My Stampin Room… a November Update

Who knew one room would take sooo much work?

After girlfriends weekend and a few Stampin Room Tours, I thought I'd share my room with everyone else.  It's not nearly done, but still, as it stands now … it's a Sweet Thing!

Here's my room from the living area, looking in:

Check out my light???  Love it!  (well, one part of the light, where the crystal chains hang) broke during installation.  I just have to crawl up there and use this metal super glue (problem: holding that little metal in place for 30 seconds with one hand… and being perfectly still… hum…).

I'll start with the plywood doors/hole on the right and work left.  Next we can go thru each cabinet/drawer. 

The plywood – this used to be a window and is to become a set of french doors.  The doors have been ordered. (Whew, quite the ordeal there…  we were quoted one price and it was very good compared to all the competitors.  We wanted the doors to have a little something on the glass, not just plain clear glass.  I didn't want grids.  The front doors and interior living area doors are leaded glass which are very nice.  Pricing 2 sets of french doors with leaded glass was crazy expensive.  When we found these doors, with beveled glass around the perimeter, that was the answer… the price was good.  They were ordered and would take 3-4 weeks to arrive… darn!  10 days later, they called and said they gave us the wholesale cost and we would have to make up the difference it we wanted them ordered.  WHAT, they are not ordered???  We paid in full 5 minutes after the order was drawn up!  Anyhow, after arguing with the manufacturer and the home improvement store, we met 1/2 way.  The doors will arrive in a few weeks.)

The tall cabinet.  The top section I store my clear stamp set boxes and sponges.  The middle section is where I take pictures to post here.  The bottom section is for punches.

See the fabric to the left?  I thought it would be nice to change out the fabric for different cards.  I build the little frame out of artists framed canvases.  They are still in the plastic.  They are just sitting upright, flat and the fabric wraps around them.  Super high tech, huh?  Oh well, it works perfect!  The little LCD light was installed by Joel (our electrician… Gails son).  He wired for it before the cabinets went in.  I thing this is one of my favorite things in my room.

 This is my punch space.  It works out great.  I keep thinking there's wasted room above my punches… perhaps space for another shelf… but I need room to reach in there and grab a punch, room to view the little picture on the top… maybe a drawers would have been a better way to go.  For now, it's just fine.

This is the upper space on the tall cabinet.  Here I store my adhesive refills and envelopes and a few other random things.

This drawer is under the punches.  It holds my clear blocks and adhesive.  Usually the blocks are perfectly/tightly fit into this drawer, but I have quite a few projects ready to roll (that have stamp sets mounted on the blocks).

Under clear blocks is ribbon.  The front section is current ribbons and the back section is retired ribbon. 

The bottom drawer is dedicated to The Big Shot!  : )

These 4 drawers are where I store my paper.  Alpha color groups, then alpha by paper color of course!  I keep at least 2 full packages on hand at all times…  yep, kinda OCD!

Above the paper is a glass front cabinet full of favorite stuff.  I didn't take a picture of that cabinet because it needs some attention. 

The next cabinet over, before the corner cabinets is this embossing powder and 'monthly project' cabinet.  There's more room for more stampin stuff… the problem is I have about 15 things for that one hole and am not sure what wins.

This is the lower lazy susan cabinet.  I keep buttons, brads, googlie eyes, etc here.  The back carousel is full of retired stuff I know I'm gonna use soon (ha)!

Scraps… YUCK!  I put all mine in these boxes on the lazy susan.  I use them regularly and appreciate that they are close by.

This is the corner cabinet above the lazy susan.  I keep all my stamp sets here.  The wood sets and background sets are on the top shelf… the remaining sets are alpha.

This is an upper cabinet next to my stamp sets.  This is how I store all my accessories.  You know those cute magnet close faux books at Michaels?  They work perfect for me.  If you look closely at the lower books, they are marked with: paper flower, pearl (middle center of the box), rhinestone (top center of the box), dimensionals (tiny one of THOSE dimensional backers… gosh, those things find their way into the bathroom, my car, into bed, in the laundry room…) and the other 2 boxes have a sticky showing what is inside.  I tried this plan/organizational system just to get stuff up and off the counter.  I now really like how it's working out.  The top shelf is more stuff…

 This is above my primary working area.  My stamp pads.  As Nancy says, isn't that glass super clear?  (giggle) The glass is absent… still.  When ordering the cabinets, the salesman said we could find glass much less expensive than the quoted $250 per pane!!! by the cabinet company.  Jennifer was kind enough to give me two leads, but I haven't taken a minute to call and see what they have.  Eventually, glass will be on this upper and the other upper.  For now, it's very convenient to reach my hand thru the hole, spin the stamp pad around until I find the right color.  Above the stamp pads are projects that are ready for me to make.  Everything is in the box behind the sample/display card.  Perhaps when I retire I can make all these beautiful cards… perhaps 100 of each!  : )

This is a look at behind the desk.  Let's go right to left again.  Under the counter: grid paper, convention and regional make and takes that I need to finish, black and white bag used to transport monthly projects, current dsp, between the boxes is retired dsp, retired ribbon, mailing boxes, cord for heat tool and when I have visitors-I like to turn on an additional light and need the extension cord, upper shelf in contraband paper and below are envelopes.  The two drawers under the desk will be the next picture.

All my favorite stuff, including the SU catalogs.

My chair is back in it's place.  The garbage can!!!  I had some big unique plans for the garbage can – but things changed and it is exactly what you see here.  Hum, so explaining is in order:  My original plan came about because I was working on a card table for a few months.  It wasn't so bad.  As a matter of fact, I put the garbage can to the left side of my table (shoulder issues!) and got such a thrill out of pushing any/all/every little bit of garbage off the edge of the card table into the garbage can.  Consoling my pouting about working on a card table, I would dream of this room.  Think about it… if YOU COULD design your own room, what would you do?  Anyhow, I decided I'd build that left hand swoosh of garbabe into my plan.  I planned a slit in the countertop.  Just a slit perfectly letting scraps fall into this garbage can.  What happened? While waiting for countertops – primarily me deciding what I want as a surface – I was working in my dream stampin room on plywood counter tops.  I needed to pull out this drawer to use the garbage can.  The pull out is very nice and the door would stay open just enough to drop paper in and wasn't in the way.  AND I found myself working under the bright light more than on this big open area.  Ha… I use the little decorated Janice garbabe can 90% of the time and just empty it into the big garbage can.  Oh well… I still love it. 

Oh, behind the gargage can are wipes and a bag of rubberbands. 

This cabinet is almost the last one to share.  It's next to the stamp pads.  Here I have boxes for cards, plastic pockets/envelopes for paper, plastic stamp boxes that I use for paper and mounted clear stamp sets and the bottom shelf is baggies for mailing swaps and priority mailing envelopes.

This cabinet is a lower right when you walk into my room.  Here I keep catalogs (old and current) and business stuff.

That is my stampin room tour.  What do you think?

Happy Stampin,