My Creative Corner -

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Hi there & happy Saturday! I wanted to share my Creative Corner with you today. This was my little crafty dream come true, when my handy hubby finished our basement 3 years ago. He bought my work benches from Sam’s Club for my birthday 🙂 and ta-da! My long bench is 6 feet and the shorter one against the wall is 4 feet with an attached brushed steel pegboard. Both benches are 2 inch solid maple with a hard protective coating. I love the pegboard and having all the things I reach for often at my finger tips, without having a bunch of stuff sitting on my workspace. I’m a stand up scrapper and love the L-shaped format. This way, I can easily watch what my kids are doing in the basement with me or talk with my hubby as he’s on the computer or watching TV.

Here’s a quick tour:

I have two 4 foot tall handmade shelves from my Dad, stacked to save room for now. These house my ribbons, tickets & small embellishments. I’ve found the best way to store my ribbon is to display it! Plus it’s pretty!

The shelf below is for my Cricut, JukeBox and Cartridges. Then, I have two big cubes with dividers that house cardstock and papers for the kids to use, then my stuff too. They actually have been good about knowing what’s their’s and what’s for Mommy’s projects!! The left cube is their’s, the right is Mommy’s.

I also have a small white three tiered shelf to the right where I keep my Stampin’ Up inks, Dies for my Big Shot and fabrics & burlap to die-cut. So far, it works…the very bottom shelf has baskets with all kids craft stuff…kids ink pads, wood pieces to paint or color, little paper punches, Popsicle sticks, etc.

Here’s my pegboard workbench! I have ribbons here too, along with newer embellies I don’t want to put away, lots of adhesives & glues (blue containers), Tim Holtz Distress Inks (1 blue container), Mod Podge, scissors, a couple punches, Pop Dots, Glossy & Crackle Accents. I also keep an old Webster’s Dictionary for cutting up… yes, I cut up the dictionary by punching circles and other shapes to make flowers and other fun page elements. 50 cents at Goodwill! The drawers to the bench house all my other big paper punches and lots of markers & journaling pens.

I just re-organized the area below for my stamps… boy, I have a lot of wood stamps! I didn’t want to invest a lot of money into this space before we move, so I bought some white plastic modular storage cubes from Target on sale and used baskets I already had to organize store my stamps by season and sayings. This makes them easy for me to find.

Plus, I keep them low so the kids can use them too.

To the left of the stamp baskets I have some Cropper Hoppers full of Memory Works Theme Sets, both new and partially used. I like to keep the coordinating papers, chipboard and stickers together so I can find what I want faster. The Karen Foster bag also stores a lot of patterned papers and actually stayed packed most of the time for going to crops.

On the right side, you’ll see a 3 drawer unit. Here is where I keep all my Thickers, letter stickers and Halloween & Christmas stickers and embellies. This really works great for keeping those things nice & organized!

The white basket sitting on top is where I keep my 4 paper trimmers…yup, I have 4 of them and they’re all 12×12″. One Fiskers Rotary Trimmer that I can switch the blades on, one Fiskars Straight Trimmer, one Creative Memories Wavy Trimmer and a Purple Cow Rotary Trimmer I use for cutting thicker stacks of papers.

This little nook is where I keep my Sizzix Texture Boutique and embossing folders. My 3 & 4 year old girls actually know how to use it & love to make cards with mommy

…gotta love crafty kiddos!

Last, are the stacked corner shelves I got a great clearance deal on at Michael’s.. only $4.00 each! Here is where I keep my other embellies: buttons, paper flowers, Tim Holtz metal embellies, Stickles, re-inkers, Ranger Alcohol Inks, my 7 Gypsies, Maya Road & Canvas Corp. embellies, many different glitters & flocking.

(little canvas banner shapes, mini clothespins, mini metal hangers, etc.)

The bottom shelf of goodies is all kid’s stuff: buttons, flowers, pipe cleaner, gems, craft wire and more. I also have several journals for scrappy inspirations, notes and layout planning!

..Oh and I can’t forget my Making Memories Slice Apron that’s signed by Elizabeth Kartchner, aka Dear Lizzy! I met her last year at CHA in Chicago. She was as sweet as her scrapbook pages! The top shelf is for some pretty things, including the latest edition of MW Artist Trading Cards from this past April.

A few fun things below… my corkboard for recent layouts, ‘crEaTE’ shelf & my little basket o’ribbon on handmade spools from my Dad and Pa (Grandpa) and a couple vintage spools too.