Craft space

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I shared my (updated) craft space on the Scrap365 blog a couple of weeks ago and I thought you might like to see it too!

I started scrapping at this table more than ten years ago. The table was in my living room back then and it was just our dining table. All my scrapbooking supplies fitted into a plastic container that was moved into a cabinet when I was done scrapping.

The situation lasted about three years and by 2006 I was ready to move into a corner of our attic. There was no heating there, but there was room for a desk and even better: enough space to house all the supplies and tools I had collected. I was scrapbooking right next to my washer and dryer, which of course meant that I always managed to stay on top of the laundry!

We had a separate room that we called the study, which was where we kept our desktop PC. I started to spend more and more time in there, to edit and print photos, type journaling and to check out the online scrapbooking forums.

My scrapbooking stuff was on the other hand spilling over to the rest of the attic… I clearly needed more room and the thought of central heating was kind of appealing too. So about two years later we moved my scrapbooking corner into the study.

Fast-forward to the current situation:

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I have somehow managed to get rid of all the home office stuff in here. We no longer own a desktop PC, which makes things a lot more flexible!

My old dining table got replaced and found a new home in my craft space. My husband elongated the legs because I like to stand while creating.

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The table recently moved to the centre of the room. I’m slowly trying to minimize the amount of stuff that is stored on these shelves.

It’s where you can find my packaging materials, pencils, crayons, punches and bigger tools, photo gear, 6×6 paper pads, canvases, printed photos, die-cuts, embellishments, tags, chipboard, envelopes, coloured cardstock, memorabilia, printer paper, photo paper and sewing materials…

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On the other side of the chimney is an Expedit:

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This is where I keep magazines, works in progress and… even more memorabilia:

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My memorabilia hoarding habit is a problem that honestly needs to be fixed!

I have made progress in sorting it all out and now I need to do something with it. Some of it is tied to the works in progress, some of it is tied to potential projects, other stuff I keep for nostalgic or emotional reasons.

I have promised myself that this is it. I have to finish a project or decide to chuck things out before I can accumulate any more. I also need to decide what to do about the potential projects. Use it or lose it… That’s the question!

I know you can hardly see it here, but left of the Expedit sits a vintage record case. I keep my entire collection of 12×12 white, kraft and black cardstock and patterned paper in that record case!

On the opposite side of the table is another Expedit, that functions as more of a mixed media station:

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Most of my inks, adhesives, special paints, pan pastels, embossing powders, watercolour mediums, washi tape, pens and markers are in those drawers, but you can also find roller and alphabet stamps, enamel dots and wood veneer in there.

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This Expedit houses collage material, acrylic paint, spray inks, stencils, UTEE, clay, mediums, clear stamps and… my waste paper bin:

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And last but certainly not least, there is a wine box on the window sill that contains my essential tools:

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Here I can reach for my paint brushes, attacher, several pairs of scissors, hole pokers, craft knives, palette knives, foam brushes, several rulers, craft sheets, baby wipes, spray bottle with water and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

I love that this is a moveable feast: I can take out what I need, or I can just move the whole box to the worktable if needed.

I spend a lot of time in this room. This is where I paint (and splatter), cut, paste and sew. It’s also the place where I do my photo editing, writing and other computer work. It’s my room, I don’t have to share it with anyone else and I can leave unfinished projects out on the table if I want to.

I assure you that it isn’t always this tidy. I tend to pull out all kinds of stuff while creating. But I do try to put everything back once a project is finished. Having a place for everything really does help a lot and I consider myself very lucky to have a space like this!

That’s it. That concludes the tour of my room. I hope you enjoyed it!

Inspired by: Scrap365 magazine

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Hello, hello!

Yes! It’s that time again! Riikka and I challenge each other each month to create something with a particular theme or thing in mind. This theme or thing can be anything and for this Inspired by Riikka and I agreed that the June/July 2014 issue of Scrap365 would be a brilliant source of inspiration!

As it happens, there’s a brand new issue coming out this Friday! So just to be clear… This is the new Aug/Sep issue:

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But for this Inspired by we used this issue:

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Riikka and I are both contributors for the magazine. I’ve been on the team right from the beginning. I love working for this magazine and I love reading it. There’s a great mix of styles in there and there is always something that blows my mind. Now you know I’m biased, but I think this is the best scrapbook magazine around and I’m proud to be a part of it!

My Inspired by project was a no-brainer: I’m in the middle of my summer break and although I had planned to finish ALL of my deadlines before the break… I did not. But I figured (before summer break started) that I needed something to document my summer break adventures. So… it had to be a summer break mini album.

I decided to use a Snap! album as a foundation. I’m not sure if I will keep everything in there for good, but I figured that I could always choose to bind the pages in another cover later on.

For the inner pages I cut about 15 sheets of mixed media paper to size and I thought that the Hello, hello Studio Calico scrapbook kit would provide me more than enough papers and embellishments to last me my 14 day break.

And then my summer break started…

And I played around with paint and had some fun scraplifting from the magazine…

But the summer break weather wasn’t that good…

And we ended up doing a lot of cleaning and purging…

And not doing anything particularly noteworthy…

And when we did, I didn’t have time to document…

So…

All I have to show for this Inspired by are a couple of foundation pages!

I had a lot of fun making them though! One of the things I’ve done in the past week is organize my craft supplies (again) and it was extremely satisfying to use some of those supplies in the process of creating the foundation pages.

Unfortunately I’m not allowed to publish photos of the magazine’s pages… If you have the June/July issue at hand, it might be fun to grab it and see where I got my ideas from!

I didn’t really think this through beforehand. I just started with the first article and I went on from there, skipping to fun background ideas first:

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Inspired by: Inspiration Station – Doodling by Emma Trout

Zentangle and doodling is so on trend right now. And it’s so relaxing to do! I love the way Emma combined it with scrapbooking. Her pages look fab! My doodling still needs a bit of colour, but I’m a bit hesitant because I don’t want to ruin things!

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Inspired by: On the Bright Side by Sanna Lippert

This was a step-by- tutorial. At first I thought my page looked terrible… But I just continued to follow Sanna’s directions and I had the best time creating these backgrounds. I was happy to use Nathalie Kalbach’s Stampendous stamps on these along with Distress Stains/Ink (hadn’t used them in ages!!!) and embossing powders!

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Inspired by: Stash Savvy by Birgit Koopsen

Birgit makes brown paper look sophisticated… I dug out one of my self-carved stamps to create the background paper, just like Birgit did in the article!

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Inspired by: Jazz it up with Gesso by Ali Parris

Just followed Ali’s directions and then left my pages to dry for a looong time… That’s why these are still quite bare.

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Inspired by: Viewpoint by Kristin Tweedale

I’m a big fan of Kristin, not just because of her simple scrapbooking style, but also for her choice of subjects to document. So I just had to include her! I liked the idea with the alpha’s so much that I basically scraplifted her page.

And that’s all I have to show for now… I keep all pages in the Snap! binder until I figure out where all the photos and stories are going to go:

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I plan on printing the photos next week and then finishing the mini album soon after. I have a serious habit of not finishing any vacation album if there isn’t a deadline attached, so wish me luck!

I’m beyond curious of what Riikka has created with the huge amount of inspiration that can be found in this issue of Scrap365 magazine… You can see for yourself on her blog!