Catered Crop: Sweet Home

There's a new challenge up at Catered Crop - Sweet Home.  Linda describes the challenge as follows:

Our challenge for the next couple of weeks is about house and home. Include a house of any kind (dog house, bird, house, trailer). This is a great opportunity to create a card “from our house to yours,” welcome someone into their new home, announce your move, or thank a host. OR – in honor of our remodeling project – create a project about the things you do to make your house a home – like gardening and home improvements.

There's a lot of room to play with this challenge. For me, it came at a perfect time because I need a new home card.  I don't seem to need new home cards very often. I've been in my home for 24 years and my friends seem blessed to be just as settled. I do have long-time church friends finishing up an extensive remodeling project on their retirement home on a lake in the Carolinas.  Next week is a going away lunch, so I created a little birdhouse card for them using some of my favorite dies.


The bird, birdhouse and leaf sprig are a die set from WPlus9 called Folk Art Florals - I love all of the details.  The background layers come from a new-to-me set from Mama Elephant called Femme Frames - I love the sweet layers and this will likely become a classic for me too.
I only have one inside sentiment that I use for new home cards - it's from Impression Obsession.
From the moment you move then ever after, May your new home be filled with love and laughter.
The other reason that a sweet home challenge was appropriate for me was that I spent six hours on Mother's Day organizing my craft corner and it is sweet!!  Yes, I still have 1970s wood paneling in my family room. I have spent years apologizing for it, but the simple fact is - I like the warm feeling of it! I would like to replace the big, ugly, ancient table, but every time I bring it up, my husband quite accurately points out that it is usually completely covered and no one can see how ugly it is anyway!

This may not look like much, but when you only have a corner, efficiency is the key.  See the door to the right?  That goes to the laundry room/bathroom, but there's also a large closet that is full of supplies too.  The key is to keep the things out that I use often, and tuck away those things that I don't. That's what took six hours.
The floor under my desk and the table had become totally cluttered with boxes of sequins, and stencil supplies, and a big crate of 6x6 paper pads.  Since I use those often, they got permanent homes, while things like rhinestones and stickles and brads got relegated to the closet (or tossed)  I still haven't figured out what to do with those three ring binders which hold my dies, so for now, they are still on the floor.

From left to right... To the far left of the above picture is a set of Elfa drawers that hold, from top to bottom, buttons, basic supplies, twine, PTI patterned paper, and a drawer of all the miscellaneous embellishments that I couldn't stand to get rid of.  None of these are my most-used stuff, because it's a little awkward to get to with that over-size TV tray in the way.  I actually make my cards on that tray because it faces the television.  On top is my photo station - a little handmade light box.

On my desk is all of my cardstock.  Stampin' Up and PTI is in rainbow right in front of me. To the left and below the cardstock are boxes of inks - I keep them in clear shoe drawers from the Container Store. The light is an Ott light - it faces away like that when I am taking pictures or I just swing it around for my light on my project.  My favorite part of the whole clean-up is that little vanity tray in front of the light.  I am so tired of losing stuff in the piles of supplies that I pull out for each card (I'm a trial-and-error gal so about a dozen different colors, dies, stamps, buttons, twines, etc come out for each card!) - then things get lost in the pile, especially dies and small clear stamps.  So...into the tray these small things go - simple solution to a big problem!  My paper is in Project-View Folders which are open on two sides so easy to store and use paper and scraps.

On the right side of the desk are these cubes from Michaels. They used to hold all of the retired Stampin' Up cardstock - and I mean all of it.  Can you say Mint Melody and Mauve Mist? But keeping it there left me no room for My Favorite Things and Simon Says cardstock - so except for a few of my favorites, the retired Stampin' Up is now under my desk in a rolling bin.  On top of the cubes are the sequins and stencils that had been on the floor.

I do maintain four entire sets of cardstock (and there are others that I want but even my obsessiveness has limits!)  To keep track of the colors, I keep swatch rings.  These come in really handy in this small space because I don't have to get out full packages of cardstock when I am trying to match.

Next is a small set of Elfa drawers that hold Cuttlebug folders and big dies.  On top is my Copic collection in a Quickutz storage system that, sadly, isn't made anymore.

My craft corner is like a little world of its own.  If I swing all the way around so I am facing away from my desk, there is another set of drawers. There is just enough room between my desk and the drawers for a  "hallway" to the bathroom, so it's easy to swing around in my desk chair and grab what I need.  On top are ribbons and my Big Shot. The drawers hold my stamps sorted by theme and/or company, and a few punches that I use often.  One of the big things that I did is pull out all of the wood stamps (except for Stampin' Up). I just don't use them.  I am following a principle stated by Susan on her Simplicity blog - pack it away and if you haven't thought about it six months later, it's probably time to get rid of it.

I am not  going to show you the closet in the laundry room.  It got cleaned up and sorted just like my craft corner, but even I am a little overwhelmed by all of the stuff that I have!
I love my craft corner!

• Stamps: WPlus9 Strictly Sentiments 2
• Paper: Simon Says Stamp Khaki, My Favorite Things Berrylicious and Sour Apple, Stampin' Up Crisp Cantaloupe CS and dsp
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Classic Kraft
• Accessories: WPlus9 Folk Art Florals die, Mama Elephant Femme Frame die