For all you doubting Thomases out there....

I posted this picture a little while ago of my scrapbook room. It was a disaster of monstrous proportions. I'd just recieved 2 huge boxes of product from my DTs; I was just coming off of a nearly-overnighter (4am) trying to get CHA projects done for SRM Press and Clear Scraps; I'm a bit of a hoarder as it is and well-overdue to purge for a garage sale; and, well....I have family too so...sometimes clean-up goes undone when there's Rockband to play and meals to make, IYKWIM.




and now....earlier than my 2 week goal....here's some of the after pictures:



This is my hutch. I LOVE it. I "inherited" it when my parents moved off the farm they'd lived on for 35+ years. It's not perfect...and the style maybe doesn't completely go with the rest of my scraproom, or our house, for that matter....but I've got SO many great memories of Mom's sewing supplies being in here...and her writing supplies (for letters) and Dad's "important papers" and back issues of Cattlemen and Country Woman magazines. To make it my own, I've painted it out white with a green interior and just this past week, I knocked one of the shelves out, put in a 3" lift, and now my shelf (below) is 15" high instead of just about 12" and it holds all my cardstock & patterned paper perfectly!!



A view of the whole hutch



Patterned paper storage - I know....not perfect, but it works for me and I could tell you exactly which sheets of paper I have in here so I'm feeling pretty good about that :)



Cardstock & cardstock scraps. All lined up and organized by colour. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I could just stare at this for hours.



This is a re-purposed bookshelf that I got at my local thrift store. It sits on top of my work table now, giving me essentially 4 shelves within arms-reach of my work surface. I LOVE it. It's also been painted out white, with green interior and my plastic boxes that used to house hot wheels cars (before our collection outgrew them), playmobil (ditto), lego (uber-ditto), etc....now house (from top left, over and down....)
1. scraps cut and ready for cards
2. Card kits, with envelopes and journaling papers
3. Chipboard and 3D alphabets
4. Sticker & Rub-on alphabets
5. Flowers
6. Stickers & Rub-ons (sentiments, images, etc)
7. Photos and projects to do
8. Ribbon


And finally....last but not least - a shot of the room from the same perspective as the "before" shot. Can you see it? I had a table under there. This used to be our kitchen table before we bought my parents antique set off of them. I leave it set up in my room with the leaf in (for obvious reasons) but now that it's cleaned off....the chair on the other side of it is empty and there's room for a friend - any takers? Anyone wanna come play with me?

On my desk - there in the background, it's hard to see from here, but I've just made my first thing in a LONG long, time....a Valentine tag that I'll be posting on Feb. 5 for a "14 Days of Valentine's Tags" blog hop/newsletter event sponsored by Scrapbook News and Review. It's made with the very, very new Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety!! Yum.

That's it.
I knew I could do it.
And for those of you who believed in me....thank you.
To those of you who thought it was impossible.....in your face :)

12 comments:

Anne House said...

WTG! I was a doubter, but I'm totally impressed, now! ;-)

beautyinallthings said...

I knew you could do it! I want to see a picture of all the stuff you purged. That pile is huge!

I guess now you have time for us to come over, again?

Joanne said...

Looks awesome Cathy!! I'm looking forward to your garage sale! :)

Tami B. said...

I never doubted for a second because I've been there. You have a great space and I loved hearing the story of your hutch.

The Biehns said...

Girl...you rock! and can accomplish anything you put your mind too!! WTG.
I love the space you created. You so know I would take you up on the scrapping visit but right now thw commute is not possible :(
Keep creating, we can't wait to see your work.

The Biehns said...

Oh and David wants to know if you'll come and organize my space??

Cathy said...

L - you know we always have time for you guys!! One of these days I'm going to make a scrapbooker out of you too.
J - you'll be among the first to know when the sale is :)
S - I SOOOO wish you lived a little closer. I'd love to spend a day with you. And no, David....it took me forever to get my own organized....I'm not tackling anyone else's right now. I'm going to play!

Maria said...

amazing! I was wondering how you were ever going to get to the bottom of all those piles ;-)

Scarlett said...

WAY impressive Cathy!!! I need your cleaning gusto! LOL! You space is beautiful!

Monica said...

Now not only do I love you, but you are my hero too!!!!! That is impressive!!!

Let me know when you have that garage sale.

Candice Reimer said...

UNBELIEVABLE!!! I wouldn't even know what to do with a quarter of that stuff, but would love for you to teach me! Blair says I need a hobby, and its not allowed to be shopping!!

WTG on the cleaning and organizing, that was quite the pile!!! Good on ya!!

Bev said...

I never doubted you...we are sooooo alike in some ways. It all looks yuuuuummmmmyy - I got goosebumps looking at all those boxes stacked neatly on shelves and those stacks of paper all sorted by colour. That empty chair/space will be filled by my butt very soon =)