items for my parents so I knew he could do what I wanted.

At the family Christmas gathering I told him what i wanted and showed him pictures. I told him it would be awesome if he could make a matching headboard as well. I drew a picture of what I wanted it to look at. A few weeks later he came over for some measurements and scaled up the drawings. Today he brought it all over and installed it.

We won't discuss how many holes were put in my walls from trying to find studs (yes there was even a stud finder involved) and miss measuring. My dad is the cowboy on the left, if anyone wanted to know.

My uncle was really worried about the arches that I wanted. He had never done anything like that. He said it took forever for him to figure out how to do them, but I think he did a great job. What do you think?

Don't you love how Bella hopped on the bed as soon as I made it to take this picture? She's such a photo whore!

 I'm so ready to unpack books tonight! I need to go pick up some kind of window treatment as well. I'm thinking balloon shade, but that might be too many conflicting curves. Any suggestions?