Hippity, hoppity, Easter's on its way!

We have started our Easter Dinner planning!  We are hosting about 10 people this year.  We still are not 100% sure of our menu, but we are getting there.  I feel like I serve the same old side dishes each time we host.  Although everyone seems just fine with the same 'ol, same 'ol, I wanted to see if I could come up with a few new additions.  I found a Sweet Potato Souffle by Paula Dean.  Boy am I glad we did a test run before our dinner!!!  After reading the comments from people who have tried the recipe, I cut the amount of sugar I used in half.  Boy, was it ever SWEET, even with the reduced sugar.  My DH and I agreed that it was almost considered a dessert versus a side dish.  Back to the drawing board!  We'll figure it out.  I just want to change it up, but at the same time want it to be yummy!!!

I started making the Easter "Baskets" and place cards for the table.  The place cards were made with everything PTI.  I used New Leaf card stock for the base of the place cards and Rustic Cream for the name plates.  I used the stamp set Scrambled Eggs for the images.  I changed the "baskets" up a little this year.  Instead of the Easter 'basket' tins I did last year, I decided to use clear six inch paint cans.  I ran to Michael's every night this week with my 40% off coupon in hand and purchased one at a time.  It was worth it!  I cut the animals from the Create A Critter cartridge, the circles for the tops from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, and the initials for the tops from the Art Philosophy cartridge.  I love the way the top of the cans all together really do look like paint colors!!!  Since I had more room in the paint cans than the tea tins, I put some pez dispensers in there too to add height.  FUN!  I've decided to do something special for our Moms - I purchased two Longaberger Peeps Baskets and filled them with candy.  I think they will love them.  My mom is a Peep lover for sure, so I know she'll get a kick of it!

Peep Wreath

While strolling on Pinterest I saw a few people posted pictures of Peep Wreaths.  Too cute!  I had to jump right on that band wagon.  Granted, I'm not much of a Peep fan, but definitely think those little things are darn cute for use in decorations!  I knew I wanted to use the bunny shaped Peep for the wreath, but it appears there is a run of the yellow ones in my area.  Pink will do just fine!
Super easy, inexpensive project.  I'm not sure how much Peeps usually cost (again, I don't really eat them) but I was able to buy 12ct packs for $1.  I ended up using a little more than 4 packs.

I covered an 18 inch styrofoam wreath in 1 1/2 inch wide brown ribbon (I thought the brown would look good with the bunnies eyes). I had little paper flowers in my stash and placed them between the bunny sections.  The flower on top is actually hot pink but looks red the picture.  Quick, fun, easy wreath.  

Craft Desk Redo

I was able to make it to Ikea this weekend to purchase a larger Expedit case for my craftroom.  Wow, was that place crowded.  I'm glad I knew exactly what I wanted prior to going there!  I should also say that I'm glad my husband has a SUV so we could get all 5 large boxes as well as all the storage boxes I purchased.
As my husband put together the new

units, I went into my room and started unloading the old one.  If anyone has any question about how much the Expedit can hold, I'm here to tell you TONS.  My husband was able to build my two units prior to me emptying the one in my room.  I had  supplies all over our foyer, living and dining rooms.  Thankfully, he came in and helped me empty the area after he was finished.  (Before picture on the right and After picture on the left).

I spent about 4 hours putting everything back!  I'm still not 100% sure what I will do with my 8 1/2 x 11 paper that is currently located in a tower to the right of my desk.  Since there is very little room to expand in the tower, I may convert it all to vertical storage and place it in the empty open space on the right of the Expedit.  I also spent some time re-organizing my embossing folders/plates and dies.  The folders/plates

are kept in the photo box on the bottom left and I've purchased two Martha Stewart binders from Staples which now house my Papertrey Ink dies.  I think finding my dies will be much easier now!  The CD box on the top left houses my Nestabilities in CD cases.  Although it seems like every single space in the new unit is take up, some of the boxes are empty!  I thankfully have room to grow.   After I was all finished and admired my accomplishment, I noticed something very annoying....the label locations on the Kassett boxes I purchased previously do not match up with the ones I purchased yesterday.  Sigh, that will drive me nuts!  Looks like I'm going on another road trip to Ikea soon.

St Patrick's Day Wine Charms

We've been invited to a St. Patrick's Day party on Saturday night.  I was trying to come up with a homemade hostess gift and decided to make a set of themed wine charms!  I used Grafix Shrink Film , Cricut cartridge Paper Doll Dress Up, earring hoops and jump rings from the jewelry isle at Michael and some beads.

The images will shrink about half size in the oven, so I took at stab and cut them on my Cricut at about 3 inches.  I punched a hole in each prior to baking them and colored them with Sharpie markers (I didn't think colored pencils were going to be vibrant enough).  Placing the cut shapes between parchment paper before placing them in the oven helped prevent them from curling on themselves.  When the shapes came out of the oven I quickly used a spatula to flatten them.

We will give these wine charms and a box of Oh Ryan's Irish Potatoes (made in Pennsylvania, where else?  Ha)

Thought I'd also share the little display in our foyer to celebrate the day.  The same three jars are there most of the year, I just change out the contents for each holiday.  The left jar has spearmint leaves candies, the center shamrock wire garland and the right a few altered ornament balls I coated the insides with glitter.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!

Lost Mojo

It's certainly been a while since I've posted anything.  I'm blaming it on my lost crafting mojo.  I lost it.  It's just not there right now.  sigh   I want it back, but I am just stumped at the moment.  In an attempt to find it, I've been blog strolling and just copying other peoples projects.  Talk about a funk.  I don't like this very much.

This weekend we are going to make a trip to Ikea to see about upgrading my smaller expedit shelving unit to the larger size and also grab an add on unit to go on top of the main unit.  Maybe a little spruce up time in my craft room will get me in the mood.  If nothing more, I'll have a clean craft room when I'm finished.

Stay tuned, I feel a resurgence coming soon!

Organization - Paper Storage

My craft room is a 12x12-foot room on the main level of our home.  Granted, the room is box shaped, but it has interesting quirks features to work around.  The door is on an angle and there is a large 8-foot wide bay window across the front of the room.

Like most of us, I'm starting to run out of space in certain areas of my craft room.  I often think that maybe I am not using my space as efficiently as I could be, or maybe there is a better solution that I just haven't found yet.  I'm constantly on Pinterest and other blogs looking to see how people organize their spaces.

Paper is my challenge right now - at least storing it.  I'm constantly adding to my supply, since the company I purchase most of my paper from (as well as most of my stamps, ink, buttons and ribbon) continue to add new colors to their line.
I pretty much use only three different types of solid cardstock: Papertrey Ink's 110 lb weight (for cards and any paper crafts I make that I give away or need a higher weight paper for), the Michael's brand Reflections 60 lb weight (for anything I make with my Cricut as I am not able to get nice, clean, consistent cuts using PTI paper), and a very limited amount of American Crafts textured cardstock I purchased years ago simply because it was 70% off.  It's all just preference, I guess.

For a few years I've been storing my 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of PTI in this Paper Storage Cube System.  I purchased two of them initially and stacked one more section later.  Ideally I'd like to add the additional three sections which I have, but the unit would not be very sturdy if it went any higher (and I am out of floor space to use them as well).  I have my tower currently holding 34 different PTI colors, a space at the top for miscellaneous items, one space towards the bottom holding a Reflections 12 x12 pack (until I find a few home for it), and two open slots to expand for PTI.  Even though this tower is ideal for me, I am going to run out of room quickly!  My lower weight paper did share some space in this tower, but PTI forced them out.  I found these Cropper Hopper 8 1/2 x 11 Paper Holders last week and purchased a few of them (shown in the first photo).  I've decided that anything non-PTI will be stored in these holders, which are then placed in my Ikea Expedite.  This of course leads to another 'problem':  will all this paper overtake the storage I have in my Expedite?  I fell like I'm in a constant live Tetris game with my craft room!

Merry Christmas

This is our little guy, Piper, in front of one of our Christmas trees (we  have two trees).  I was very tempted to add a third tree this year to our foyer, but just didn't get to purchasing the actual tree.

Throughout the year I purchased Christopher Radko Shiny and Bright ornaments (Cool Yule, which are retired) in all different shapes and sizes.  I was even able to find the matching tree topper.  I purchased all of the ornaments from Kathies Christmas and Collectibles at a huge discount.  Highly recommend this store, their shipping is super quick.  In the past our 9 foot 'main tree' in the family room was dedicated to a Disney theme, but Cool Yule took over this year.

Our second tree is 7 feet tall, located in our living room, and is all Santa ornament themed.  In fact, the living room is decorated with nothing but Santas.  I love that both trees are on timers and when we come home they are already lit up for us.  Sigh.  I love the white lights!  Now that I have all decorations for the third tree, I need to work on getting that purchased.  I'll need to find a new home for our mascot "Nutty" who has guarded our foyer for the past few Christmases!  We found this huge nutcracker at Costco a couple years ago.  Couldn't resist him.  Our Costco trips are hysterical:  case of tissues, case of paper towels, case of water, one 6 foot nutcracker.

I found a home for some of the extra mini candy canes I did not use while making my Christmas place card holders.  I filled the apothecary jar on the left with store-bought mini balls in red, white and silver.  The jar on the right is filled with clear balls which I purchased and coated them inside with glitter.  I've made a few dozen of them in all different colors and change them depending on the season.
I wish you a happy holiday season and all the best for 2012!