Ikea trip!

Pardon the background mess but I had to share 2 of my 3 ikea finds!

Let's get the kinda boring one out of the way first.....This is Alex:

Its functional, not the prettiest (a bit plain for my taste) but that is something I plan on fixing down the road...So this little fella is holding a ton of stuff which is giving me more room on my desk and that makes me a happy girl. Its also holding my drawing supplies that my Hubby got me this past Christmas, see those canvases? He got me those too, talk about intimidating...I'm barely learning to draw and paint and he got me those giant things but he said he knows I have the talent in me tackle them. I love that he has such faith in my talent when even I don't.

Anyway lets keep this rolling right along. Here was the piece I just fell in love with....meet Raskog!

This thing is my favorite color, its easy to organize and keep the things I use most at my fingertips.
Top tier holds my inks, glitter mists, stamp cleaners. Second tier hold all my fun cling stamps, all of my liquid pearls are now in the little side caddy and the bottom is a bit of a catch all at the moment.

Once the rest of this loft gets squared away then I can put up my new Expedit and get started on my Thanksgiving help.

Thanks for checking in,

Re-Purposing of a Tea Crate

My MIL got me this cool glass tea pot with flowering teas for christmas but I must say when I first unwrapped the gift my first thought was what a cool storage crate this will make on my new desk! I love flowering teas so this was an all around perfect gift and the fact that I got a cool new container, shredded fluff and pretty cardboard was like 5 gifts in one :D....yes I was excited when I found well formed corrugated cardboard under all of that fluff, I'm easy to please.

So here is what I did:

Take one tea crate and carefully un-stick the paper logo stuff. This had glue dots on it that hung on for dear life!

One the bog was free of the paper I was left with shredded fluff, I stuffed this into a ziplock for later use. I never imagined when I started this craft that it was as "eco-friendly" as it is. I re-purpose stuff like crazy now!

Next I started to stamp. I used wood blocks and clear stamps on this box. I really didn't have much of a theme I just started going for it, figuring it would probably turn out perfect in the end. I did discover that using Early Espresso wasn't dark enough to really show up and that I actually had a use for black ink after all.

Since I had already stamped lots of things onto the box in Early Espresso I just went and stamped over some with the Basic Black and with others I off set the stamp to create a layering affect on it the image. I like the was it turned out with the 2 colors, gave it a old burned wood kinda feel to it.

I added a little bling to it to make the flowers pop a bit more, I like it so far but I think the box as a whole needs something else so for now its just a work in progress until I figure out what that thing is. 

Here is where I will store my ink overflow and clear stamp overflow for the time being.

What I used on this project:

• 1 Numi flowering tea create
• Early Espresso and Basic Black (SU!)
• Stamps: French Foliage (SU!),  Cantaria (Prima), Vintage Stamps in Liberty and Paris (Hero Arts), and some various other stamps that I do not know the names to.

Thanks for looking,

Best Christmas gift ever....I do believe so.

Now that Christmas is passed I can share with you the story of my Christmas gift. This year all I wanted was a wooden storage solution for my SU ink pads (I'm not a fan of the plastic ones) so I showed my DH a few examples I've seen around of what I wanted him to attempt to make for me. He said sure no problem but somewhere in all of the panning it went from a small ink storage system and morphed into a full blown desk! See my little plastic table started bowing slightly in the middle, rendering it unlevel which aggravated me to no end since I like to stamp a lot. Anyways here's the tale of my table.....(don't mind the messy garage)

Did you know that Home Depot will cut your boards for you? Since we don't have a table saw yet this little fact came in very handy.

Here is Flipper inspecting all the new things in the garage. I like to call him my old man cat even though he's just 4 years old because he gets in these moods....like a pissy old man.

Slav said, " Argh I forgot to buy clamps to hold the in place." I said, "dude we still have boxes of tile, if all you need is weight save the money and use heavy things in the garage." Another great problem solved and money saved thanks to my quick thinking!

This is one of the lets of my table, its laying on it side. The table top weighs about 100lbs so we needed strong support below. No particle board here, this desk is all solid old fashioned wood!

Here we have 2 completed legs that will eventually house drawers of various sizes to organize my papery goodness!

Here is Slavic scraping the top of the table to level it out with his new wood working tool that was a early Christmas gift from my Nana. Right after we got the table perfectly smooth my MIL saw it and was loving it but then she went upstairs and I went for the hammer and chains. I proceeded to beat the hell out of my table with anything hard I could find, I really liked the texture I was getting from the small end of the vice grips. My MIL came out and almost started to cry at the sight of my freshly distressed table but eventually she calmed down and let me finished the distressing. 

We used a Red Mahogany Oil Stain first, going heavier in some spots but upon drying I didn't like it. So I added some pale blue paint to it and then ran upstairs, grabbed the Distress Ink Pads (I was not about to assault my SU pads but my TH ones I wasn't too worried about) and started to go to town on the table. I realized I needed more deep brown so I used my Early Espresso re-inker to really darken up areas of the table. Right after this Slav added 2 Satin Clear coats to finish it off.

here is a close up shot of the pretty wood but the lighting has slightly distorted the color so between this photo and the others below you'll get the idea.

For Christmas my MIL got me those pretty vinyl flowers so I put those up once my new space was squared away.

He made my desk a few inches wider then the plastic table, I really didn't think a few inches would feel like much of a difference but now I feel like I can breath easily and have more space to work in.

So that was my Christmas gift, after he put my desk in he decided I needed utilize my walls better so he started playing with my tools like puzzle pieces. The bottom part of my desk isn't finished yet but once he gets around to it, I'll be posting those as well. 

Talk to ya'll later,

PSC: Altered Box

This is the first piece I made on my new desk. I was trying to organize things on top when I decided I wanted to keep my flowers on top for easy access since I got some great new Prima's in my stocking. I took K&Co box that was filled with Christmas chipboard pieces and decided to give it a better purpose.

This was a fairly easy project which has resulted in a very cute and versatile box, love it!

What I used on this box:

• Paper: Scraps from a sheet of Mariposa paper (DCWV).
• Stamp: Vintage Man (Hero Arts)
• Flowers (Prima)
• Ephemera (K&Co)
• Flower Jewel Sticker (K&Co)

Have a great day!

New Shelf display

So a month ago I went down to visit my family on the Central Coast, while in the basement looking for the Tamale pot I had found the 7-up crate. The next day I was in mystical land that time has forgotten aka my Nana's Garage, in that fun time warp I spotted this little odd shelf, here's its journey.

All dirt and dust removed its a lot lighter of a wood them I originally thought, yikes!

I didnt want to deal with staining the wood so I busted out my distress ink pad in Walnut Stain and went to town. I carefully painted the slats blue (now matches my other display piece) then I glued the paper to the back.

I realized after I loaded this up with stamps that now my other display piece that used to hold all of these is now looking a little bare....what's a girl to do????

A little bird told me the Sacramento Scrapbook Expo is on this Friday and Sat, maybe I'll able be to find something there to help fill the empty space on that other display piece. :D

See ya later,

How my Loft Space came to be.

I probably should have posted this before I put up what my loft space currently looks like...I guess I was just a touch too excited about my organizational triumph to bother so I'll post about it now.


Its kinda a funny story really, my space went from being our coffee table downstairs to the little loft space where it currently resides but getting everything neat and tidy wasn't a walk in the park. Sadly I didn't take as many pictures as I should have so I guess you'll have to use your imagination.

This is my table, typical 8ft table and that space is 8ft so why of why didn't 2+2=4??? 
I still have no idea but it took me 20 minutes to get this table this far but I was determined because this just needed to happen to make one sweet space and if it wouldn't I would get power tools to make it happen but luckily it didn't have to come to that. 


 To make it fit I unlatched it and bent it, got underneath it putting each hand and foot to a leg then slowly started to walk the legs and shimmy them into place. When it went as far as I could get it to go I did the most logical next step.....I SAT ON IT!!!!!
I'm not a big girl but I have gained a little extra weight due to my injury so I figured that would work to my advantage and it did.

So here was the first version of my space...I sure did collect a bit of stuff in a short amount of time but I got it all on sale so I dont feel as bad for spending so much....my DH doesn't have the same thoughts though lol.

This is the first version of my display piece before I purchased all those awesome stamps...I miss having the luxury of space on there but at least its filled with lots of wonderful little tools.


Thats pretty much where my space started if you haven't seen the updates you can view them on this post. Oh and in case your wondering it took me a total of 3 hours total to make all this happen but since I'd have to stop and rest it was like a 5 hour project!


Thanks for visiting, I hope my little story gave you a laugh or at least a smile :D

The Loft

I thought the best post to start my new blog out with would be to give you a tour of my crafting space. This is a space in my loft that I managed to squeeze a table into and after much organization (with more to come in the future) this is what my space has come to look like. 

This is a display piece that I picked up from Gottschalks before they closed, I scored it for $3!
With a little paint, stamped designs and clear lacquer its become the perfect setting for fun things.

I use Clear tacks to hang my Scissors or other tools I use often.

Inside of the Orchid tube (a Wine Bottle Gift Box) is where I keep my Paintbrushes and my Zester. Since I don't get into all too often I put those branches into it just to add a nice pop of color.

I love Department 56 houses and keep a couple on my table to remind me of the beauty of Christmas year round. The Purple & Blue box holds all of my clear stamps.

This is a close up of my Mini Clear Stamp holder. It was this odd little box I was given that had a Cigar logo on it. I used a few Cat Eye chalk inks to give it the aged look.

This wooden piece is one I just happened upon a few weeks ago in my Nana's (Grandma) basement. Its an old Seven Up crate still in perfect condition. This also helped to free up more space on my table and give a few of my drawers a little relief.

This gives you a little glimpse to the organization under my table. Also barely making it into the picture is my blue Heat Gun hanging on the wall. I use more clear push pins to to hang up the rest of my scissors and hole punch.

Here you can see the other side under my table.

Thanks for looking!

~Belinda