Sorting Out the Craft Room

I haven't been out in the garden much as it has been lightly raining most of the week here and slowly but surely I have been going through all my craft room items. Since everything was taken out to put the new cupboards in, I thought that this was a good time.
 Inspiration from  Totally Tiffany Organizing Challenge has been what I have tried to follow week by week. This is the 2nd time round for me but with so much stuff and so little time, nothing is done quickly.

Catalogue of dies for shapes.

This time I have been doing a catalogue of products. So for about three weeks now I have been cutting out all my dies and sticking them into a book, two books actually one for words and  alphabets and the other for flowers.

The ones that are alphabets on my  long dies I just took a photo of, much easier which I did for my stamps as well.

Saved a lot of time with the stamps doing it like this.

These are all very old ones. 

The new cling type I have on plastic sheets in a book so I can just flip through them.
The colours of things took ages even though I haven't a lot it does tell me what they look like when used.

Green page

I am fitting everything easily into my new cupboards and labelling as I go, it is going to take a while, and eventually I hope to make cards to sell, as well as do more scrapbooking of the children's books, before they get much older, and of our holidays as well.

Behind me at my corner desk is the above cupboard that John built, it is holding all the paper and bigger things, need more work on it but I am getting there.

Doesn't look this neat anymore lol. 

Current state of cupboards, but I am forever changing where things go. 

This is going to be my winter project, we will see how much I get done. Have you set yourself up with a major project, for the next few months?

Till Next Time.

Fitting out the Craftroom.

I was trying to work my craftroom yet again this month into a usable functional area, for mainly scrap booking, but when you are making do with old 30 year, cupboards and drawers, left over from the kids, and an old table from goodness knows where, plus a long bench that was trying to compensate the rest, finally I called a holt.

This unit I kept, the cubes are 45cm, John made it, but holds way too much.

It has been frustrating for too many years, and I went to faithful Ikea after searching Pinterest for ideas.

https://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/categories/series/27534/

The Kallax system being the most popular, which is a series of 35cm cubes, turned out reasonably priced as well. I then measured and planned what I wanted with Johns help, and  we ordered them on line to be picked up at Logan on the Gold Coast 4 hrs. away.
Rather than do this in a day, I then spent the rest of the evening checking out accommodation with AirB&B as it is far more reasonably priced and  enjoyable staying with people than expensive hotels.

This all happened last Monday and Tuesday the room was cleared out as best I could.Our eldest son took all the furniture for his workshop, to put all is tools in, which currently sit on the floor. As they say win win all around.

We traveled up Wednesday, only to come across an accident, which made  the trip slow. So much traffic on both sides, between the roadworks and hold up of  the accident. Luckily we left early and saved an hour with the Qld time of no daylight saving.

Looking towards the entrance

Taken from the door.

I would have liked to paint it again but most of it was covered anyway. Buying it also meant not waiting on John to build something. So that was started Friday.

The biggest unit is 5 cubes x 5 cubes.

On the entrance wall, the door just touches it.

While John was putting that all together I did all the drawers and doors. Some came with the system as it saved $50 and some we bought separately.

I must say it is very efficient putting Ikea products together, and can never understand why people find it hard.

As I have what is called a Scrap Rack full of little bits and pieces colour coordinated, it needed a table top to sit on.

The 4 x 2 cube  is the perfect height.

Two table tops also, 120 x 60cm and 100 x 60cm.  fit in the corner with metals legs that were $5 each.
The black drawer units are cloth and cardboard and much larger than those you get at KMart or Target etc. and at $5 ea. also, so I chose black, as white would get dirty, and red was defining the colour too much, I  wanted to add pink somewhere.

Black Cloth Drawers.

The big unit  looks great and I took some time with the configuration of all the drawers and doors.

Entrance wall

Opposite wall

We changed all the little racks on the walls and added a set of metal drawers to hold my cutters and tools. These drawers below, are also going to be put into the one John made as well, giving me 4 drawer height.

 These little drawers are being added and still to be put together. They will fit under the table.

Now I have to work out where it all goes, so much room, tripled the space and gave me a floor. Will take a while to get it filled right, and I might be able to fit in other crafts I have like jewellery making, and clear up some other areas.

Very, very pleased with it. The cost overall about $1000, worth every penny.

So what do you think?   Till next time.

Work has begun and 2nd Prize winner.

Well I wish I could say it was the whole garden but lucky for us Leslie and his carer David won 2nd Prize on their garden plot. It is a raised bed, especially for Leslie who is in a wheelchair.

Jan and I attended the ceremony that night of all the presentations, after a day of holding mum's hand so she would let the podiatrist check her feet, as apparently she is hitting everyone when they do on their own. Followed by shopping for her for new shoes and slippers, and a great hour spent at the bulk food store which I have never been to.

Judges doing their thing.

 Jan also came over for dinner, prior to us leaving for the presentation, and we had  some gluten free falafel mix, (bought at the bulk store) to which I added grated zucchini, carrot and spinach, and were delicious.

The weekend has been spent at the scrapbook retreat and it seems ages since I went to one. Sat. night I was going to stay till late but ended up going home as tired from the day before. I don't think I have had one day home all day this week, between the garden and my monthly  hospital visit it is in and out of the house constantly.

Happy bystander

This week the pavilion got delivered after a phone call to open the gates.

Next day another phone call and in I raced, as was followed by the digger scraping out the soil

Then the  good news is the concreters have been in and finished the base, done 2 days later. The Pavilion to be put up hopefully will be the end of this week, just in time for the AGM, how appropriate is that, 15 months of hard work to get to this stage.

Left side, right side is exactly the same, gives us 1.8m walkways in.

From the back. 6m x 6m

Next week I hope to show you our new pavilion, fingers crossed. John will also be home, to see all this exciting work.

Till next time.

Australia Day

Another hot week has gone by although today, we had  a slight rain shower later this afternoon. Hopefully a promise of more to come. Jan 26th. was Australia Day and we celebrated down by the river for an evening BBQ.

 

 Mostly we ate salads and a couple of  cake slices, with a few sausages and steak from the BBQ. The kids all went swimming, and apparantly the water was nice once you got used to it.

Not a lot of people down there at this time which was very unusual. The heat  maybe put everyone off.

Lamb sausages and kofta.

Getting ready for our feast.

Our eldest and his family joined us and although still 26C was ok in the shade. A very pleasant evening.

One of the BBQ sheds, this one has no tables.

Today I have had a day scrapbooking with the group. Our first one of the year, and just a one day one. 8 in total came.

 I have started some books especially for cataloguing different things and today worked on my Sizzix dies. It has taken more time than I thought to cut them and stick them to the pages so only got about 1/3rd of the way.

Nice to get away with the girls, and we sat under fans all day in the hall. I am feeling very tired and can only put it down to the heat, so left at 6pm to have dinner at home. Some stayed on, but no sleep overs this time.

 Our makeover on the front garden has slowed to a halt this week. John has been busy and the weather has been so hot. Not much I can do while waiting, although out the back I planted a few lettuces and tomatoes to keep going, but checking them constantly for heat stress, and keeping them covered for some shade. This week the extra bricks should come in for pick up.

 The week has been very slow. I hope things have been a lot better in your world?

Till next time

Exciting Happenings for the Community Garden

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, with the Community Garden. Finally we finished the video and uploaded it to Chuffed which is the Crowdfunding Company we are dealing with. An  Australian company that the Sawtell Cinema used and had a successful fundraising, launching it at the Chilli Festival this time 2015, to save the cinema and update everything.

Sawtell Cinema

 We got notification last Monday that approval had been given and to go ahead and launch ours when ready, so I decided to write to the Chilli Festival organizers to see if we could fit in a table somewhere and was very surprised and thankful they found room for us. They had been booked out since April.
 Nine days left of planning was a bit quick for us, but with an expected 7000 visitors on the day, the opportunity to launch Sat. 1st. July was too good. It is so exciting.

Once that happened I emailed the Editor of our local Advocate Paper, and got a phone call 10 minutes later, and she loved our video and concept and wanted to do a write up. Next day now Thursday had a phone interview and met the photographer at the gardens for several photos. The editor is going to keep helping over the next 90 days with continual updates in their "garden"" section.

Bob, John and Graham (President) put the sign up today.

We did a quick whip around to the President and Secretary to get some ideas, and  decided hopefully to hang some pictures on a wall behind us, and hand out as much information we could on the day. John has now been madly designing and printing flyers and  putting big size letters for the link on cards and making up templates for those who will leave emails, to donate when they get home. So much work in so short of time.

“Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give.”
― Ben Carson

http://www.chuffed.org/project/digging-for-health-and-happiness

If all goes to plan this Community will have a wonderful start. Once we get a roofed pavilion, BBQ and Pizza Oven established, it gives so much scope to hold meetings, to teach and to just have fun.

Wouldn't something like this be nice.

Then if there is enough to get a ride on mower we will be over the moon. One thing I do want is a neat and tidy garden where you can relax under trees, meet friends, or garden in one of the beds. Then join in a social occasion or come to an annual fair. Lots more members would be a great help as well.

Something like this under the pavilion would be brilliant. 

If all this didn't keep me busy enough, this weekend is another scrapbook event, at the Guide Hall so I was packing and sorting and printing photos all day Friday between washing as well. Pizza for tea that night.

Early in the Day

 Yours truly

Tomorrow Sunday there will be 19 turning up to "scrap" the most we have ever had. There used to be 5 of us meeting at each others house. Times are certainly changing.

To help us please pass the link onto as many friends you can. Thank you.

Till Next Time. 

http://www.chuffed.org/project/digging-for-health-and-happiness