I'm Finally Ready To Share. . . .

So - the studio is not completely finished but it is looking pretty good! And I figured it was time to share some pictures - probably TOO many pictures - but oh well. So, let's start the tour. We will begin with a few "Before & After" shots.

The Studio as you enter BEFORE. . .

The Studio as you enter AFTER!
The Studio's "Creative" side BEFORE. . .

The Studio's "Creative" side AFTER! The Studio's "Business" side BEFORE. . .

The Studio's "Business" side AFTER!

I have to say that I loved my room before - I loved having my own space and a place just for me to create without being in every one's way. But it was never "pretty" and it felt like a runway. It seemed so narrow and small. But now with the new paint, the built in and all of the trimmings it feels bigger and finally it's "pretty"!!!!

Those of you that know me, know that I am a pretty "black & white" kinda gal. I love the contrasts and the strengths that both of these "colors" offer. So I decided that my room would be ALL black & white - no accent color at all! I am also a huge fan of damask & Fleur dis les, so I filled my room with those as well.

I painted 3 of the walls black, but left the one wall on the "business" side white. I did it for a couple of reasons, but mainly for my Mom who hated the idea of black walls and she sits here to use my computer. I figured this way the wall she would usually look at would be white and she could "pretend" the rest of them weren't black.

I added beadboard to the backs of all of my hutches and then Ken topped my built in with beadboard as well - it looks pretty cool!

I have double doors coming into my room and I love the way the 2 white doors look on the black wall.

I kept the basic concept of my "zones" like they were before, but I did change the locations of some of the pictures etc.

Just look at how pretty this looks! I can't wait to start creating in this room!!!!

This is the built in that Ken built for me. I designed it to fit my needs and my junque. I LOVE how it turned out! It still needs to be painted and caulked but that can't happen for a couple more weeks and I couldn't live with all of my stuff all over the dinning room any longer! This gives me not only great looking storage but also quadruples my working counter space in the room. Now I can keep my Cricut plunged in and ready to use all of the time and I no longer have to squat on the floor to use my cutter. Thank you Ken - I LOVE IT!!!!!

I am a big fan of binders and of course I had to recover all of them to match the room.

As you can see I have LOTS of them!

These are some of the metal baskets that I altered. They hold most of my embellishments. I always leave one empty shelf or drawer when I reorganize so that I can still "grow" in my room. So this is my empty shelf. I am sure it won't be empty for long though.

Here are more of my altered baskets and my jars. More embellishments in the metal baskets and my ribbon in the jars.

I got rid of most of my plastic (you should see it all in my garage!) but there were some pieces that I really wanted to keep because they work well for me. I had Ken build this to fit these particular pieces as well as my 15 black photo boxes. But I did spiff the plastic up quite a bit by adding a mix of 3 different damask and striped B&W papers to the fronts. This is an easy thing to do to add a custom look to generic plastic and it also hides all of the clutter that usually lives inside the plastic! And it also gives you a great place for a label - you know I love my labels!!!!

This is one of my favorite calla lily photos that I have ever taken (I took it in feb 2005) it is also what is on my calling cards and I used them to color match my black paint for the walls. So I decided to print this out as 11x14 for my studio - I love it!!!!

I also used it on my tool spinner with my favorite quote. This quotes has hung on my bulletin board on a scrap of paper for almost 10 years. I decided it was about time that I do something better with it. (Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.)

This is my new punch storage - they are just brushed nickle cafe rods hung on the wall. The large punches just hang right on the rods. Easy to get to, and easy to see what I have. My little ones are still in a drawer. Thanks Ann for hanging my rods!

MY "M&G" have been painted so many colors and have had so many different papers on them through the years. They got another coat of paint and another layer of paper. I plan to add some rhinestones and flowers to them too - but for right now they will just have to stay like this. This is also my corner unit I got on clearance for $3!!!!

Just a close up of the paper covered plastic drawers and my photo boxes.

This is my "Grandmother" Frame. It's about 36" wide and I took out the glass and the back, spray painted it a hi gloss white and hung it on the wall. Then I hung eight 5x7 borderless frames inside it. Right now those frames just have paper in them but soon they will be filled with pix of my granddaughters.

And here is my cool black chandelier that Gary bought me for Christmas.

So this is my new, BEAUTIFUL studio! This is what I have been spending this past month on. There has been hours of sewing, painting, purging, cleaning, moving and so much more. But it has been worth EVERY minute! And I am so thankful to everyone that helped me make my dream studio become a reality! Thanks for taking a look and sharing my joy!

Toodles

Are You Still Checking In????

Sorry it is taking me so long to post pictures of my new studio, but I want it to be PERFECT when I show you! We had a little set-back but it is coming along great and I LOVE IT!!!! It is turning into everything I wanted it to be. I will be back soon with real pictures soon.

It's NOT EASY to be BEAUTIFUL!!!

But I am really gonna give it a try!
Not me personally but my studio!
That's right I am finally going to get my studio decorated. It is the only room in the house that has never been decorated, heck, it doesn't even have curtains! The main reason I never did anything in here was because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I really wanted a "pretty" room but I also needed a functional room. And I really needed a place to work, so I just put everything in there and just waited. It has almost been 4 years since we moved in and I am done waiting!

So this is what my studio has looked liked. Pretty plain - all white furniture, beige walls and LOTS of plastic storage containers! (The chandelier is new - Gary got it for me for Christmas since I now know what I want to do in here)

So this is my take on "pretty". Lots of glass jars, beautiful black & white metal baskets, a black & crystal chandelier. And NO visible plastic storage!

Christmas night I started on my room - well on the storage containers at least. I have had about 20 of these metal baskets in my garage for 2 years. I got them REALLY cheap - under $1 each! But they were covered with ugly paper and the white part was a cream color. So I started painting Christmas night and made them all black & white. I even added rhinestones around the tops of the small ones. The day after Christmas I went shopping for glass jars and white china dishes - I got a ton of them! Then it took me two days to get them all filled and labeled and the old storage out of here.

The next step is to paint the walls. I just have to get rid of the beige! So this Monday Gary is going to paint for me. This meant getting EVERYTHING out of my room today!!! I packed up 2 boxes last night and thought I could finish everything else in the morning, it shouldn't take me too long - right? Well, it took me almost 10 hours!!!! But look at it now! It is so hollow in here - each click on my keyboard is echoing in here!

Once I emptied it all out I went ahead and scrubbed down all of the furniture, tightened the bolts on my chairs, clean the walls and doors and swept up the floor. It just looks so BRIGHT in here now!

As clean and bright as my studio looks, my dinning room is the complete opposite! It is FULL of all of my stuff! Well, everything that was "out" in my studio. All of the cabinets in my studio are still full - Gary says we can move them full for painting. I sure hope he's right!

So now you've seen my studio as it was, and you've seen my new containers, and you know I'm painting. Do you want to know what else I'm doing in here???

I am going EXTREAM in here - ALL BLACK & WHITE!!!! That's right, no color at all! I (okay, Gary) am painting 3 of my walls black and one of them white. I can't wait!!!! I am making my window treatments and my chair cushions myself using a black & white damask. My friend Judie's husband is building me a built in counter with custom sized cubbies in it for all of my storage needs. In fact I am meeting him at Home Depot tomorrow to pick out the final items for the built in (it will be going wall to wall under the window and I will be getting rid of the bookcase). I am adding some beadboard to the backs of my hutches, pretty trims and details around the room but keeping everything either black or white. I typically would not be this brave all on my own but about 10 months ago I found this gal's room and fell in love!!!! As I looked at her space I kept thinking "how can I do this in my space"? I certainly cannot have the square footage she has or the furniture, but I can adopt her color scheme and the over all feel of the room. Right???

Well, wish me luck and I will be back soon with some after pictures. But I will be away for a couple of days, I will have to tear down my computer tomorrow night so we can start 1st thing in the morning Monday.

Enjoy your what's left of your weekend!

Toodles

A Year In The Life Has MOVED!

That's right - I decided that this BIG of a project deserved a blog of it's own. So now you will find "A Year In The Life" HERE.
I have transfered all of the info (and added more) to this new blog. From now on I will be posting all of the updates and information to this new blog. I hope you will take a few minutes to check it out.
There are four different pages on the YITL Blog -
The Front Page - all of the updates and basic information
Quarterly Updates - a great reference for what we will be doing and when we will meeting
Layouts - I will post pictures of my finished layout and album pages here
Tutorials - Here I will post some "How-To's" for you

Please add this new blog to your favorites.
Have a GREAT WEEK Friends
Toodles

I thought I was sooo Cool. . .

but then I realized I was NOT!!!! Last night I was so proud of my low light/slow shutter speed photo. Then today I decided it was not all that great. I also decided that if I could get that shot on my 1st try that I could do even better today. So that's what I didI set everything back up (and more) and waited for it to get dark and for Gary to go to bed. Then I started. . .

I set up a practice shot 1st for composition - not to bad I thought. (notice that I added a mirror on the bottom, black backdrop, different colored ribbons and swavorski (sp) crystal flutes). It's not in this picture but in some of the others, but I borrowed a bottle of champagne!

The 1st two in this threesome are the same picture - I just turned one sepia. The 3rd picture only shows half of the glass because one of the sparklers went out BEFORE the camera had a chance to take the shot! That would be because I was too slow and I also forgot to turn the camera ON!!!!

This one just looks like a ribbon volcano errupting!

This one is kinda fun but at the same point - totally useless!!!!

My BLACK backdrop seems to have turned GREEN in this shot!!!

I spent a lot of time on the phone with Ann as she critiqued my photos and agve her ideas (only because I asked). I went through TWO BOXES of sparklers tonight, filled my house with smoke, tore it all down to change it back to white drops, cheap glasses and apple cider and was still not half as thrilled as I was with my ONE shot I took last night!

But I finally did some cropping and editing and I think I like this one enough to use it. I just don't think I can light one more sparkler until the 4th of July!!!!!

Any comments???

Have a great Friday!!!!

Toodles

I did it!!!

I really suck at slow shutter speed/low light photography! But tonight I got this idea for a photo to put in my YITL album for the "Celebrations & Holidays" section. This section of my album will be all of those "other" holidays as well as birthday parties etc so I needed something generic but yet still festive. So I dug out my tripod and my camera binder (yes, I have a binder for everything) as well as some curling ribbon, wine glasses and sparkling cider (no wine or champagne in my house). Then I thought "I need some confetti" which is another thing I never have in my house. But then I remembered the HUGE bag of bling I bought Sunday while I was out with the girls - Perfect Confetti! I had exactly 15 sparklers left (well that were handy - the rest are under the bed and I am pretty sure Gary would hate it if I woke him to get them) So I knew I had a limited amount of chances to get this pix right. Well, it is far from perfect, but this is what I got on the 1st try!!! For fear that I would set the ribbons and tablecloth on fire if I tried it again. I decided that this was just fine. It says "Festive" to me and that is what I wanted.

Well I guess I should get back to the dinning room to clean up my mess. I just had to get my picture loaded and ordered. And I figured I might as well share my joy with you all here. I hope you had a great day and that Thursday is even better!

Toodles

What's Up?????

So I thought I'd share quickly what I have been up to. I do mean quickly - I have a Monkey on my lap! So I can't promise all of this will make sense and I bet I will have A LOT more typos today!!!

So this is the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve - I set a timer so I wouldn't miss this shot! Everyone but me was already sound asleep in their beds here and I was taking down the tree.

This is New Years Day - I treated myself to a nice HOT bubble bath - no candelight but I did give myself some nice classical music to listen to. I made it a point to start my new year off relaxed and happy!

After the bubble bath the family arrived. We played bingo and loaded questions and ate "fun" foods like potato skins, chili, beans and weinnies, rice krispy treats and chips. YUM!
My Mom does not like to play games, but even she joined us for bingo and played 3 cards at a time!!! We had prizes like gift cards and a few gag gifts too. Everyone seemed to really enjoy this. I bought this bingo game about 10 years ago and it has only been out of the box once before today!

Here's everyone chowing down and teasing one another. I LOVE having them all around the table like this!

Some more board games - Mom dropped out on this one. But there was LOTS of laughing at the table. And even some tears - Bryanna still laughs until she cries - I love that about her!

We also did headshots as soon as everyone arrived. No one even complained - I was so impressed!

On the 2nd I went to my friend Judie's house to hang out with her and Ann. Lots of laughing and nonsense going on there too!

Judie's husband had been cooking omlets and it smelled so good that I could not concentrate! So us girls had to go out to eat. And of course we had to stop at Joann's and Staples for a little shopping while we were out.

I have been working on my studio too. Gary got me the chandelier that I have been wanting and hung it for me. Judie's husband is going to do a big built in for me all along the back wall with the window. I gave hime my drawings while I was there on Sunday. I can't wait to get it done and installed!!!!

Gary also gave me some spending $$$ so I bought new containers for my studio. I am trying to get rid of all of the plastic storage in my studio. I think this looks much nicer!

I have also been working on my "A Year in the Life" album and really enjoying that!!! I got the kits all packed this weekend so I am ready to share with the gals that have signed up.

Yesterday was our 1st day having Monkey and Bug back with us for over a week. I miss thise guys when they are not here. Yesterday Monkey and I went out and did a little shopping while Bug napped. Of course I got the things I went after and we also brought back prizes - a stuffed turtle for Monkey and a stuffed lady bug for Bug.

So far nothing but happiness in 2011 - I think it is going to be a GREAT year!!!!

What have YOU been up to???

Toodles