Valentine's Day Decor

I love Valentine's Day (no pun intended!). It amazes me that Halloween and Christmas has boat loads of decor items to purchase, and then Valentine's Day comes along and there is hardly any decor to buy. I have some "store bought" decor but I wanted to add more Valentine's decor this year. I ended up getting creative to make some of my own Valentine's Day decor. Most of my decorations are on my mantel.

I love my white lanterns (I will love them more when we paint our walls!). I made a bow and added a red candle to give them some Valentine's Day love. The heart topiary I found at Micheals. And the picture frame a score at Hobby Lobby.

My glass hurricanes are my favorite pieces in my home. I love that I can stuff the inside of them with items that go with the season or holiday. I used Valentine's Day garland this time. The love sign also came from Hobby Lobby.

On my tables I used other wood signs and a cute candy heart tree I found at Kohl's. 

Last year I found this subway art from the talented girls over at Eighteen 25!

I needed something for my breakfast bar in my kitchen but after combing the stores for a the perfect decor piece I came home empty handed (insert sad face here). On a run for scrapbooking supplies I stopped at the floral area at Michaels. I decided I would just make a flower arrangement using Valentine's Day colors. I think I got the red bucket at the Hot Spot at Target. 

 

I might have to cut a vinyl heart or something, to add to the bucket though - I will have to put that on the to do list! My house is always filled with love but now my decor has some love too!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Scrap Room Organized!!! The Reveal

I am in love with my space!! It was a lot of work but so worth it. You can see how my room was set up before HERE. The layout of the room is still the same but I organized the closet and re-organized what was in my cubes and bookshelf. I would love for you to come along on the tour with me. Hopefully you can uses some of my ideas to help organized your crafting space. Let's start with my closet storage.

I took everything out of it (which is why my previous post looked like this) and sorted all the items into 3 piles. Keep, donate/trash, or move to storage. I am trying to only keep scrapbook/DIY/school items in my room, so only those items were allowed in the keep pile. I also knew I was not using my space in my closet effectively. Since this is not a closet that will be holding clothes I have the ability to go vertical in my storage. A quick trip to Target and I picked up this 20.00 bookcase. I added some cute paper to the back to make it pop! Meijer had these pink bins on sale and I had no problem finding supplies to put in them. I then added my favorite Martha Stewart chalkboard labels, and wrote what was in the bins with my Bistro Chalk Marker. I added some colorful paper and washi tape to my magazine files to give them a fresh look. The polka dot box (also wrapped in new paper) is my mist/glitter/glue spray box - the inside is not as pretty as the out! The cheveron bin (also a sale find at Meijer) holds all my vinyl and shelf paper.

 I have a love/hate relationship with wire shelving. I hate when things fall through the wire or sit funny. My only shelf in my closet right now is a wire one. To avoid this I took some foam board and some pretty shelf liner to lay on the wire rack. I choose to put the foam board face down because who is really going to see that pretty shelf liner if it is under all my items??? I keep items that I use every so often up top like my sewing machine (I have never used it but I swear I am going to learn how to sew!), spray paints, photo albums, office supplies, and miscellaneous scrapbooking tools.

The biggest change I made was what lives in my big expedit. I thought about the last few times I worked at my desk what I used. I made a list, and then began moving those items into the expedit. I now have scrapbooking items that I use the most at my finger tips.

I of course had to label everything to satisfy my labeling obsession! 

Also in the lower cubes I have office supplies/tools that I use all the time, my planners/binders and files. This is a combo room and I do homework, planning, blogging, and more in this room.

 

In my bookcase I decided to only house my scrapbook albums that I am currently working on or know of pages that need to be added to them. My stickers still live in the zip up binders and my cricket cartridges fit perfect in my narrow shelf. I added my 8.5 x 11 cardstock papers as I use those a ton and need those with in reach. 

All my electrical cords live in the little drawer, and the big drawer is an open space to add items that need a space after living in this space awhile. The bottom shelf holds mostly my patterned paper in the carry cases.

The patterned paper was another disaster that you could see. I really needed to organize this as well. So here is what it looks like now! I love it.

I sorted out my papers by what the papers were - stripes, polka dot, holiday, etc. Again using my favorite way to label -Washi tape and my label maker - I labeled inserts.  I then cut a label on my Silhouette and laminated it to create a label of what was in the box, and stuck it on the outside of the box. I laminated the label first because I like change. In 6 months I might not like having my patterned paper in these boxes, or I might accumulate more paper and need to shift paper around. With the label laminated I can just remove the label tape and make a new label to stick on there!

Another big change was this baby in the corner. There was no organization to these drawers. I had all kinds of stuff in each drawer and most of it were things I hadn't used in years. I am a firm believer in using up my scraps! So after every project I sort my solid scraps by color, and I used to keep them in a 12 x12 box (like the ones that hold my pattern paper). This worked for awhile but due to the various sizes of the paper it was becoming a mess. I decided to give each color it's own drawer. So now all my color scraps live here! The top drawer is my pattern scraps drawer for now. I am starting to get quite a few scraps so I might have to come up with a new place for these soon.

Across the room my 12 x 12 solid paper still live in these drawers, organized by the rainbow!

I still use my Cricut, so this guy lives on top of my smaller expedit. Below are in the cubes are items that I use but not daily, and items that I don't need at my fingertips. It houses a lot of my binders, school stuff, and photo boxes. 

This is where the tour ends. I hope you enjoyed your tour and maybe even picked up and idea that you can use. I would love to hear any of your ideas that you have used in your scrap room/craft room. Leave me a comment below!

So Excited for my Black Chandelier

Here is the thing about decorating.....you have to have patience!

I currently have the patience of a saint right now because my husband convinced me to wait the "one year before painting on new construction." The white walls are killing me. Not to mention the flat paint that shows every mark. I have my paint colors all picked out for every room so with that in mind I have been searching for additional decor pieces. 

For a year, yes a year people, I have been trying to find a reasonable black chandelier for my bedroom. I have been to several lighting stores, researched online, and read reviews on black chandeliers. They were either too expensive or too cheap.

My kids are both in school all day for the first time this year, so one day my husband played hooky and we went out for lunch and shopping. We were shopping mostly for house items. I would say I want that. He would say "really?" See my husband can picture things in his mind. I tell him the grand plan of any project, he usually disagrees with my plan but goes along with it, and then when it's all done he usually tells me how good the project turned out! This was also the case with me wanting a black chandelier for our bedroom. After we finished shopping, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a lighting store tucked back in a corner. 

We walked around the store and we're about to leave when I looked up and I saw her! She was beautiful and exactly what I was looking for! Now the price tag on her was not bad but a little higher than I budgeted. I inquired about her and found out the tag was incorrect, she was even less, and on top of that they were having a store wide sale and took an additional 15% off. I was sold! 

Well she finally came in and I could not wait to get her up! My husband got her up and I couldn't help but smile ear to ear! Now I really can't wait to paint the walls! So the moral of my story is when you have a vision make sure you take your time to put all the pieces together to complete your vision.

My bedroom vision......to be continued. 

Wine Bottles

Anyone that knows me, knows I like a good glass of wine! So I usually have an empty bottle or two sitting around. I received a chalkboard painted bottle for a gift from a friend. I keep it in my wine themed kitchen on the counter and love to write messages on my bottle. At Christmas I wrote Ho! Ho! Ho! at Easter a Happy Easter wish and when it is a family members birthday I write a birthday wish on it. There were many times I wish I had two more bottles to split the message up on 3 bottles. That's when I began to collect the empty bottles over the winter. As spring was approaching I got my bottles ready by removing all the labels.

I soaked them in hot water and used a razor blade to scrape off the all paper. Any left over residue I used a little Goo Gone to clean the bottles off. I then set them aside to dry and wait for warmer weather to spray paint them.

Here in Chicago we had a slow go from winter temps to spring temps. Actually I think summer is hear now but we had some unseasonable low temps. When the weather finally warmed up a bit to paint we had terrible winds. No good for spray painting! Finally I had a nice, warm, non-windy day and got all the bottles primed and painted! 

I added two extra bottles to my existing one on the counter and plan to make a count down till our Florida vacation on it. 

The next thing I wanted to do with the bottles was add some to my upper cabinet for wine decor in my kitchen. I first thought I would write one letter on each bottle of our last name. Well that would take 7 bottles and really who thinks our last name is decor let alone fits in my wine themed kitchen! So I decided with 4 bottles each one spelling out Vino. Much better!! I first tried to write with my chalk pen but did not like the results. I then tried with regular chalk and decided it is just my handwriting that I am not happy with. So I had to come up with another way to spell out vino on the bottles. I was cleaning up my scrap room and came across my vinyl.......light bulb! I immediately pulled out my cricket, found a font I liked and cut my letters out.

I loved how they came out! I gave them a home on top of my cabinet and can't wait to add some lighting!

Do you have any interesting things you have made with wine bottles? I would love to see them. Please leave me a link in the comments!

See Jane Work

The FedEx man came today!!! I love it when I get goodies at my door. I have fallen in love with the See Jane Work line. They are a wonderful product line and are going to help me keep things organize! I can't wait to play with these goodies and incorporate them into my life to keep me organized in a stylish way! This line is the Herringbone Line. I currently have two other lines from See Jane Work. 

This is the Linen Line. I love this line as it is a more sophisticated rich line. The bins and photo box are my favorite!

This line is the assorted dots and stripes line. I love that it is black and white. It will work so awesome in my office!

The concept I love the most about the See Jane Work lines is you can mix and match them

They are all compatible with each other and the same size and height. The best part about my See Jane Work items is I got them all for FREE!!! Check back soon to see how I used my awesome goodies to help organize my life!

All of these products and other See Jane Work lines can be found at Office Depot or See Jane Work

Happy Organizing!

Easter Decorating

I love the colors of Easter/Spring and after a long, grey winter I love to decorate for Easter/Spring. With a new house I have been having a lot of fun decorating for each holiday. Here are some of my favorite Easter set ups in my home. Let's start with my mantel. This has become my favorite area to decorate because I did not have a mantel in my old home. My candle jars are my favorite decorating piece in my house! No matter what I am decorating for I can always find themed items to place inside them. 

Here is my dinning room table. I love to do simple 

tablescapes for the holidays on it.

Our kitchen table holds this simple bunny with eggs. I used an old cake stand I had laying around to give it some height.

My wine bar is dressed up for Easter too. I love to use items, like these sparkly eggs to dress up an existing areas.

In my kitchen I add little bunnies in the my everyday decor. My chalkboard wine bottle always has a special greeting!

Our family room has a little touch of Easter too. I love my subway art! I used a piece that I bought from a Willow House party to hold eggs. I then added some grass and a few bunny friends finish this area off.

I picked these cute and sparkly eggs up at Hobby Lobby last year and they are through out my house as well.

Other items that I nestle into my existing decor is jars of eggs and a few dangling eggs on our guest bathroom towels.

 

Happy Organizing! Decorating!