My New (and Organized!) Space

Hey guys. I didn't think it would take nearly a week to get this done but that's the way it goes, I guess. Will worked really hard this weekend to get my shelves built and painted and I've spent the majority of the last two days trying to get everything organized and into boxes. The boxes are from Ikea and I LOVE THEM! Yes, I'm shouting! Aside from being time consuming to assemble, they are perfect! I love that they come in so many sizes and that now everything looks neat and organized! My room is about 95% complete. I still have a few minor things to finish (like hiding cords) but otherwise, it's done and I am so happy! Pictures are below.

Looking into the room:



And the opposite side of the room:



One of the new bookcases:



The desk area in the middle of the two bookcases:



The other new bookcase:



The wrapping/weighing area




And some of my shelves over in one corner that hold some of my seasonal items and some of my other favorite things



I'll try to take more pictures once it's all put together. These pictures are kind of dark and grainy but hey, at least I finally posted pictures!!

A little spring cleaning in December!

I finally took the plunge and coughed up the $25 to upgrade my flickr account to pro so I could add more pictures without the constant reminders that my earlier pictures were being hidden until I upgraded to a pro account. It sure didn't take long to reach the limit on there for the free accounts! I also spent some time organizing and tagging my pictures and putting them in sets and spiffing up the place. I changed out my avatar on there too so now all of my avatars match on here and flickr and etsy. I also added some new things to the ol etsy shop and I have more to add but my camera batteries are charging so that'll have to wait!

Yesterday was a semi decent day at the Value Village. I managed to get there right after they opened which was nice because it didn't take long to get crowded. I picked up a few must-haves, tried on another fantastic coat but decided against it (wth is wrong with me?!) and signed up for their little card that gives me 25% off of everything on Thursday too! Wooot! Now I can go at least twice a week and find fabulous stuff and get 25% off.

Today, I think I'm going to spend a couple of hours this afternoon trying to get my craft room/studio/office space organized (finally!) and put out some of my Christmas stuff in here. I may even do a tree. What I really need to do is get dressed and go to the mall and try to find something to wear to the Christmas party this weekend at the VP's house. Yeah, time is running out and yet here I sit with no motivation to go shopping. Hmmm.

I'm not feeling very Christmas-y at all this year. It's looking more and more certain that I'll be spending both Christmas AND New Years alone. Will is flying back out to Wyoming and although I could do the same, it's just so freaking expensive to take a flight out there. I'm trying to remind myself that Will and I can always go somewhere together in January for a week or so but the reality that I'll be alone in this stupid state for the holidays is depressing! At least my best friend Andrea will be home alone too! lol Her husband is in the Secret Service and will be with either Bush or Obama for the holidays. Maybe we'll have a pity party together!

I think this is the first year I haven't had all of my Christmas and winter decorations out by now, but I'm just not feeling it this year. I'm definitely in a blah sort of mood right now. Maybe cleaning my room and pulling out all of my great vintage ornaments will help cheer me up!

My latest Ghetto Thrift Goodies

Boy did I get some fabulous things at the GT today. You know, sometimes when I go to the Ghetto Thrift, I leave almost empty handed. Never completely empty-handed though because I always find at least one thing I just can't live without, but there have been times I've left rather disappointed. See, the drive to the Ghetto Thrift takes me through some of the 'hoods of Baltimore and I get kind of nervous driving over there. So, when I go to the GT, I like it to be worth my drive and I like to buy a lot of stuff. If this thrift store was in a different location (say, not in the hood) I'd probably go more often but I am just not that comfortable driving there more than once a week. It takes me about that long to get my courage up again!!

Anyhow, so yesterday I had to run some errands and I decided I needed to stop in the GT to see if there were any new treasures that needed to come home with me. And I wasn't disappointed at all. What I was disappointed about was the fact that the GT only has like 5 carts and the rest is hand baskets. Now really, how much stuff can you fit in a basket?? That is the most stupid idea ever! If you want people to buy a lot of stuff, at least have somewhere for them to put all of their crap while they are shopping. So, I wasn't lucky enough to get a cart because the store was crowded and I had to settle for a basket. That sucker got loaded down though and I thought the bottom might break!

Here is my little rant for the week. Last week I stopped into the GT and picked up a few things and the lady running the register told me I couldn't use my 25% discount because I didn't tell her in time. That kind of pissed me off because the first thing I do when I get up there is put my military ID on the counter. Basically, she didn't take the time to enter the discount and she would've had to ring my order up again so she just told me she couldn't take it. Ugh! So, yesterday while I was checking out, I asked if they were still giving the discount and the guy told me they were. Yay for my discount! I was counting on receiving the discount because I bought a couple of things I normally wouldn't buy if I had to pay full price for them!!

So, on to my fabulous purchases. First up, a couple of vintage children's books. I don't know why I've been drawn to these old books lately. Maybe it's because of the cute covers or the colorful illustrations on the inside. These are for resell though and I hope someone on Etsy will find a good use for them, either to read or to use in crafts.



I also picked up this vintage box of hosiery. The box says "Bakers Dozen" but there are only a couple of pairs left in the box. Either way, the box alone was worth the purchase price and if there are any retro-dressing ladies that need some new hose, well, here ya go!



And then I found this adorable twin size flat sheet with two pillow cases. I love the yellow flowers but more importantly, look at that ruffle! These linens are SO soft! I love nothing more than to crawl into bed and feel soft, cold sheets and these feel like they'd be heavenly to sleep on. Honestly, I prefer vintage linens to anything you can buy today. There is just no comparison to me, not even with the 12 million thread count sheets you can get these days. I'm torn on what to do with these though. One of our guest rooms has two twin beds in it so I could always keep these to use on those beds. On the other hand, we hardly EVER have company and those beds are almost never used.



And my absolute best find of the week is this little beauty below. I think I almost dropped my basket when I saw this hanging up. I couldn't wait to get my greedy little hands on it before someone else spotted it. Check out this full/double size blue with white flowers chenille bedspread.





Isn't it gorgeous? And in fairly good condition too! I noticed a small section of the fringe unravelling and one section on the back side that the stitching is coming undone but that looks to be an easy fix. I was just so excited to find this thing! You hardly ever see chenille spreads around here and usually they are white or beige. I love the bright blue color. Last year at the VV near the base I found a fabulous double peacock chenille spread that had a green background. It was only a couple of dollars and was shoved under a rack of linens. I'm thinking someone else wanted it and had put it there to come back later and buy but too bad! I'm debating if I should keep these for our other guest room or if I should sell it. Hmmm so many decision!

I also picked up a couple more milk glass candy dish things to hold more of my crap, er I mean very valuable items, here in my craft room and a cute drinking glass with a picture of a blue warbler on it. I swear I saw someone else post pictures on their blog not long ago of a set of glasses with birds but I cannot find the post now!

So, that was my day at the GT. Quite a good haul, I made it out of the 'hood safely and bought a ton of good stuff. Now I need to work on emptying out my room because I finally decided on paint colors and I'm painting this place ASAP! I can't wait to show you the new look. I have a few pieces of furniture that I want to paint but I feel guilty painting it. Someone please tell me to not feel badly for painting this stuff. I mean it's not like museum quality furniture. Just stuff I've picked up at thrift stores or estate sales and I want my room to match and look cute. Tell me it's okay to paint this ugly brown furniture!

Monday's Finds at the Value Village

Well, nothing helps cure those post-vacation blues quite like a 2.5 hour trip to the fabulous thrift store! Luckily, I got there early today so it wasn't quite as packed as it was last week and I was able to get down a couple of the more busy aisles before the crowds got there. I swear, sometimes I will stand in that store and wonder if people are really *that* obtuse. I mean if your cart is in the middle of an already narrow aisle and you see someone else walking down said aisle and coming towards you, don't you have the good sense (and/or manners) to try and pull your cart as close to the racks as possible??? Yeah, most people up here don't. I don't get it at all. So, it was nice to get most of my shopping/looking around done before the rude people got there!

I think I may have spent more there today than I ever have, but I bought a bunch of cute little things. I picked up a bag full of old Boys Town Christmas stamps/seals from the 50s, a baggie full of German ornaments, 4 pillowcases, a twin sized flat sheet, a couple of books and a huge Gund bear that still has tags on it and must've been a collectible type of thing from 2000. I dunno if I'm going to resell it or maybe strip his ugly clothes off and just keep him. The bear is about 30" tall and just so cute so he might be staying even though I don't really even like bears!

Yesterday I decided it was time to start trying to sell some of my stuff on Etsy. It's all vintage stuff right now, but I may at one point decide to actually make things too. I need to list more things today and start going through some of my stuff and putting aside things I know I can live without. See, that's my problem. I always go into the thrift store and find such good things I just know would sell online but then I have a hard time parting with them! I'm hoping all of that is about to change though. lol And I also signed up for Twitter yesterday too. I am so lost! I'm guessing I'll get the hang of it soon though. Seems easy enough to figure out.

Today I need to go pick up coffee creamer and a pumpkin carving kit for the husband and I'm going to try to make it to the Ghetto Thrift too if I have time. What I *really* need to do is stay right here at home, box up my entire craft/scrap/office room and clear it out so I can paint this weekend. But, seeing how I haven't decided on paint yet, cleaning all of this stuff out doesn't make much sense. I swear I tried to settle on a green shade yesterday but none of the swatches I have seem like the right color. I have a lot of red and green accents in this room so I can't find a color I really like. Maybe I'll just stick with white walls! Ugh!! I am so indecisive...it drives me NUTS!

Back to reality

Hello, my favorite vintage peeps. Hahaha. I make it sound like I actually have a lot of people reading my little ol blog! I've been away for a while but I'm back now and hopefully will get back on some sort of regular posting schedule. Which in reality, means about 1.5 times a week, but still.

So, Will and I just returned from a little jaunt down to the mountains of Tennessee and I have never been so happy to leave from a vacation! I know that sounds ludicrous but it's true. This vacation is proof that not all vacations are magical and that sometimes vacations can pretty much suck.

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE being in Eastern TN and in the mountains but the circumstances with this particular vacation were just so, ugh, I can't even form the words. Will and I went down and met up with my parents and my sister, her boyfriend and my niece. Everything was going okay the first night down there. Even the second day seemed to start off okay. We were going to go to Dollywood and have a fantastic time riding rides and eating tons of junk food. Except Dollywood is closed on Thursdays and we didn't know it until we got to the little entrance to the parking lot. Things just got worse from here on out.

Friday morning we woke up to torrential downpours and tropical storm-like winds. It was insane. The cabin we rented, which was quite nice I might add, sprung a few leaks around the windows and doors. That's how hard the rain/wind was. Oh, and then we lost power just as I was starting to get ready. No more power = dead curling iron and I went to town looking like a hot mess.

By Saturday the weather was fair again and the rest of the family went to Dollywood but Will and I skipped out. There were just so many things we wanted to do that we hadn't done yet and since it was our last day, we decided to skip going to the amusement park and actually get a few of the things done. One of our stops was at the Apple Barn, which I normally LOVE, but I ate a fried pie and drank a huge glass of apple cider and within about 20 minutes I became violently ill!

So, as you can see, our vacation wasn't that great at all. The weather was horrible one day, I was sick as a dog for several hours on another, I only spent about 5 minutes with my mom (which is another story I won't get into here because it just makes me so damn mad), the leaves looked like crap and Will and I didn't do hardly anything we had planned on doing.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to stop at any of my favorite little antique stores in the area either. But, today is 25% off day at the Value Village and I have every intention of drowning my vacation blues sorrows by getting there when the doors open at 10:00. I found a couple of cute little vintage Christmas things there last week and I cannot wait to go today & see what I can find.

In other news, I absolutely HAVE TO pick out a paint color for this scrap/craft/office room this week because I am painting this weekend. I am the most indecisive person ever when it comes to paint. I am torn between painting this room a shade of pale green, like maybe a very pale jade color, or maybe pale pink, or even pale turquoise. Gaaaaaaah. Why can't I make a decision?? And I must find a bookcase this week. My room looks like a bomb went off in here and it is driving me crazy. I think having a bookshelf/case would offer a lot more storage and could help me keep this place a little more neat. I hope. lol

So, what color should I paint this place?? Pink? Green? Turquoise? Something entirely different?? I need help people!

Finally!

It really feels as though I've been neglecting my blog. I've wanted to sit down and write a couple of times but life has been very busy around here. Heck, I haven't even read any blogs in almost a week. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

First, I want to say thanks to Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen. I won a contest on her site a couple of weeks ago and received a FABULOUS apron & a big, huge World Atlas! Both came in the last week or so and I've thoroughly enjoyed them already!! She rocks- be sure to check out her blog and also her apron store at Rickrackattack.com. She has the best selection of vintage aprons anywhere!

My Apron:


My Atlas:



In other news, the husband was off for a couple of days last week and we made some progress outside. We planted some flowers in our naked little flower beds and did some stuff around the house too. I still need him to pressure wash the rockers so I can get those painted. Our porch looks so sad right now. It's a big ol' wrap around porch but it's really naked. I need more flowers and plants and just to spruce it up some.

This past weekend was very busy also. We've been trying to empty the basement and sort through all of the boxes and put aside things for donation or a yard sale and taking the rest of our stuff up to the attic. It's a slow process but we're almost done. The husband is going to try to get the basement empty so he can waterproof down there and then finish it off. We could use the room down there for exercise equipment or maybe put a bar down there. I also want the office moved out of my scrap/craft room so I'll have more room for MY stuff!

Our yard sale pile is huge. Bags and bags of clothing and misc stuff that we've just been hanging on to. You would've thought I would've gone through all of this stuff before we moved from SC to MD 2 years ago but evidently I was convinced that I would shrink back into some of those old clothes. I've finally realized I'm not 18 anymore, I'm never going to be that size again unless my jaws are wired shut for 6 months and even if some miracle occurred and I was that skinny again, well, the clothes aren't really my style anymore. SO, I'm freeing myself of the clutter and I'm getting rid of it all! I'm going to try to have the yard sale in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll do well because I'm going to use the money I get from the sale to drive out to Wyoming later this summer.

Speaking of yard sales, I went to two fabulous estate sales on Saturday. I got up a little later than I had planned so I didn't make it to one until about 30 minutes after it started and the stuff had already been picked through. I did manage to snag this great little cabinet for $5. I didn't even realize it was light green until yesterday when the husband brought it inside for me. I thought it was white, but green is even better! I love the chippy paint and the wire on the doors. So, so cute. It's perfect for storing all of my card making supplies.

The cabinet:


The other estate sale I went to was much larger and I seriously thought I had died & gone to Heaven. The entire basement was filled, FILLED with bookshelves. Know what was on the bookshelves? Cookbooks. I'm talking literally thousands of cookbooks. There were more cookbooks in the boxes on the floor, every room in the basement had cookbooks. I was in.love. But it was also overwhelming. There were just so many to choose from. I spent a good hour down in that basement looking for books. The lighting down there was horrible though and it was hot and humid and really hard to see. I managed to pick up 8 that I just couldn't live without. I had picked up a really old Betty Crocker 3-ring cookbook that I really wanted but another lady had mentioned she needed one so I gave it to her. Still kicking myself over that one! It wasn't in very good condition though so that made it easier to part with. The cookbooks were only 50 cents and I really should have bought more. I hope they have another sale this coming weekend. I'll go armed with boxes to put the books into because carrying them the way I did was very heavy!

Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day cleaning out my scrap room. It looks about a million percent better but I still need some more storage in here. Like a good bookshelf to put all my magazines on. Right now they are just sitting in files on the floor. And I need to figure out what I'm going to use as my ribbon storage because what I'm using now isn't going to work once I start actually crafting again. Right now they are in these big blue boxes from Ikea but I need to be able to see my ribbons while I'm working. The last couple of houses we've been in, I've used cafe rods and put the ribbons on that. It works really well except I don't have very much wall space in this room. Lots of windows which is really nice, but not a lot of room on the walls. Not sure what to do with the ribbons. I don't want to use jars because that would annoy the heck out of me each time I had to go through the jar to get to a specific ribbon. I may be able to use the back of the door though. I have to look into that.

Anyhow, here are some more pictures of my little scrap/craft room:




12 x 12 paper storage:


Ribbon Storage in blue boxes, pictures in the others:


Some of my vintage books, a train case filled with misc craft stuff and a cute cabinet I bought at the Salvation Army for $15:


Some of my favorite aprons. This little cabinet had one cup hook on the side and I added a few more. A great way to get my aprons out of a storage box so I can enjoy them:


My work table. It's never this clean so I had to take a picture so I could remember it:


And finally, my wall of embellishments- sorted by season, event, categories and completely full. I actually need another one for some of the overflow!


Now that I've caught up my blog, I'm gonna spend some time reading what everyone else has been up to this past week!! Thanks for stopping by.

Work in Progress (or, Wow! This place is a mess!!)

This picture is of my work table area in my scraproom. This is the first time in the 6 weeks we've lived in this house that the desk has been clean enough to take a picture. I have spent days, literally, working in this room trying to get it organized but it still isn't finished.

I am still trying to find a suitable cabinet or bookshelf to replace a few other pieces of furniture in this room that are just not working. I even thought about having the Husband build one but when we priced out lumber we realized it would probably be more expensive to build it than if I found a used one somewhere. Hopefully I find something soon because the clutter and mess is driving me crazy!! If the rest of the room ever gets organized, I'll share more pictures, but I refuse to photograph this room with it looking as it does now! Such a mess.

This little craft room was one of the deciding features of buying this house. Well, that and we were running out of time before our lease was up and all of the other houses we'd put offers on had fallen through but I digress. Anyhow, when the husband and I decided to buy a house, I knew the one thing I really really wanted was a craft room. At our house in SC I never had a room just for all of my scrapbooking/craft stuff. I had to share our room over the garage with a pool table and then I moved all of my stuff into one of the guest rooms but I never did have a place that was *just* for me.

And the house we were renting here in Maryland had a little sunroom on the back of the house that I used as just a craft room but it wasn't very functional. It was also the only way to get outside so the dogs were always coming through and leaving muddy footprints and hair all over the place. Not to mention it was not heated nor did it have air conditioning- which was a nightmare last summer. It was so hot in that room that my paper was curling up!

So, all of the houses we looked at had to have a place for me to use as a craft room. And I really wanted a place with a basement too, which we have, but we're dealing with a little infestation of camel crickets so I do not go down there. At. All. Not until the husband deals with all of the camel crickets.

Anyway, we found this house, probably the 100th one we looked at and either the 3rd or 4th one we put an offer on, and it had this perfect little room off of the dining room that I just knew would be my craft space. It's really too small to be anything else except maybe an office, measuring maybe 7' x 10'. That sounds like a decent sized room but it's still a little on the small side. Either that or I have entirely too much junk in here. I'm going with the first theory though!

I am just so happy to finally have a place -as small as it is- to spread out and do my scrapping and not have to worry about cleaning it all up every day or having to deal with the dogs coming through several times a day getting the place all dirty! Now if I can just get the rest of the stuff organized and put away and actually start working on my list of projects. At least it's better than it was a month ago and with any luck I'll find the perfect storage piece within the next couple of weeks and then my room will look complete!