Where bloggers Create

So as you know from my previous post below i am joining in the party for Where bloggers Create  if you go to the link, you will be totally blown away by all the spaces that my fellow bloggers have.  While this post goes live we, that is my family and i are enjoying the sunshine and waves of the Indian ocean on the Natal South Coast where my folks live, so pls feel free to leave a comment, i shall be visitin all of you when i get back.  For now here is a photo HEAVY blog post of what how my space looks.  There have been a few changes since the last time i posted pics of my space as if you scroll down you will see the changes i have made in the last couple of weeks or so.

 these are the paper stands on your left as you come in the main door to my craft room/studio

 in the centre of the room i have a table that i made from pallers and then put a huge plastic sheet over

 as you can see my punches are now on some old cot/crib rails that i salvaged from the side of the road, they we still smoldering when i rescued them, lol.  My kids in the back of the car were like "ah no ma, you aint gonna put those in the car, are you?"  damn right i did.  See how well they work for my punches.

 that there is my home made light box for taking pics of my cards for my blog, when i get back into the swing of thins.

 On top of my light box is my cricut, under a striped dust cover,

 My cutting station with my Ebosser under a gingham dust cover, my trusty cuttlebug and guillotine

 My home made swivel stand for all my dies, it opens up with more space inside, check the post below for more pics here, you will have to scroll down to see the inside of this stand

 And sadly my big shot without a dustcover and very neglected

 the little corner of the room that i use for coloring and stamping, lately though i find i use the centre table for a lot of creating as scrapbooking requires a lot more space than this, lol

 My Martha Stewart punches on another crib rail

 rhinestones and flat backed pearls in all the bottles on this stand

 the tower with all these plastic boxes keeps a variety of things, but at least i can see whats in the boxes at a glance

 these are some more rescued items, they were spice racks that now house my buttons, glittah and those nobs that you see poking their heads out have cut and dry foam on them for my distress inks, have enough to fill that stand just need to pop them in

 this stand at the end of my table has eyelets and brads in the bottles and those flat plastic boxes, each of the compartments open individually for easy access to the color brad or eyelet required

 Another view of those shelves that dominate my room, housing all my flowers in the jars, and then some garlands in teh glass jars.
Well i do hope you enjoy have a look around
smiles
Paola

A Party not to be missed

since i have been MIA for so long i thought that i would start getting back into the groove by joining a blog party!! If you have a craft space and a blog, you dont want to miss out on all the other inspiring spaces.

Details can be found HERE
see y'all soon
smiles
Paola

losing our Readers

to continue to follow me i found a gadget that you can see in my sidebar at the very top on the right, hope to see my followers

click this link to follow me 
It seems that some clever dick has decided we need a new way of following the blogs we like to keep updated with, heaven only knows why, well thats the situation so i have had to go with the times and change to a thingy called Bloglovin that i havent a clue how it works.  Nonetheless, i have transferred all my readers to the new format and hope i will learn to get along with some of this new technology.  Sadly it says i only have about 20 readers, so i do hope you will all pop over and join me
smiles
Paola
P.S:  I am still around, only am trying to do a scrapbook for my sons upcoming wedding anniversary, so let me know if you interested in taking a peek at a few scrapping layouts and i will share whats keeping me busy

reason for my abscense

this post is not for the feint hearted!!!!
since the wound has now healed i thought i would share with y"all what exactly an awl is and how dangerous they are!

this is the offender:

i stuck it clean through my finger, dont ask!! you can see the entrance and exit wound here in the picture, boy did i get a fright!

 you can barely see the entrance wound here
once it was through, i had to pull it out again! cos i had a latex glove on while i was working with silicone!
and then of course it was so dirty, as you can see by the sight of the handle, i had to get the tetanus shot just to be on the safe side.
well i am all healed, however working furiously on a few things for the Magnolia ink so i am not sure if i will have anything else to share for a while
see you soon
smiles
Paola

Picture heavy!!! My craft room

My craft space is fully furnished on junk that i have repurposed from the local hopsice/  goodwill.

 i promised to share something of my craft space with you so i decided since i am probably not gonna be able to craft for a few days since i stabbed myself in my finger with an awl, had to go for a tetanus injection and am on anti biotics AGAIN! i should probably take this lul in crafting and share my untidy studio with you.  Above are my paper stands that i just couldnt llive without, this is certainly not ALL the paper but i put the newest ones on here as i get them so i know what i have, there are other papers stashed away that i go through every now and again when i cant find what i want.

 there is a debate going on about the best way to store ribbon amongst some local crafters on a group that i belong to so i decided to share what works for me.  This was a really fugly bookshelf, minus the shelves, but when i saw it i knew exactly what i was gonna do with it.

 i bought these little brackets, not sure exactly what they called i got them at the habby and normally it think they are used for bathroom curtains

 i screwed them into the sides of the bookcase and threaded my ribbon onto a dowel and then just popped them onto the bracket

 I have two of these large printers trays with all my charms and metal bits in, i find that this is the easiest for all these little bits cos then you can find what you looking for at a glance

 All my pearls and rhinestones are kept in these bottles, my mother bless her, made all the little jam jar covers for them so that i could have a color scheme going on in my space.

 i had a long hard think for my punches, i found a cupboard thingy, not sure what it was originally used for, but i drilled holes in the side panels, threaded dowels through it and mountedit onto the wall so i could see most of my punches, unfortunately there are a few still in drawers, not many though

 My stamps i stamp into a file, then give each stamp a number

 you can see the numbers written in red next to each stamp

 then i have each of my stamps, some of them more that one, in a cd case, i look in the file for the stamp i want, take the number and find the box that its stored in, voila!! easy to find stamps

 these large sweet jars house all my roses and flowers, the jars were around R10 a jar, my mother and a friend of mine Sue made the covers for the lids for me

 here you can see into the jar, each jar has a color, some of the colors spilled over into more than one jar.

 these are my brads, i bought these great plastic boxes that have little partitions that open individually, so if i need to throw out a whole lot to scratch through i dont have to empty the whole box and also the colors dont spill into one another

 i also have anther similar plastic box with eyelets so i know where they are

 these were cardboard boxes that i found a gazillion of, they were flat packed and easy to assemble and just covered with some paper and added a label

 this the sad story of all my embossing folders that  i just had to have and hardly see the light of day, perhaps i need to find a better solution for these so that i would use them more often

 this here is my pride and joy!! i had an old tv stand in my wood workshop, it was calling to me for months before i had one of those lightbulb moments!! i made a frame to fit the top, added pin boards to the frame, then added another layer inside so that i could stick magnetic sheets to it for all those dies that cant hang.

 here you can see the panel that opens with the magnetic sheet on the inside.  this stand, being on wheels can turn and move around, each of the four sides opens like this, so i can store a WHOLE LOT OF DIES!!

 here you can see two of the sides

 this is above my desk that i sit and craft at, these are all my colorbox chalk ink refills and the bottom rows are copic refills and distress ink refills, on the side is another magnetic sheet that i keep my Magnoia dies on so they dont get forgotten

 My diestress ink stamp pads right in front of me while i work in case i need them.  Also distess markers, and memento stamp pads

 more stamp pads

 all my Martha Stewart punches on a crib rail that i picked up at the junk store and mounted onto the wall

 this was some kind of cutlery caddy that my dear friend Moz's husband altered for me so that i could put all my prisma pencils in.  i just covered it with my paper when it came home to me

 My copic storage system, boy this one has been so many things before i found this the best system

 A cup stand that i sprayed an antique white rustoleum, houses my most used scissors and lives on my desk

 these last few pics are an overview of my space.  the table in the centre my husband kindly donated in case i feel like sharing some of my space and time with fellow crafters/ friends.  My children sometimes come and sit here with me while i work

 thats the desk i sit at in the far corner

 Here you can see the junk piling up in the corner next to my paper stands till i have another clean out and find what i want to do with these items,then the ribbon stand with paint brushes etc on top of it, and then the stand that has all my little bottles of pearls and rhinestones.

those boxes that you see at the bottom of that stand were tamato boxes kindly donated by Dale a friend who also has a lot of them in her studio, i painted mine and then put a black chalk board paint strip across the front so i could label what was in each box, i also made liners for them, thats the checked fabric you see peeping out of the box.
I hope that some of these storage ideas will help others.
have a great weekend
smiles
Paola