Organized Chaos

So this happened one day when I was trying to clean up or at least reorganize my craft table.  I found a baggie of crystals I ordered to make a project I'm dying to do, but haven't because I have nowhere to put it when it's done. I dug out some driftwood to see how they'd look as a driftwood hanging instead.  I didn't end up assembling it with the driftwood.  

So pretty!

Then I unearthed a few small things I'd been meaning to do so I glued these glass tiles onto a votive candle holder.  I keep forgetting how time consuming these projects are due to drying time and making sure the tiles don't slide out of place or fall off.

I had a bunch of small red skull cabs so I put them on 4 sides of the glass and filled in with red and purple glass blobs.  

These lightbulbs also surfaced on the table so I broke out the glass paint.  The Pinterest project originally showed nail polish on the bulbs but I didn't like the way it looked. I had to pilfer the tops of Christmas ornaments to glue on top of the lightbulb, then added the beaded hanger.  

I made this a few days before the attempt to clean the table off.  10 points to Ravenclaw!  Just a hangie thing I stuck on the wall in the bedroom.  I found the fillable bottles at the craft store and got the copper coloured ones.  Filled it with blue beads and then added the copper wings (for the Ravenclaw eagle) and then the hanger in the House colours as well.  Yes I'm obsessed with Harry Potter.  OBSESSED.  I don't even want to admit how much time I spent on the Pottermore website this month and watching the movies on ABC Family, as well as rereading the last 2 books.

My honey and I were at this great old store called Benny's, which is a real throw back to another era. It's been around forever.  He bought me this black velvet colouring poster which I can't wait to do.

The table may look as bad as it did before it was reorganized, but I truly can tell the difference.  At least now it's organized chaos.  And now I'm ready to start my new poster!

Mission Accomplished

I realize that many of you will look at these pictures of my newly reorganized craft room and say, 'Erm....I'm not seeing a difference....', but trust me, there is.

Yes this could use some more work but it's 10x better than it was.  At least I can see things a little bit better.

Same with this side.

And all the newly typed recipes except for one I left on a card because my dad handwrote on the back, 'Good Luck'.  90 recipes took me a few days, not steady work but some here and there, and it really added up.  If I had a half hour to kill waiting for a show I wanted to watch to come on, I'd go in and do a few.  

And here is the binder in all it's glory...organized, tabbed, alphabetized, page protected and everything. I was gonna decorate the cover page more but I ran out of steam cause I was sick. I dug out some pretty stickers to do the lettering and didn't feel like finding more images to decorate with.

I was kind of dreading this project but it turned out to be a really good one, and fun to organize and see come together.  It also didn't take the months and months I thought it would, but I'm glad it's done too.   

Another Hot Mess

I have been threatening, for YEARS, to type up all the scraps of paper with recipes scrawled on them.  It was my intent to do it in 2013 and I'd gathered them all together, then jammed them into a cubby space near my printer. I never 'got a round tuit', and it made searching for recipes quite challenging.  Since I had finally cleaned and organized my craft room, that mess in the cubby really stood out.  I got the craft table cleaned off and decided it was now or never.  The computer takes up so much room that my incentive to get it done quickly is great, because I can't craft.  

So many scraps of paper.  I ended up throwing out a lot of the recipes too....like the 20 different recipes for apple pie.  It's just easier to buy it.  I will make apple crisp, but not pie.  I threw away a lot of sugary baking recipes simply because I cannot be tempted to bake that stuff and leave it around the house because neither of us needs to be stuffing our face with it.  

Some of  my notations amused me.  Apparently writing out 'chicken breasts' took too much time, even though I started writing 'breasts', so I shortened it to 'chix boobs'.

I was thumbing through this cookbook and was about to transcribe this recipe when I read the pink note.  It looks like a good recipe but I guess it 'bums me out'.

I went through all my old vegetarian cookbooks and transcribed all of the recipes I used to make.  I am giving the books to a friend because I never made 85% or more of the ones in there.  I'm sorry but I wish people would stop making recipes that include curry, nuts, fruit, raisins and other really weird combos.  Gross.

I got about 50+ pages typed the first day, and I just have that small stack left to do.  I'd even made handwritten recipe cards and laminated them and all those are being transcribed as well.  My intent after they are printed is to put them in page protectors in a 3 ring binder and keep it readily at hand in the kitchen.  

Glad to have that project finally done!  I've only been meaning to do it for the past 10 years!

A Hot Mess

It amazes me how fast my craft room gets dusty and disorganized.  By the end of December, it was a white hot mess.  I decided to take the bull by the horns and try and get a handle on this.  

There's no room on my table, which is piled with half done projects and repairs.

This is a horror show.  Stuff's always dropping on my head or spilling onto the floor.

Baggies of Christmas things I was intending to use for altered art that I never got around to making.

How that upper shelf doesn't collapse amazes me.  

I've been chipping away at it....hopefully by the time this posts I will have made real progress!