a place to call my own

I have been so excited to share my new room. I have a very hard time with interior decorating, so seeing this room come together has been a thrill for me. Nothing here is original, because I gleaned ideas from several sources, but it is heartfelt! I have honestly never had a pretty room in my entire life, so this has been a special treat to myself. I wanted my room to be pretty and comfortable without losing any functionality or convenience in the process. I think I have accomplished that, and now I can't wait to scrap again!



We had to texture and paint the walls, replace some of the linoleum tiles on the floor, and then it was ready to move into.

This is the desk Jack made for me. It consists of two cabinets as the base that are covered with a board. I sewed a solid red tablecloth for it, and then covered it with a clear vinyl to protect it from my inks and paints. Then we painted the shelf on top of it and added it so I had some extra room for photos, a colored pencil jar, and some little jars filled with brads and staples. I also added the feather pen that we had for our guestbook at our wedding. It has been stored for ten and a half years now. I figured I may as well put it to use... LOL. I need to fix the hem on the curtains, and add a longer curtain underneath the cafe curtains. I ran out of the red fabric. The window sill has the two porcelain clowns Jack has bought for me and my mom's silver baby cup. The little table next to it was a $3 thrift store find, and I am using it to store my sewing machine. My primitive stitchery box is underneath it. I have found it to be much easier to sew on pages if I do not have to pull out the machine every time, so finding an unobtrusive and attractive way to keep the machine in my room was important to me. The green box holds all of my standard scrapping tools... trimmer, scissors, adhesives, etc. The white cabinet in the corner has more of the 12x12 sterilite drawers that hold my rub-ons, stickers, and a few misc supplies. It is also home to my empty albums, my xyron machine, and the photos that I don't have digital copies of yet.



The shelves were originally the cash register stand in the store. I kept them when we closed since my house doesn't have any closet space to speak of. Jack stacked them together for me, and I like the way they look like a hutch. I love toile, and the room needed color, so I used the red toile to make some curtains to cover the boxes stored on the bottom shelves. I wanted my room to be functional with all of my supplies convenient, but I did not want any plastic showing. I have my finalist Chatterbox album as well as some other completed mini albums up there, and then little license plate albums I seem to have developed an addiction to. I plan on filling that Harley one next week! I was really happy with the way my ribbon jars went perfectly across the top... they add a splash of color to that side of the room.



I bought these little drawers at Ikea on Friday, and covered them with some papers that match the room. I sanded the edges, and I plan on rubbing some paint on them to junque them up a little bit more. I used them to store my alphabet stamps. I store them all alphabetically... A's and B's in one drawer, C's and D's in the next etc. I like to mix up my alphabets so much that it is too much work to go through several sets to find the letter, so I enjoy having them store alphabetically.



I bought these three-drawer units at Walmart for about $8 each. They hold 12x12 paper perfectly. My paper is sorted by color... one drawer for all the red 12x12 and 8.5x11 patterns, cardstock, and scraps, one for all the blues, one for the oranges, etc. My themed papers are together in one drawer since there aren't many of those... things that are specifically Halloween or Easter, etc. I keep the Chatterbox papers in their own drawer with their matching embellishments since I have so much of it. It makes entering the contest a lot easier... LOL. The little cabinet on the right has six 8.5x11 three-drawer sets where I have things like sandpaper, trip memorabilia, a drawer of my silver embellishments, my Deluxe Designs products, etc. There is also a thin shelf at the top where I keep my Pages by Design system.



Jack cut these letters for me and I altered them, and I have been holding onto them for months now waiting to hang them up. Now that they are up, I realize I need to stamp over the black "is spoken here" part with the cream paint to make it show up better. I bought the spice rack and buckets at Ikea as well for my paints and paintbrushes. Now I need to get the Making Memories paints so my shelf looks even prettier... LOL. The little jars are also from Ikea and hold needles, safety pins, and more silver mini brads. I have way too many of those little guys. The MM magnetic boards are stamped with MM stamps and cream paint. I plan on hanging up my layouts as I make them so I can appreciate them a little longer before I put them away!



I sewed the matching curtains for the closet because it is too ugly to keep naked. We took the clothing dowel out of it a while ago and installed those wire grid cubes to store my antique books. I don't have anywhere else to keep them right now, so they just need to stay put for the time being. I also have the frames I am working on filling with photos and artwork and my larger completed albums stored in there. The magazine rack was my last Ikea purchase, and it will eventually hold all of the books and magazines I have been published in. I am still sorting out that pile, though, so it will have more in it soon. All the rest of the books and mags are going to the yard sale... woohoo! I bought the Making Memories magnetic chalk boards several months ago at a show, so I hung those up in to places in the room. I stamped "Jenn's Junque" on the top and added my MM magnets. Faith has already had a field day using it to draw me pictures and to work on her math problems. I am on the prowl now for the perfect piece of furniture to go underneath the mag rack and chalkboards. The door leads to the room that is becoming the kids' room, and was my old scraproom. It was painted with chalkboard paint, and Jack splattered it in the paint process. I am going to cover it with chalkboard paint again, and then paint a calendar on my side of it. That way I can just erase it each month and not have more paper clutter in my house. The kids will be able to draw and play tic tac toe on it on their side.



I also sort my embellishments by color. I found the black photo boxes at Michaels when they were on sale for $1 each. I used a grungy font to print the color names on cardstock and slipped it into the bookplates. I also use one box for tags. The only embellishments not sorted by color are my Christmas ones, and they are in the drawer with the Christmas paper.



This is the computer wall. I have a new laptop, so I keep it and my Epson printer inside the cabinet. I plan on getting a small tv with a DVD player in it to add to the cabinet becauase I like to listen to my shows or the cable radio stations while I scrap. The drawers to the left hold my scanner/copier on top, and I will keep my important papers in the file cabinet drawer on the bottom. The art piece to the left of the cabinet was a birthday present from Kyle that I haven't been able to hang up yet. He was so happy to get to help hang it the other night, and he keeps asking me if I like it... I love it... :0) This door leads to the hallway, and best of all, it has a lock on it!

I have a few more things to do in here, like fill the photo frames and add a rug. (Home Depot has one that is the perfect shade of red for $20... I just have to go get it.) I have a few blank spots on the walls that will house my altered clipboards and canvases within the next couple of days, and I want to find a comfortable bar stool type chair to sit in while I scrap. I also plan on using rub-ons to add a quote above the closet, but it will all come together soon. I achieved my goal, though... I created a room that works for me and I am getting rid of 90 percent of the stuff I had. I will take a picture of the yard sale piles before I actually have it.

I hope you enjoyed my little tour... LOL... you are welcome to scrap with me anytime you would like to! I actually have room in the center to add one of my banquet tables so I can have buddies join me, but that will only be coming out for company.

I got an email from Angie at PK today... she wants to use my Black-Faced Beth and my Midnight Visitor pages, so I will be mailing those out tomorrow. I don't know which issues they will be in, but I don't care... LOL... it just feels good to be submitting and getting published again!

Happy scrapping!