Finally, about 8 months ago, I came across a pin that just spoke to me. I can't figure out how to make my pins show up here, but this is an image from the blog that I pinned:
The pin was instructions for building the table, although frankly when you click on it, you are told no such page exists. But basically, you buy some fairly inexpensive shelves from Walmart or the retailer of your choice, and then you buy 2 doors the same width and lay them on top. Voila! A crafting table with storage. (A Google search for Ivy Cottage Blog keeps bringing up other blogs ABOUT this particular table, but not the Ivy Cottage Blog itself, so maybe it doesn't exist any more? Anyway, they own the rights to this picture, not me.)
I loved this idea and have clung to it for months. I thought that teaming it with Expedit shelving from Ikea would work out great, and I've been on the hunt on Craig's List for Expedit shelves for months. Until that time, bags and boxes of "stuff" have been piling up till I look like a hoarder. Seriously. And then, I got lucky!
I saw an ad for one shelf on Craig's List, but the lady actually had 2 to sell--one was a 4x4 model, the other a 5x5 model. She wanted $190 for both of them, so I was bold, emailed her and asked her if she'd take $175, and she agreed (I think retail it would have cost nearly $400, so I got a great bargain!). I got 3 of my friends (Jeff, Greg, and Chris), two of whom have trucks, to come with me and pick the suckers up, and in no time, we had shelves. I already had a 2x4 model of Expedits down there for Leah's craft supplies, so the guys hauled the shelving in and they fit into the room just beautifully. My sister was here the same weekend, and she stayed and helped me get things onto shelves in basically the order I thought they should go in, and I was just thrilled. I could finally walk to a shelf and find paper without having to look through 3 or 4 boxes, only to find what I wanted crumpled at the bottom of a plastic bag. There is so much room for storage, I've been able to collect crafting odds and ends from all over the house and finally put them where they belonged. It was a bit of a heart wrenching project because I did have a few boxes of Mike's stuff in there that needed to be gone through, and which I did go through, got down to one box, and stored on the shelves. There may have been a few tears involved in that situation. But also, it was quite shocking the extent to which I had bought and re-bought and bought again supplies that I thought I didn't have simply because I couldn't find them in the mess. For instance, I would say conservatively I have $100 in alcohol inks.
When everything was shelved, I took a night and grabbed the memory scrapbook that we had out at Mike's memorial. Everyone who came left beautiful messages, and there were a LOT of pages left over. So I went into my closet and got down the box of sympathy cards and glued those into the book, as well as all of Mike's awards that used to be framed and hanging on the wall. The book is hugely thick now, and of course, after I ran out of pages, I found even more cards while cleaning, but I'll figure out what to do with those in time. It was extremely moving to go through everything and read all the lovely messages of love and offers of help. I cried a whole lot, but I feel so good knowing that all of those things are safe and preserved.
So then it was table time. My dad started asking me at Thanksgiving what I wanted for Christmas so I decided to ask him for the doors for the table. I knew the table would be perfect and once I built it, I would be ready for business. He bought the doors, although to be honest, the entire process with building the table turned into quite an odyssey. I bought myself the shelves and called on my friend Andy to come and build them, because he likes doing that kind of thing for some crazy reason. As soon as we built the first shelf, I knew that it was A) too tall and B) the doors were too narrow. So we returned the doors and the shelves, went to two more stores to buy new shelves and new doors and then built the table. Andy mocked my hammering technique. But given the hell I put him through to make the table, I let it pass. :0D
So, here is the big reveal...
The small shelf to the right is Leah's shelf--she knows that she can go in any time and use anything on her shelf without having to ask permission. I am standing in the doorway of the room and immediately to my left is the other set of shelves--the 4x4 shelves. I just couldn't get everything into the picture. Eventually I will cover the doors in chalkboard paint, and in February I'll be hosting a little painting party to get rid of the blood red walls. But otherwise, the only thing I'd like to do is change the flooring, and really that is going to have to wait quite a while.
What does the other citizen of the house think?
She is absolutely in love with the room. Nearly every day she announces it's project time and we go in and she works on her own projects. She's very creative--she turned 3 toilet paper tubes into rockets and we have enjoyed many games of catch with them. She has made all kinds of paper and glue and glitter projects, she enjoys making ornaments with beads, painting, really anything she can think of. And she loves when we make projects together. I love being in there as well. When Mike was alive, I had a small table to one side of the man cave where I did scrapbooking. He always told me, "Susan, I love it when you work in here, it makes me feel so close to you." So being in "his" office really brings me a great deal of comfort. And I can tell you that this weekend when I had a PILE of Christmas presents to wrap, that table came in SO handy! I also used the table to spread out and address our Christmas cards, so that was pretty great too!
So now that I can find things, Leah and I have been crafting together and I've been crafting alone. I thought I'd share a few of our creations. All of the inspiration for these projects has come from Pinterest, but generally speaking, I don't read directions from my pins. I look at them, deconstruct them in my own mind, figure out how to put them together, and then I make them myself. Also, since I can't figure out how to embed pins, I'll add a link to the original websites when possible.
My crafting rules are simple:
- Can't involve power tools other than a hot glue gun
- Must be fairly simple and straightforward to understand
- Can't involve much math--I start reading measurements and I get so perplexed my head hurts and I give up. SIMPLE!
- Paper is my favorite medium, so extra points if I get to use paper somehow.
- A good mix of kid-friendly and not necessarily kid-friendly. I want to feel like I'm doing stuff as a grown up, not only catering to my daughter, but I also want to be able to do things with her on occasion.
Leslie Ashe's Rolled Paper Tree |
Knowing that Leah was going to be occupied for a while, I thought it would be a good time to get out the canvas and try to finish it.
Leah's and my rolled paper tree |
Shelterness Cupcake Wrapper Wreath |
This was a great project for kids because given the way that we put our wreath together, Leah was able to fold the papers into quarters, and she was able to use straight pins to attach the papers to the wreath form. The repetitiveness of it eventually bored her and she moved on to other things, but it was nearly done by then. The only thing I would probably do differently is to attach the papers with glue instead of pins just because it would be much cheaper that way. Still, for us it was a great way for Leah to participate since I don't let her use the hot glue gun yet. She loved the way the colors turned out, she loved pinning, she didn't love folding so much, although I did give her a bone folder and she thought it was pretty fancy to have a tool to fold with. So that was cool Anyway, our wreath is more multi-purpose than the one pictured above, but would be great for a birthday party, kid's room, Cinqo de Mayo celebration, or just anywhere you want a bright, sunny decoration. Also, clearly we folded ours, which gave it a much different look than the one above, which probably had the wrappers glued straight on and then arranged around each other. But there are tons of different possibilities. After completing this, Leah went nuts in the cupcake wrapper department at Wegman's and we came home with mini wrappers, which I think will be really lovely, and also with red and white wrappers for Christmas. I have my doubts that they will get done, but you never know.
From ArtCraftIdeas.net |
Anyway, the original pin was entitled "Easy Christmas Craft Ideas for Kids" and showed the four ornaments to the left. The one with the plastic cup caught my eye, and I thought it was such a neat idea! I didn't read the directions (of course!), but I knew I had some clear plastic cups from Mike's 1 year memorial in July, and I figured all we'd need to do would be to glue some figurines down to a paper plate, add fake snow, put on a hanger of some sort, hot glue the cup over the base, and that would be that.
The hardest part was finding small embellishments to put in the ornaments. Hobby Lobby had very little in the way of miniature figurines for these guys. Finally in their ornament collections, I found ornaments called "My Very Own Tree" or something of that nature, which are small ornaments you can give children who want to decorate Christmas trees of their own. (NB: That'll be the day. I've decided this year and hereafter, Leah is in charge of the family Christmas tree. If she wants to go buy all purple ornaments, so be it. If she wants a 2 foot tree, so be it. We're not having multiple trees per family member.)
Our sweet little ornaments |
To put the ribbon through the top, I cut holes with an exacto knife, and then used a very large needle to thread the ribbon in and out. Once the ribbon was in, we turned the cups upside down and put a little bit of fake snow in each cup. I put hot glue around the rim of the cup, and then Leah flipped the figurine papers upside down onto the cups. Then we turned them back over, cut off the excess paper plate and there we had ornaments! It was so fun to do this and I think they look so great. I hope she'll want to do it again, but she was more or less done at one, so I might need to recruit some other children to do it with us.
So I would really like to get out my sewing machine, which I got a year ago and is still in the box. I have all the stuff I need to make some sweet little buckwheat pillows and I'd like to give them to the Hospice grief counselors who have worked with me and Leah this year.
I'm glad all of our projects are turning out our way and not exact replicas of the things I've seen on Pinterest. I'm grateful to Pinterest users for all the ideas I've gotten this year--it's been so fun to rediscover my inner crafter. When I'm that girl, I'm transported from my worries for a while, and that is absolutely invaluable! I'll post other projects in the future :) Generally speaking, I am not getting terribly attached to anything we've made so far. Mom, Judy, and I have discussed doing craft fairs and that is a definite possibility in the future. We have a lot of ideas, now we just need to find the time!
I was amused when I got to the bit where you said you wanted to get rid of the blood red walls. I actually thought you had repainted the room with the walls red as it looks that amazing. I love feature walls (you should see my house - every wall is a different colour - greens, browns, reds, blues....my dad hates it but I loved living there) and was wrapped to see your red one. You could always tie it in with some big, bold wall decorations and pictures in big, bold frames in complimentary colours.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have used Mike's special space for your own special space, and have that memory of him telling you how much he loved it when you worked in there with him. I'm sure he is looking down on you, just beaming with delight at how nicely his Cookies are using his space.
Your Christmas tree made with the rolled paper turned out just delightfully! I used to love craft when I was a kid but nowdays don't have much time or patience for it. I wish I did, because reading this lovely blog post really made me want to craft again!!! :)