Decorating a Room Around a Few Pieces of Furniture - The Idea/Planning Stage

Hello everyone!

I'm looking forward to transforming my space into a space that not only works for me, but one that inspires and reflects me.

It's probably too early in the morning to be thinking about this, it's 7am here in Pennsylvania, but I'm in the ideas/planning stages of redoing my craft room and just laid awake in bed last night thinking about it. The rooms in my home are casual with a beach theme running throughout, but I would like to do something special for my craft room. I considered doing a very sleek and clean surfaced, modern room, but I find it sort of boring (uninspiring). I'm also drawn to a Shabby Chic - French Country look, but I've had no idea where to begin. I need to cover up the clutter I'm living with currently.

Recently a friend of my husband's was giving away two nightstands and a vanity. When I saw them I fell in love and my mind was made up. I want to go with a cozy, fresh, feminine room with soft colors and flowing curtains that gives off an atmosphere of history. The new furniture was the perfect start. Gorgeous!

Each piece is heavy, well made, with large deep drawers that I can organize my craft materials in. They were the owner's grandmother's furniture and that felt special even to me. I still have to clean them, but below are a couple of pictures of one of the pieces.

 There are two nightstands and the color in the photo is quite true to the actual color. I do not want to paint them as I love the softness of the overall color and the hand painted floral motif.

 

 Each drawer is different and I love that about it.     

 I used the flash to show the details of the flowers and leaves. The flowers are bluish with a slight turquoise appearance. These are the colors I want to focus on. I'm a huge fan of shades of blue.

Now on to what I have and what I would love

The problem I'm running into is that although my space is a decent size, my walls are blocked from end to end with mismatched furniture pieces. The only way to redo my room is to redo my furniture by making it look cohesive and softer in appearance. Like most craft rooms, my room is also filled with plastic containers, plastic drawers, boxes, organizers of all colors and shapes and boring filing cabinets. I need to do something about those too.

Below is a photo of the bookcases in my room. As you can see, although I have some of my crafting materials contained and organized on these shelves, the overall appearance is not appealing to look at. The shelves I added above them don't even match. There was a point that I felt proud of how organized and thrifty I am, but I completely missed the boat on attractiveness. For whatever reason I didn't even consider appearance at that time.

Yesterday I came across this decorative idea for my plain white bookcases from Just a Girl and Her Blog where you can see a step by step tutorial. I think she did a super job giving her bookcases a fancy and feminine appearance. This is something I want to do in my craft room that I think will be a good start to the look and feel. 

I like the color she used as her backing for the bookcases, but I'm looking for a color with a bit more blue in it. Like the picture below.

I think this photo is absolutely beautiful from the blog Lyckoslanten. I'm looking to hide the majority of my craft materials, but I love the soft feminine color. 

Compare the photo above with the feeling I have in my craft room. It feels horrible! I hear cheerleaders shouting the U. G. L. Y. cheer.

My craft materials are at arms reach and conveniently in sight, but my room is embarrassingly dark and ugly. My ugly clutter is dragging me down. I'm not one to want a room like those in magazines. After all, they are usually staged with accessories, color, perfect lighting for the camera and so forth.
How many people have their craft lace partially unrolled from a wooden spool and intertwined with a fern or keep an expensive doily with pearls on their work surface while they paint, glue and cut or even at all unless it's for a photo? These people could be out there, but I personally don't know anyone who does these things. 

I'm grateful to have what I have and do what I do. I just want a room that reflects ME and not my craft materials.

So I leave on a on a good note - I'm going into this with realistic expectations and I love to craft and decorate so this is right up my alley. I'm looking forward to transforming my space into a space that not only works for me, but one that inspires me. I hope you will join me on the adventure as I would love to hear any suggestions from you, your experiences and look at ideas you would like to share. I would also like to see your craft room do-overs and what works for YOU.

Happy Crafting!

30 Signs You're Addicted to Paper Crafts

Revised and updated to share again :)

1. Your desk is known to be covered with scrap pieces of paper and material and there is a ring around your chair that looks just like the surface of your desk.
2. You have partial lines of double-sided tape stuck on your desk.
3. You don't throw anything away because you see a creative purpose for it.
4. Your glue and tape collection has become so large you use containers to organize them.
5. You have pride in the little containers you found to store your beads, pearls and buttons.
6. You think about making a craft video and placing it on YouTube if you haven't already.
7. You love collecting fake flowers so you can rip them apart and make your own cute flowers.
8. Your prize possessions are your hot glue gun, scoring board, Xacto knife and heat tool.
9. You're excited when you get more rolls of tape. In fact when you're in need, tape is a perfectly acceptable Christmas gift to receive. 
10. Your eyes light up, like a guy looking at a new sports car, when you buy a die-cutting machine and every time you get something new to go with it.
11. You've not only taken the time to organize your ink and stamps, but you've built your own storage unit.
12. You have curtain rods hanging on your walls holding ribbon, wax paper and burlap and you may be the only one in your neighborhood.
13. Your storage boxes are labeled because you have so many.
14. You can spend and entire day walking around Micheal's, Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby and still feel like you're being ripped away when you have to leave.
15. Thrift shopping has become even more fun with all the new crafts you've learned to do.
16. YouTube tutorials have replaced television and you cannot get enough of them.
17. You've started your own blog so you can share your creations with the world.
18. You have multiple pairs of scissors and specific uses for each pair.
19. You freak out like your dad did over someone touching his tools when someone touches your special markers.
20. Having every type of paint brush and sponge brush makes you feel good.
21. Not only have you organized all of your paper by color, but you have organized your scrap pieces of paper too.
22. You've saved the hard clear plastic covers from foods and craft essentials because you know what to use them for.
23. People often look at what you have used to make something and say, "I would have never thought off that".
24. You find inspiration by following every online Arts and Crafts blog you can find.
25. When you get stuck on a project you just put it aside and start a new one, knowing that something new will refresh your creativity.
26. Your room seems to constantly get smaller as you need more room for finished projects and new craft "essentials".
27. You have to remind yourself while working on a project to eat and get up and move.
28. Filing cabinets and dresser drawers no longer hold just bills and clothes.
29. Seeing someone on Youtube do something smart that you haven't thought of (like storing embossing powder in a container with a spoon) gets you excited.
30. You, too often, find yourself trying to save your project from your tape sticking one piece to another in the wrong position, end up with glue where glue should never be and get tired of picking off hairs from your projects that fall out of cheap paint brushes.
31. Bonus - Making a list called, "30 Signs You're Addicted to Arts Paper Crafts" makes you laugh because you know there are many people who will connect with it.

Happy Crafting!

 

Copyright © 2013 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted
All Rights Reserved

Scrapbook Layout - blog Challenge

Hello everyone. Another snowy day here in Pennsylvania, but the sun is shining. Today I'm submitting a layout for a color challenge with The Memory Nest. Working off an inspiration piece and coming up with something of my own is right up my alley. I decided to use a picture for my layout showing how the snow blanketed everything and when I looked out across my front yard I could no longer see the road and the sidewalk. Untouched, the snow just looked beautiful. So here it is. Hope you like it.

I took my photograph looking out my window somewhat at an angle, so the grills aren't straight up and down like I would like them to be, but no big deal. I decided to place my photograph in a window frame and add a fancy blind to capture the same feeling I had looking out.

Inspiration Piece

To make the window I used chipboard covered with brown textured card-stock and then cut a hole in the layout for the frame to fit and glued it in place. The trim on the window overhangs the frame which gave me some play when cutting the hole. I didn't have to be perfect about it.

Happy Crafting!

30 Signs You're Addicted to Paper Crafts

1. Your desk is known to be covered with scrap pieces of paper and material and there is a ring around your chair that looks just like the surface of your desk.
2. You have partial lines of double-sided tape stuck on your desk.
3. You don't throw anything away because you see a creative purpose for it.
4. Your glue and tape collection has become so large you use a container to organize them.
5. You have pride in the little containers you found to store your beads, pearls and buttons.
6. You've daydreamed about making a craft video and placing it on YouTube if you haven't already.
7. You love collecting fake flowers so you can rip them apart and make your own cute flowers.
8. Your prize possessions are your hot glue gun, scoring board, Xacto knife and heat tool.
9. You're excited when you get more rolls of tape. In fact when you're in need, tape is a perfectly acceptable Christmas gift to receive. 
10. Your eyes light up, like a guy looking at a new sports car, when you buy a die-cutting machine and every time you get something new to go with it.
11. You've not only taken the time to organize your ink and stamps, but you've built your own storage unit.
12. You have curtain rods hung on your walls with ribbon, wax paper, lace and burlap hanging from them.
13. Your craft storage boxes are labeled because you have so many.
14. You can spend and entire day walking around Micheal's, Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby and still feel like you're being ripped away when you have to leave.
15. Thrift shopping has become even more fun with all the new crafts you've learned to do.
16. YouTube tutorials have replaced television and you cannot get enough of them.
17. You've started your own blog so you can share your creations with the world.
18. You have multiple pairs of scissors and specific uses for each pair.
19. You freak out like your dad did over someone touching his tools when someone touches your special markers.
20. Having every type of paint brush and sponge brush makes you feel good.
21. Not only have you organized all of your paper by color, but you have organized your scrap pieces of paper too.
22. You've saved the hard plastic covers from foods and craft essentials because you know what to use them for.
23. People often look at what you have used to make something and say, "I would have never thought off that".
24. You find inspiration by following every online Arts and Crafts blog you can find.
25. When you get stuck on a project you just put it aside and start a new one, knowing that something new will refresh your creativity.
26. Your room seems to constantly get smaller as you need more room for finished projects and new craft "essentials".
27. You have to remind yourself while working on a project to eat and get up and move.
28. Filing cabinets and dresser drawers no longer hold just bills and clothes.
29. Seeing someone on Youtube do something smart that you haven't thought of (like storing embossing powder in a container with a spoon) gets you excited.
30. You, too often, find yourself trying to save your project from your tape sticking one piece to another in the wrong position, end up with glue where glue should never be and get tired of picking off hairs from your projects that fall out of cheap paint brushes.
31. Bonus - Making a list called, "30 Signs You're Addicted to Paper Crafts" makes you laugh because you know there are many people who will connect with it.

Happy Crafting!

 

Copyright © 2013 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted
All Rights Reserved