Uplifting

Good morning to you all! First, you may have noticed a few new options on my blog. I am learning as I go so be patient with all of my experiments. I am hoping to add more fun things to it in the near future. Please feel free to click around but remember it's still a work in progress as am I.

Next.... I am terribly excited to be going home this weekend to visit my family in Kentucky as well as two of my oldest and dearest friends. It has been too long since I've been able to sit down with girlfriends who really know me and love me just the same. I have been friends with these women since we were second graders. Thirty-five years young, that seems an eternity ago. It is very uplifting to know I will be in the presence of such true friends. I have missed them more than I realized. We all have children of our own now and it will be wonderful to see friendships between them develop. I sure wish we all lived closer. But such is life. For now, we try to plan our trips back home at the same time just to capture a few hours together to catch up. I hope to get some great pics of us and our children. I'm also going to experiment with my camera a bit and try for some great inspirational shots to share. I have pulled out the user guide to my camera to learn more and work with what I have until the time comes to purchase my dream camera (more on that later). Where was I? Oh yes, friendship. Spring has come early for me. I'm off to bask in the sunlight of true friends. I will try to blog while in Kentucky, but if you don't hear from me for a few days, don't worry. I'll be back to rattle off some more nonsense as soon as I can. I hope my excitement inspires you to call up some old friends this weekend.

My Improved Creative Space

Good morning! I'm very excited to give you a little preview of what I've been working on for the last week or so. My 1/3 of the office started to feel very cramped and unorganized so I decided it was time to spruce it up a bit. I wanted something functional, organized and a bit on the girly and creative side. I also didn't want to spend a lot of money - I enjoy being married. I am not quite finished but finished enough to show it off a bit. Here is my desk. This is the first thing you see walking into our office. I tried to make the pictures bigger so you could get a better view but I somehow distorted them. Sorry. Just click on the images to get the bigger picture. I would love to eventually replace the lamp with something more artistic and girly but haven't found the right one yet.

The desk came from Pier One as well as the hutch that would normally sit on the desk. The hubs mounted it on the wall to give me more desk space. We've had these desks for a while now so I'm not sure you can still get them. But they've been great pieces to have. Hubs has a matching one on his side of the office (that space has yet to be tackled).

Here's a better look at the hutch. I LOVE my vintage cameras and hope to add more to my collection. The camera on the far left is a Brownie Hawkeye and was actually my great-grandmother's camera. This was the first in my small collection.

The baskets within the hutch came from Old Time Pottery a while back. They fit perfectly and conceal and organize a lot of my scrapbooking tools.

These letters are actually chipboard and came from Hobby Lobby. I painted them with acrylic paint and covered them with scrapbook paper. Then, of course, EMBELLISH! I'm very pleased with the result and how they immediately catch your eye the minute you walk into the room. This little project rekindled my love/hate relationship with my glue gun.

Excuse my impatience but I posted these pictures a little prematurely. These organizational shelves from Michaels will eventually be painted black. However, I didn't want to wait a minute longer. These shelves are nothing fancy but they are affordable, easy to assemble and I love the little baskets within to conceal those things that might not be so cutesy. They are pretty deep and hold much more than I ever anticipated.

This is the area to the left of my desk. I found the shelf on sale at Michaels. I added some pictures of my kiddos and another vintage camera. Just some things to girly it up a bit.

This spin organizer came from Hobby Lobby and I was so excited to find one in black rather than white. Why is most scrapbook furniture white? Anyhow, I've been continually impressed with it since the purchase. It holds all of my scissors, all of my sharpies and other pens & markers, as well as tons of other things. It fits nicely on my desk within arm's reach.

A peak inside my baskets on my hutch. Again, from Old Time Pottery.

These little "paint cans" came from Michaels as well. They are great for ribbon...

and stamps. They have larger ones as well.

These are the bookshelves. The one on the left is filled with scrapbooking supplies and the one on the right complete with the kids' TV (now showing: "Horton Hears a Who"), movies and a collection of books. Office supplies (paper, photo paper, USB cords, envelopes, CDs, etc.) are concealed in the baskets purchased from Old Time Pottery. I'm not terribly satisfied with these shelves and will probably find a better way to organize them in the future. But it works for now.

This is a better look at the top of the bookshelves. There are two cameras - my first ever digital cameras. The paintbrushes were my grandmother's. She was a great painter, something I did not inherit. Because they were so important to her, they are important to me and I wanted to display them somehow. The box underneath the pot of brushes was her art box - chalks, charcoals, etc. It's as she left it. I hope to one day pass it on to one of my kids to use.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of my creative space. As I add things and improve it, I'll be sure to post new pictures. I would LOVE to hear any suggestions you might have for improvement - the more creative the better. Next on my list is to spruce up the kids' little area of the office. Then, on to the manly side. Any suggestions for that would also be appreciated.

Happy Hump Day!