10 Easy Steps To A Clean Art & Craft Cupboard

I have been busy reorganizing my craft/art cupboard in between all the other stuff that's done on a daily basis! I was finding that my main large cupboard was just too hard to keep clean and organised. It would stay clean for  a short period of time, then ... chaos! Supplies falling on top of me every time I opened the doors! 

As it was a spur of the moment clean out, I didn't take any before shots. But, believe me when I say it was nasty! Little Miss P gave me a much appreciated helping hand to sort through things as they were relocated.

Here are my top 10 steps for cleaning out a craft/art cupboard ...

1. start with a couple of plastic bags for rubbish
2. have a plastic bag (or box) to use for give away items 
3. have a plastic bag/box for charity items (if you wish)
4. have a plastic bag/box for garage sale items (if you're planning on having one within the next couple of months)
5. take out everything from your cupboard, adding items to rubbish or other bags/boxes listed above.
6. spray and wipe the shelves and drawer insides
7. organize supplies into similar items (e'g' scrap booking cutters, card stock, acrylic paints, paintbrushes, etc.)
8. Choose which self/drawer you would like each item in. I find that grouping like items together makes it so much easier to find things that you need for a particular project without any fuss or time wasting. 
9. Neatly go about re-stacking your supplies back into your cupboards!! This is the fun part!
10. You could even go one step further (which I haven't yet done) and label drawers/shelves with the items they hold!

Now all that's left to do is take out the rubbish bags, put the garage sale box in the shed, and pop the give-away or charity boxes into the boot of your car straight away so that you've got them to drop off when you're out and about!

And there you have it! One lovely organised craft/art cupboard that lets you be the most creative you can be! I took all of my scrap booking supplies out of my main cupboard and organised them into a small, cute little kitchen sideboard cupboard that I brought for only $30.00. It is a perfect size to keep all these items together and very easily accessible. It turned out pretty cute! ...

I really love the two drawers in this cupboard. They are perfect for putting my current project in the left side and my pens, scissors, tapes and other small items in the right side! I'm really happy with the results!

In my larger cupboard I have my writing resources and work, my paints and brushes, canvases, letter writing supplies, sewing items, and art journals. It only took a couple of hours to achieve such a great organised space that I really enjoy using now! 

So, how about you? Will these steps help you to better organize your favourite space? Let me know how you go! I hope you enjoy!

Writing it Down!

As we begin our home school year, I've had the idea to begin a journal. It's nothing fancy at all, just a lined spiral notebook where I write about our days. I was wanting to have a written record to go with our photos of what we've been doing and learning and funny things that have happened. Big things and little things. I'm so grateful that I thought of this idea before we began, so that I can just keep adding to it right from the start, instead of having to go back and try and remember.

 

I used to be an avid scrapbooker; for ten years straight I scrapped everything. And then, when our fourth child Mr R was born, I just stopped. The other day I sat at the table with all of my scrapping stuff out in front of me, and felt a bit overwhelmed by the fact that Mr R is now five and I'm still working on little itty bitty bubby photos of him. Well, better late than never, right?

 

I knew that by starting our home school journal, I would have all the details written down so that if I ever decide to scrapbook our year (most likely) then I have all the information to go with the photos. Well, that's the plan anyway!

 

I believe its important to keep records of our family life; words that point to His goodness in our every day. Memories to look back on over the years to come; to refresh the heart and stir the mind.

 

Today we've woken up to overcast skies and a fresh, cool breeze. I love days like this. They are perfect for snuggling up with a journal, a book and a coffee after all the chores are done. I may even put a slow cooked meal on for tonight.

 

How do you record your families days? Are you a journal keeper too?

 

Blessings to you today!


"Write what should not be forgotten"
- Isabel Allende

 

BIM: Re-organised and Loving It!

 

I have been in a scrapbooking rut lately. For too long now. A huge rut. You know the ones I mean? Where you really want to scrapbook, but you've got no time. Or you've got time, but no inspiration?! Viscous cycle!

 

I had a friend visit from Ipswich the other weekend, such a lovely lady she is. She stayed the weekend and pre-warned me that she would be 'giving me a kick up the bottom' so that I would get into gear with my scrapbooking again. I'm so thankful that she did!

 

 

Not only did I get some pages started and almost finished, I also was able to re-arrange and 'pretty-up' my desk area. I got ultra-organised! Ribbons all tied together, containers sorted out and re-filled. Trust me- it did not look like this before I stared! The ribbons were a giant tangled mess, there was containers stuffed with who knows what, and it was boring and ugly!

Now, I love it! I really enjoyed making my 'inspiration wall'. It serves many purposes. One being to hide the ugly walls and holes, two because it lets me express my style (that won't be everyone else's!), three it's a cheap way to decorate, and four it gives me inspiration when needed.

It is so good to be organised. Since then, I have been trying to scrapbook as often as possible. But, you know what that's like at times. By the time you help kids with homework, bath times, cook dinner, do the washing, do grocery shopping, fill in school forms, feed the dogs, kiss your hubbie, pay bills, stop kids squabbles, entertain a very active four year old, call mum, run errands ... oh, I'll stop now, too much to think about!

I'm glad Kasia came and gave me that good kicking. It's amazing how great you feel when you are re-organised and have everything at hand. It makes me be much more productive! I can enjoy scrapbooking again!

I'm looking forward to filling that entire wall with different inspiring things ... good thing it's in my craft room that is closed off from the rest of the house! My family is very gracious and accepting of my 'artiness', but I think this wall would be too much for them if it was in the lounge room! 

  

Are you doing any organising this week?

Be Inspired Monday: Faithbooking

 

 

(The three images on this post are from google images, they are not my own images)

I have just been so inspired by faith booking. Have you heard of it? You probably have. I'm a bit slow on the up-take sometimes when it comes to things like this. At our Church ladies night recently there was a beautiful lady named Suzanne Lipp who spoke to us about this wonderful craft. She is a faith booker and is also a consultant. Suzzanne is such a beautiful, softly spoken, gracious lady who is inspiring women to record the stories of their faith. Here is the link to her lovely new blog!

 

I realised that I do record some of my stories, but not in albums like this. Faith booking uses photographs and stories (two of my favourite combinations!) together to create a beautiful record of God's goodness, faithfulness, power and love in our lives for future generations to enjoy and be encouraged by.

 

Sue shared how the Israelites, after leaving Egypt and being lead by God through the Red Sea, were asked by God to build an altar of twelve stones as a remembrance of Gods goodness in leading His people out of slavery. Faith booking is our modern day way of creating such altars. We don't need to pile up stones like that anymore, we can create these stunning works of His faithfulness for our loved ones. Written testimonies.

 

I'm looking forward to creating my own albums soon, hopefully. I'll share them as soon as I've thought about what stories I'd love to share in them! (That may be a while, I have enough projects for now!)

 

Do you already enjoy faith booking? What are some albums you've created?

 

If you would like to contact Sue for supplies, or with questions, you can email her here.

 

Have a fantastic week!

 

Family Scrapbooking Album

I have been finding some much needed time to get back into my scrap booking again this year. It has been so enjoyable! I have taken a different approach for this years family album in that I am using the 5"x 5" Instagram square photos (printed directly from my iPhone) instead of printing out and cropping 6"x 4" images.

Although the Instagram squares are more expensive to print, I find there is much less wastage of the photo, and no cropping needed as you can just stick the photos in the album. I also don't need to mat the photos because they are already printed with a border, which saves on paper! Being able to scrap for four children and a family album a lot quicker, for me, makes that extra expense worthwhile. To 'compensate' expenses a bit, I am adding less embellishments and using more basic card stocks for the background colour.

I like that I can do a 'collage' on one square photo of the same event too, as it saves me printing out each photo separately which costs more and uses up more album pages etc.

 

This is the title page of the album. It reads "Capturing the big
and small life moments of 2013". I wanted this album to capture
all the things that make our life beautiful, the big events as well
as the little day-to-day happenings. It's these little things that
are so easily and quickly forgotten!

 



I am keeping this album with a vintage feel, using 'old-time' embellishments. It's made it a bit trickier to match with the papers and photos, but it's a good challenge! I'm liking the results so far!

I've taken a different approach to the journaling too, by asking the kids questions like, "Do you remember when Little Miss J said ... ?", instead of 'we went here' or 'we went there' - more of a reflective style.

 

 

Because I am taking photos of the little things this year, I have found that I have really captured more of my children's individual personalities and who they are/what they like at this age, rather than the normal 'point and shoot' more posed look. It's nice taking that photo when they're not looking, or when they are acting that little bit crazy! (The crazy, apparently, won't always last so I am making the most of it now!)

 

 

 

 
 

 

This is only a few pages of the month of January! As I said, it's been much needed time to get up-to-date. (Not to mention that Mr R's album is still in newborn stage, and he's almost 4. Oh well, it will get done one day) I have the photos printed out up until this month, so now I can get at it! The lounge room looks like a bit of a mess, and I could use my craft room downstairs, but in winter it's much nicer scrapping near the snugly warmth of the fire place. I am thankful that my lovely husband is very supportive of my crafts and need for warmth, he never complains about my transferring from upstairs to downstairs. I love him to bits and pieces!

 

I really enjoy scrap booking for too many reasons to write here! But some are because it's a creative outlet, it records family memories, it keeps a record of God's goodness and many blessings to us and I get to take photos (which I absolutely love doing!) Oh, and it gives me some 'down-time' occasionally too. (Although my girls enjoy scrapping with me too at times, this is a beautiful time to chat and laugh and make even more memories together!)

 

Do you enjoy scrap booking? What album projects have you got going for this year?