Spring fever!

Good morning! It feels like it has been ages since I last posted. I have a good reason, I swear!! I reorganized the craft room. It is AMAZING how many more things I've been able to get done without the giant cluttered mess. I was tired of looking at this...

 You can kind of see Patryk's little homeschool table under a bunch of my crap...not a lot has been done at that table lately. It's all been in the kitchen as I've just been too busy to pick up after myself!

 Those are all the "Oh you have to save that gift box so we can reuse it" but then I never remember to pull them out. That's a LOT of gift boxes! Makes it hard to use the Cricut...which is dusty...

 There's a printer under there, and I guess it would be nice to be able to use the mouse without having to relocate a bunch of random stuff, like that candle holder and decorated pot Rileigh gave me for mother's day years ago.

 So here are the results of all of my hard work. A world of difference, right? I got rid of a lot of useless junk...I'm the type who saves EVERYTHING...see all those Clementine boxes? Those will become gift baskets down the road. The floor was easier than I thought it would be to clean. It was mostly plastic packaging from kits and paper I've purchased throughout the year, bubble mailers I swore I would reuse, and a stack of Priority Mail flat rate boxes from packages I've received. Why I kept those I'll never know. Now all that's in this corner is organized on the shelves or in the drawers, and that big box of paper. That's how I organize my patterned paper, and it is organized by manufacturer and collection. Makes it easy to pull pages together. (AND, yay, a clean homeschool table!)

 Now the only box in this corner holds random craft supplies, like batting and small canvas paintings Patryk is working on. It's nice to be rid of that wobbly pile of boxes! The cat is famous for knocking them all to the floor on her way to the window. (**You can see Patryk has just discovered he can use his table. The look on his face says it all..."Wow, you actually cleaned it off? I never thought I'd see the day!"  :)**)

 Yay, a printer! (And the dustbuster that was the best present I ever received from my children EVER. Can't live without it in the kitchen with three messy eaters and a gross litter-tracking cat...hubby really picked it out, but put the kids name on it. He said it was a kind of peace offering, an "I'm sorry" gift... now I wouldn't have to be as mad cleaning up their messes because it wasn't as laborious of a process. This baby cleans up a glass of milk like no other!)

 The reason this all worked out so well: my parents are relocating to TN, and are purging their house. These are old CD racks, and I am so happy to have them! They make a huge difference in the small space of the craft room: no more shoeboxes full of this stuff that I sometimes forgot I had! I can see wall space again, which is nice and there is more workspace on the desk. Love them, and that my mists/Stickles/PearlEx powders/ribbon/adhesive are all a reach away!!

 Look at all of that desk space!! LOVE!

As soon as I was done, I had to pull out some paper and play. I started with the plastic hole filled thingy that was in the bottom of one of the clementine boxes, using it as a mask. Reusing and masking all in one (which is why I'm entering this into one of the Scraptastic challenges which is to reuse something and use a mask! Too funny, I made this page before seeing the challenge!!) SEI charcoal chalkbox ink rubbed all over the clementine packaging.

 Here's the finished page. I used a Balzer Designs honeycomb mask with some red chalk over the first mask very faintly. Looks so cool up close. This is the Celebrate Scraptastic March kit, which I love! The colors are so fun, and look at those little person brads. Perfect!

 Used the turquoise twine in the kit and just laid it out all messy on the page, showing movement to go along with the title.

 See the faint red chalk marks? Can't really make out the hexes here but they're there! They look great.

 Under the "go go go" alpha hides a chipboard banner coated in red Glimmer mist. I love the fun Authentique papers and elements in this kit!

 A close up of the red chalk hexes. LOVE.

So there you have it! I have two other layouts to get pics of, but wanted you to all know I'm alive and well. The craft room is reorganized and I'm ready to go back to work! It's amazing how energizing a good spring cleaning can be. Check back later for my posts, and don't forget to head over to XOXO, Dream Valley, and the Crafter's Companion Challenge Blog to enter the challenges they all have going on. Great prizes! You only have until Saturday for Dream Valley, but the other two go until the end of the month.

Time to go pop some Sudafed and kill this sinus headache/stuffy nose thing I have going on. Of course, when your son spends the night coughing inches away from your face, you are bound to catch what he has. Both hubby and I have it, though, so I don't have to worry about staying away from him :) It's miserable, but a good excuse to stay home and rest in the craft room!!

xx
Khristen