Organize This Mass Chaos!

Sweet D#2 started Science Camp this week. Her teacher is a very sweet lady. Their are less than 6 students in her class, so this is a very "one on one" camp (which I love). D#2 is quite quick and a little smart for her young age of 6 (she knows alot more than I do about everything, just ask her). So, her sweet, lovely teacher, Ms. Amy, asked D#2 how did she get to be so smart? Is it because she has a wonderful, very smart engineer dad who can fix anything, built anything, and do anything? asks this smart, wise teacher. "No, because my dad uses very biiiiggg words that I can't understand at all! It's because of my mom, she uses simple words." Oh me, oh my, I have never been called a simpleton by a 6 year old before. Oh well.....at least everyone can understand me. Anyway.....on to the post of the day. 

I really can't believe that I am actually going to show you my mass chaos craft studio. Be warned, it's not a pretty sight. If you have a weak stomach, I strongly advise you to scroll through the pictures very quickly! I am not kidding at all!

I have been using this bonus room as a craft/sewing room for about 5 or 6 years now. It's a very plain, but a very useful room. My kids should be real grateful for it. If we didn't have this room, there would be some bunking going on, mainly College girl and Brainiac (D#2).

Picture#1

Wow....why is this such a mess? Look at the ironing board. I need a new cover in a bad way! It is nasty. Hello, my name is Holly and I love spray starch!

Picture#2

Double yuck! Look at that closet! Actually, it's not so bad, most of the stuff is already in the room. Can you see that small 8x8" area in front of my sewing machine. Yep, that's my crafting area, all 8x8 inches of it. Not sure why I always clutter the surrounding area and only leave a tiny spot for crafting.

This little corner is to the right of the closet (closet in picture#2). This is were I have my Cricut and Cuttlebug. The selves above this table are still a work in progress. On lower shelf, is a monkey and elephant. I made these using a pattern from Creative Breathing. I just love her blog! She is a great source of inspiration. Her craft room is so stinkin' cute! See the pink clock in the upper right hand corner. It use to be white, but a can of spray paint fixed that.

Above: This table is to the right of the above table. It is my paper crafting table. The small aqua cabinet, green shelf, white paint caddy and pink shelves w/ red ric-rac all use to be unfinished wood. Probably that way for the last 4 years. I just never got around to painting them. I love the ric-rac on the pink shelves (click on picture and zoom in if you can't see the ric-rac). The aqua lamp is Dear hubby's old drafting lamp. I love that color! We still have the drafting table, hmmm... maybe I should use it in the craft room.

Pink clock. The green shelf holds an old Little Red Hen book, a wonderful Nancy Drew book (I loved Nancy Drew. I read all of my aunt's vintage ND books when I visited my grandparents during the summer). The red truck was Son's when he was little. Date on truck says 1996-he would have been two. Two wonderful vintage potholders. My mom gave me the one on top and I bought the other one at a little antique store here in town.

Above: The Russian nesting dolls are authentic, brought over from Russia. The little aqua box is one Dear hubby made me several years ago just for these stamp pads. I finally painted it! Yes, crayons within reach. I use them on fabric. Crabapple Hill has some wonderful embroidery pattens that use crayons to tint or lightly add some color to the fabric.

Above: This area is used for ironing. The white shelf above the ironing board is white with red ric-rac.

Above: This is the paint caddy that my in-laws gave me. I finally painted it white. It is so handy. I love having some of my paints within sight. The other 50 or so bottles are in the closet. I also love recycling and using large tin cans for storage. See the red can. It coordinates so well with the room and it cost nothing. I use it to hold all of my brushes.

Above: Don't forget to add a splash of silliness! I learned this from Jody over at Postcards From FunTown!

Above: Shelf with Creative Breathing stuff on it. I can't wait to make more circus stuff and fill up this shelf. Maybe a Circus banner would be cute above the shelf.

Above: Vintage doll bed. Holly Hobbie, By-low baby, Winnie the Pooh and Curious George (in back right corner), just a few of my childhood toys.

Above: Tin cans again, wrapped in scrapbook paper, glued together, a place to house my copic markers.

Above: Sorry this is a little blurry. My good camera lens is broken. This is a great way to see at a glance which copic markers you have. Kind of like a key. Just draw a line with marker and then write the number of the marker by the line.

Above: The shelf above my one window. The wooden scissors is where it all started. I thought that it would be so cute painted aqua. Of course then I had to have curtains, then a shelf above the curtains, then some cutesy stuff on the shelf, then ric-rac, then of course a few flags would make the shelf so stinkin' cute. The pattern for the flags are found on Happy Zombie blog. She loves the same colors as I do: red, aqua & white! Her craft room is so stinkin' cute.

Above: Little desk by the ironing board. Holds my bakers tower, vintage cookie jar and some old books.

Thanks for visiting my craft room. I will post some more pictures tomorrow.

Holly

Thread Keepers

The whole month of July went by and not a single post. I am so sorry. We have just been doing summer stuff. D#2 went to Cooking Camp and loved it. This week she is at Science Camp. Next Wednesday she starts to school. Son doesn't start until Aug 27th and College D doesn't have to be on campus until August 28th. It has been hot here and even though the yard and flowers are on a timed system, they still looking drained. We have harvested tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, 3 cucumbers (they did awful this year) and a few ears of corn. I couldn't believe the corn actually produced some ears. I was mainly trying to grow them for the stalks. I use them to decorate the outside of the house in the fall. Great plan, except the stalks only grew 3 feet.

I have been crafting some fun stuff. I have made a few new thing for the craft studio and I have made some thread keepers. A thread keeper is just something that you wind your 6 strand floss or bakers twine on. It doesn't work well for sewing thread. I had so much fun planning, designing & painting. It had been a while since I had painted and it was nice to pick up a brush.

Above: Of course she has a tail on the reverse. Where the thread is wound, swiss cheese is painted.

Above: Strawberry

Above: Caroling bunny with tiny crocheted hat.

Above: Cherry, so bright and red, with stem and leaf.

Above: Creepy Crawley

Above: Things that go bump in the night...

Above: Jack-O-Lantern to help chase away your fright....

Above: A happy caramel apple, laughs with all her might....

Above: A happy Halloween crew, oh my what a sight!!

I think that I had way too much fun with these little thread keepers. Each one is only 2 5/16" tall.

What have you been working on? Tomorrow I will let you in on a big secret. It involves organizing one very big and very messy room.

Have a wonderful day!!

Holly

A Garden Tour

Hey again! Sorry it has been so long since I blogged. A big comedy of errors....lost camera cord, lens of camera broke, computer messed up, computer fixed then screen broke, etc. We have been very busy around the house. Spring came and went, college kid home, elementary kid graduating Kindergarten, making end of year gifts for teachers and a gift for a principal that is retiring. Not to mention the little kindergartner wanted to make gifts for staff at her school. I did start really early on those gifts. We gave them begonias (my favorite flower this year!) in a cute pot with a hand stamped vintage spoon. I stamped the recipient's name on the spoon: ex. Ms. Jennie.

 I think that blogger has changed some settings because I can't comment on each picture. It seems the pictures come in twos. Anyway, did you happen to witness the Transit of Venus? We did. College kid googled how to safely view it. Of course after a couple of hours of "Mom....how can we view the transit?" Me: "Not sure.." then "Mom....how can we view the transit?" Me: "Not sure..." after several hours of this I finally said "Just Google it!". And she did. Come to find out all you need are a pair of binoculars. No, don't look through them, just reverse the binoculars and let the sun shine through them onto a piece of white paper. Kind of like when you were a kid and had a magnifying glass and let the sun shine through the magnifying glass on to leaves, paper or whatever. Except the binoculars won't catch the paper on fire! We were very surprised at how well this worked. We could even see the sun spots. It was a cloudy day and the clouds kept on blocking the sun, but as you can see in the above pics we did get it to work. In the top photo you can see Venus, it is the little dot on the sun

  on the lower right side. The second picture shows a cloud starting to cover the sun. Just ignore the stick. The camera had a hard time focusing on the paper.

Here a few shots of around the yard. Promised my sister that I would show her some of my flowers.

Above: Begonias, marigolds, pansies, and a beautiful caladium that had not been planted yet. See the pot on the left side of the gnome next to the red bench? The dog decided to dig in it one night and bed down there. She destroyed 3 snapdragons, 4 begonias, 1 coleus and a caladium. I bought this replacement caladium. I love it. It has a red color that looks like it was splashed across the leaves. 

Above: this little corner of the deck is my "potting bench" of sorts. See the rake head hanging above the bench. It had been laying in our yard next to the shed for about 3 years. Last week I was raking and rediscovered it. I thought it would make a great hanger for my small garden tools. A few days after I hung it, Dear Hubby saw it and said "Well...I was going to fix that rake. Guess I can't now." Haha....it had been in the yard for three years! The big kind of ugly black planter is something new that I am trying. It is an Earth box. It uses a self watering, fertilizing system. I planted one tomato, jalapeno, squash, zucchini, cucumber and something else that I forgot to label. I have two other boxed and will report on how well they work this summer.

Above: My favorite: Dragon wing begonia. It was small when I purchased it, now it has doubled in size. See the twigs planted it the Terra cotta pot. Those are some rhododendron cuttings that we are rooting.

Above: Here's my favorite spot. This year we have added twinkly lights and a mister system to the pergola. The mister system is great for the plants and after working in the yard and getting hot, it is nice to sit under it and cool down.

Above: Herbs and a Super 100 tomato. The herbs are: sweet basil, purple basil (tiny), boxwood basil, oregano (hot and spicy), thyme and a pot of strawberries.

Above: Moss rose. I love this. It is the first year I have grown it and it loves the hot part of the deck.

Above: Planters in front of the window. A kind of a window box of sorts. No, the wire fence is not for rabbits. It keeps Nosy Rosy, the dog, out of the "window boxes". She loves to stand in the planters in order to look in the window and whine.

Above: Hen and Chicks succulent. Ugly wire, again, for the same reason.

Above: lettuce

Above: Cucumbers, tomato, eggplant, squash and tomatillo.

Above: Purple cherry-size tomato plant.

Above: the herbs again. A closer look.

Above: Neighbor's yard. See the tiny little rabbit.

Above: Bad boggy area of yard. We finally decided to "fix" this area. Every time it rains, this area is a boggy mess.

Above: We are installing a Japanese inspired garden. All of the grass will be gone and mulch, a rake garden and small goldfish pond will take it's place. Right now we have the boardwalk installed. The goldfish pond will be to the left of the picture and rake garden to the right of the picture. I will post more pictures soon. Hopefully we can get the Japanese Garden finished before summer is over.

Above: A corner of the butterfly garden. Black eyed Susans and a butterfly bush are planted here. The birdbath is used alot. I love gnomes, but usually try to hide my gnomes behind stuff so they are not really visible because I don't want to look like "that" kind of a person!

Above: Some of my daylilies.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my garden,

Holly