Drum Roll Please...Introducing MY CRAFTROOM!!!

Yes it finally happened, it's all done!  I'm so excited.  Mostly the delay hinged on my stitching chair.  You all know how important this seat is to our stitching.  So why the delay?  I have a chair and ottoman in my family room that I love.  Super comfy, arms at just the right height and the right scale for my craftroom too.  We (myself and my interior designer friend, Sharon, check out her website/blog) chose fabric and ordered it FEBRUARY 19th!!!  Long story short, the company who was supposed to make the chair up told us "pick up on Monday" (May), "there's a problem with the fabric" (June) etc.  It came down to the fact that they were lying and now my friend no longer uses them as a supplier.  Sucks to be them!

For before pictures look here and here.

View from the doorway:

Two weeks ago I walked into The Brick (Canadian furniture store) with my DD, did a sweep of the store and just as I was about to walk out I spotted this chair (below) from their Loft collection, it was perfect and the ottoman was 1/2 price when purchasing a chair.  Score! 

The frames/shadow boxes have scrapbooking paper in them in black, white and pink and tons of different patterns.  I went to Home Depot to get picture hanging supplies and the guy helping me practically cried he was laughing so hard when I described the job I had for hubby.  Therefore, I reconsidered and decided to do it myself.  I Googled "hanging pictures gallery style" and got great tips.  I traced every frame on craftpaper and cut them out, numbered them, layed out their corresponding frame in a pattern on the floor, taped a straight line across the wall, stuck the paper frames on the wall (bless you, green painter tape!), and started hanging.  I even used a level!  Oh, and bless 3M Picture Hanging Strips too!  I used them where ever I could.  The actual hanging of the frames probably took 2 hours and I only have a minimal amount of "extra holes." 

My desk.  It measures about 5 x10 and is from Ikea.  I knew I wanted tons of storage to fit underneath and the Helmer and Alex drawer units fit the bill!  (Desk design was by my friend, I just specified the drawer units I wanted.)

I really wanted a bar height "island" to work at.  Sharon figured out the bar table and stools from Ikea .  This way the kids can join me, though I thought long and hard before assembling the second stool, LOL.  I have a very hard time thinking "outside of the box" and would never have come up with this.  Thanks Sharon!  I already had the bookshelves (Ikea again), just added the doors.

Sewing corner.  Hubby hung these shelves for me! ;-)  And put my desk together, Thanks babe!  See my trusty Bernina (it's circa 1960's) sitting there?  My gramma gave it (along with her great-grandmothers fabric scissors) to me when she went into a nursing home.  It means a lot to me.  She helped me make burping cloths, receiving blankets, etc when I was expecting DD on that very machine.

I was going to make my own bulletin & chalkboard then I figured out home much it would cost to buy cork, chalkboard paint, frames, etc.  I lucked upon this huge one at Home Sense (like Home Goods) and snapped it up.  Actually, like my usual, I thought "Self, this would be PERFECT! You should get it!" I replied "Great idea."  Then talked myself out of it and emailed Sharon for some design hand-holding.  Guess what she told me...?  For being such a decisive person, when it comes to my house, I suck!

My stitching buddy, Oscar.  He was tired from sleeping all night.  And all morning...

It's been a long time coming but so worth it.  I officially used it for the first time yesterday.  I sat a the bar table with my stitching and a cup of tea for 1 1/2 hours.  It was awesome!

Thanks to my dad for the use of his truck for the trips to Ikea, Sharon for all your expertise (she also found about 90% of the knick knacks for me) and hubby for all your help hanging shelves, putting my desk together and accompanying me to Ikea!

Let me know what YOU think!

Craftroom Sneak Peak

After what seems like forever, my craftroom, office, studio or girl-cave (I call it one or the other depending on the the day, ha ha) is THIS close to being finished!  I'm so excited.  It's turned out better than I ever thought.  Just walking in the room makes me feel so calm and relaxed.  If only I could get me stitchy mojo back...

I thought I'd post a couple teaser photos before the big reveal:

Slowly But Surely...

I have some progress on the craft room or Girl-Cave as one blogger called it!
Here is the almost empty room painted Windmill.  I like how the colour turned out.  Light buy not nursery-like and not white!

Here are pic's of the latest load of junk that my son and I took to Value Village.  Good thing DS is big enough to sit in the front seat as there was NO room for him in the back at all.

My hubby took a truck load of junk out of the garage to the dump and on Sunday we gave away this old huge TV that has been sitting in the basement that my hubby replaced with a flat screen (of course!)  The basement and garage are slowly getting more livable!

As for stitching...I'm working on LHN's Fa La La, an Exchange piece and getting my 12 month project ready for a SAL I joined called the Festive Ornament SAL or FOSAL for short.  I'm doing Just Nan's 12 Days of Christmas WhimZi.  You should check it out and join!

Happy Stitching!

Happy Birthday!

My "baby" girl turns 14 years old today!  My how time flies. 

This same baby girl has a basketball tournament this weekend so I don't know how much stitching I'll get in.  You would think that's when I'd get the most done, but the way our weekends are, I barely touch my stitching.  I'm having withdrawals symptoms from it.  This week wasn't any better for stitching either.  I am getting a lot done around the house though! 

Christmas is all put away for another year and I'm making great strides in the craftroom redo.  I picked a paint colour.  It's called Windmill by General paint.  It's a light grey/blue that is soothing and goes great with my creamy trim colour.  I hope to start painting on Monday.  Woo hoo, progress!  I also picked up a comfy desk chair at Costco yesterday.  It's sitting in the garage for now though.

Have a great weekend & Happy Stitching!

How Embarrassing...

As you can see from the photo I started the purging process for my craftroom make-over:

All that stuff is now at the Salvation Army, waiting for a new owner.  Not all of it came out of my craftroom to-be.  It includes stuff that I had been hanging on to in 2 linen closets plus a laundry basket full of clothes that my daughter had outgrown.  Still...i'ts embarrassing to see the amount of stuff I'm getting rid of, and that's just the start!

I went to Benjamin Moore today to see if I could find some paint chips I like.  I tried 2 different types of grey on the wall but I'm not feeling them AT ALL.  They don't work with my creamy-white trim.  My problem is that I want a non-beige colour that's quite light but then I run the risk of it looking like a nursery.  I don't want to pick something that I get on the wall and hate it!  I know everyone always says "it's just paint" but painting is a lot of work and I'd rather paint the room once.

On another note...today is my 1st Blogoversary!  I'm going to dig through my stash and see what I can come up with for a giveaway to celebrate this blogging milestone.  I'm going to have an easy-to-enter giveaway.  None of this link, follower, yada yada stuff to be able to enter.  To me that's too much trouble and I don't enter those giveaways :D laaaazy!

Keep an eye out for my giveaway!

Happy Stitching!

My First SAL & Craftroom Progress

I joined the LHN Travelling Stitcher SAL and this is the progress I made this weekend.  I didn't get a lot done but at least I started it!

As for the craftroom part of this post...I now have an entire room to dedicate to my stitching!!!  It's definitely a work in progress:

As you can see from the photos I have a lot of purging and organizing to do as it's become a bit of a catch-all room.  I'm so excited about this!  I'll have my own space to retreat to for some "alone time."  I'll keep you posted with my progress. 

I plan on going through my whole house and donate a bunch of unwanted items to charity so this falls into those plans nicely.

Happy Stitching!