My Stamping Haven

Hi there! Happy New Year!!!! Hopefully, this new year finds you happy, healthy, and hopeful. We've been busy here. Jaydin has had pneumonia and ear infections (not what you want for your 2 year old, for sure!), and the boys have been on a winter retreat (and had a blast!!!). Mark and I have been reorganizing and restructuring my Haven (stamp room) for the last 2 weeks. With the exception of some decorating that I plan to do, we're finally DONE!!! Yippee!!!! So .... without further adieu ... I'd like to introduce you to the Haven.


The room is approximately 21'x13'.

This picture is looking at my work space from the door to the room. Towards the right of this picture, I have my blue storage bin unit and Jaydin's space to play.


To the immediate right of the door, are my stamp shelves. Mark put lips on all of the shelves so that the sets won't slide off when I'm organizing them or searching for something. The top shelf is a little high for stamps, so I have other storage boxes up there.



This is Jonah's work space. He has a 4 foot table, some stacking baskets, several craft tote organizers, and a small folding table to use in his area. At some point, we may be putting some shelves up for him over his table .




This picture shows the start of my U-shaped workspace and where my stamp pads live. You can see Jonah's area to the left of this. My stamp pads are in an *AWESOME* set of organizers that I purchased a few years ago from Dzyntec. The acrylic holders hold one color family of pads, reinkers, markers and daubers in one box. I have 4 boxes on an acrylic turntable (also purchased from Dzyntec), so all 4 color families are on the turntable. My neutrals and retired colors are on the right of my work space.


My stamp area is actually right under my peg board. I keep my SU punches on the peg board in easy reach. My scissors are up there, as well. Watercolor crayons, watercolor pencils, chalks, and such are right in front of me below the peg board. Grid paper stays right under the stamping area, and the table is covered in plastic sheeting. Adhesive lives in the little drawer holder near the stamp pads, and 12x12 paper lives on the shelves on the right.


The right side of my U houses my electronic goodies. There is a power strip under one of the bottom shelves to plug in the laptop, printer, scanner, and both Cricuts. The printer is on the shelves to the left of the laptop with the scanner above it. Cricut cartridges are on the small shelves (created *just* for those boxes :) ), and the mats and blades hang on the wall between the shelves (as well as some packages of "can't-wait-to-be-used" Wall Pops). The Cricuts have nice places on the table, and I move them out and around depending on how I need to use them. Both can reach the laptop when I'm using the Design Studio Software (which makes Cricut creativity absolutely *limitless*) via the USB cable. You can also see the Xyron 900 in this picture. Great tool, especially when using it in combination with the Cricuts.



My paper cutters and temporary containers for scrap papers are on the final side of the U. The scrap paper lives here until I get enough that I feel guilty for not separating it by color families and putting it in my scrap paper files.





So, that's my whole work space. I feel so much more organized with a space for everything. This is looking at my area from Jaydin's play space.





Jaydin's area is clean and fun for her. She's got 2 chairs that also have desk attachments (they were the boys' chairs!), a big box of dress-up items, and a DVD player to use while she's up there with me. This is a view of her whole space. As you can see on the shelves, I am using the higher shelves for some of my less-often used items. What this picture doesn't show you (shame on me for not getting it in there) is the awesome shelf *over* the window!! I have several baskets of things up there, as well. My stereo is very happy to have this new home and to have the speakers separated so that I can actually *hear* the "stereo" part of the music. LOL!!


So ... that's my space. I'd LOVE to hear what you think about it. Just shoot me a comment and let me know.


OH! Wanna see what I made in my nice, clean, reorganized space?????


This card was made using Night of Navy and Real Red paper. I used the Cricut DSS to put 2 Mickey heads together (from the Mickey font cart) to make a card. The K and J were cut using the DSS, too, also using the Mickey font cart. I welded the K and J together on the DSS. It was first 'cut' with a marker in the blade assembly and then, reloaded (without unloading) and cut again with the blade in place.


Kelsey LOVES Disney, so I cut her name with the Mickey font cart using the DSS to weld the letters together. I cut some scalloped rectangles (stretched with DSS) in yellow and black from Mini Monograms. The Mickey heads were cut using the Mickey font cart, too, and little Mickey embellishements were added. Her name has large pop dots behind it to bring it out and give it some dimension. The frame was 10 1/2 x 6 1/2, and the colors used were Yo Yo Yellow, Basic Black, Whisper White, and Real Red.


Ok! Until next time - when I will NOT type so much - Have an awesome day and a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!