Craftyminx

Studio Complete!!

Before and after

It is finished and I am sooo happy with how it turned out. The painting took 4 days and I spent the rest of the week putting shelves and chairs together. Sheldon, Levi, Shannon, and my mom helped out soo much and I owe them all big time.

There are still a few things left to do, but it is about 95% finished. I still need to add the peg board and possibly paint some of the door with chalkboard paint.

The paint is showing up a little lighter in these pictures. It is the same color as the pink chairs. 

The shelves aren't as industrial as I thought they would be and they fit sooo much stuff. I love all of the space!

I also love that the table fits in the middle of the room so I can have friends over to craft. 

YAY!

Wedding Wednesday

Today I'm going to share a few of online tools that we are using. There are so many useful tools out there and I can't review all of them, but these are the ones that I'm using because they are free, easy to use, and make wedding planning efficient.  Sorry this post is so wordy. I'll share some photos later.

Registry

I have found myregistry.com to be a godsend. You can link all of your registries to this one site, or you can choose to keep it as an "everything else we want" list, which is what we are using it for. We are registered at Target and Macy's for the sake of our family and friends that don't like to shop online. There are people in our families that don't even have the internet.  But with Myregistry.com, you can link to any item in any online store on the web and this includes places like etsy. I love it! The downfall is that things change so quickly on the internet and items sell out fast, especially on etsy. You have to check up on the items you list to make sure that they are still available. As someone that has shopped a lot of registry lists, it is very annoying when you find out what you want to buy is no longer available.

Planners

This is the part where I sing the praises of google docs! I have never really used google docs for the purpose of online collaboration, but a wedding in this day and age requires it. Style me Pretty has teamed up with google to make some pretty awesome and free tools. Before you get overwhelmed with the 20 different templates you can download, I would suggest looking at the wedding planner first. It has all of the templates in one workbook. We didn't need the whole planner so we are just using it for a guest list (we changed up some of the columns to match our preferences) and the address form. Let me tell you about the address form... If you know a lot of your wedding guests' emails, you can send a form to them and they can fill out the spreadsheet for you! I don't know a lot of the email addresses, but I have been able to use it by sending the form to my mom so she can add all the people that they want to invite to the wedding. Sheldon and I share the document, so any changes that either of us makes can be seen by the other person, that way we always have the most updated list.

A rep from myweddingworkbook.com recently tipped me off to a really great wedding organizational tool. My Wedding Workbook is a must for anyone planning a big traditional wedding with lots of vendors and many guests.  I could see someone with a smaller wedding being able to use it, but I think a lot of it's functionality wouldn't get used. I have too much information in other places to want to move it all over at this point, but this is a wonderful tool that is robust enough for any wedding. I might have to use it for our budget, since we haven't got a lot of that in writing yet. We'll see.

Websites

Oh wedding websites... what a headache you have caused me. I really didn't want to pay for a website that was only going to be live for a year. Wedding websites, through the actual wedding website vendors are expensive compared to a regular website's costs per year. A few of the more popular sites are ewedding.com mywedding.com theknot.com weddingtracker.com and weddingjojo.com.

We went with mywedding.com because their site is 100% free and has a lot of functionality. I also found that they had way more theme options than the others. However, wedding websites are kind of corny and if you're a DIY gal like me, you're not going to be 100% happy with the themes that they have and then throw the fiance into the mix who thinks that "all wedding websites are lame" and you'll have issues. It took Sheldon and me quite awhile to agree on the template and in the end the one we are using is kind of boring, but it works. I really had to get past the fact that the website was in no way going to match our Save the Dates or Invites and that it was only going to be an information tool for our guests.

I hope you all enjoy this little detour from my normal crafty exploits. I promise Wedding Wednesdays will have a lot of my DIY projects in the future, but right now it is all about the planning. In fact, next week I have an exciting thing to share with you all... our save the date cards! Handmade the lazy way by yours truly :)

The studio makeover

Well the craft room is now empty...a clean slate... ready for me to work my magic. Our garage is full of tubs of craft supplies. I had no idea I had that much stuff in this tiny room.

So here's the full plan... I want to work on it this weekend. There's no better way to say I love you than with physical labor right? I'm hoping Sheldon agrees :)

p.s. I'm loving these washi tape frames from kitschy digitals. I almost forgot I bought them.

I bought the paint last night. I'm hoping to get the pegboard and those ugly industrial shelves from home depot after the paint dries. About those ugly shelves, if you know of something better that I can get two of for $160 and will be 4 feet wide let me know. I like to buy those track system shelves from rubbermaid, but they really are expensive once you start to add up all the pieces and the shelves are only 12 inches deep. I like the idea of having shelves 24 inches deep to hold all of my crap. Since these are such a good deal, I'll probably just end up painting them, putting white sticky shelf liner on the mdf and adding some cute fabric scallops or something to the front. Eh, there are plenty of ways to make them look less garish.

I really wish I could redo the floor while I'm at it, but the brick and black tiles will just have to stay a little longer. Eventually, I plan to put laminate wood down in the dining room, studio, and the hallway of death so the back of the house will match the laminate in the kitchen and the rest of the natural wood floors in the front part of the house.

I am still trying to decide how the layout should be. Right now, I have the table on one wall and shelves on either side. the sewing station and fabric shelves are on the other side. I would like to have the table in the center of the room, so I have have people over to craft with me, but with the room being so narrow I don't see this as an option. I guess visitors will just have to craft in the dining room.

We're also painting the dining room the Sea Life color. We both agree that the aqua with the already red everything else will look good and have that retro flair we like so much.

My big question is lighting. I have to change out the overhead light but I have no clue what to put in. I have two windows that get pretty good daytime light, but since I have a day job, I do most of my crafting in the evenings. Any suggestions? What kind of lighting do you have in your studio or craft space?

Online Organization

 Since I've been in the process of cleaning the studio and thinking about organization a lot, I started to think about online organization, tagging, categorizing, etc. Do you do it? Are you an expert? Do you even care?

I always had the thought that I really didn't care about tagging things (yes, this is coming from a library school student), because I thought of my blog as something for myself. Something that I would write and then it would go into the online abyss and if someone saw it, good, if not, I really wouldn't think about it. And even if I still had that philosophy, tagging would still help me. If I wrote a post about something and couldn't remember when I wrote it, tagging would help a little to sort through the mess.

But what about now? Now that I see the value of creating an online community of readers, other bloggers and the wandering passerby I am beginning to see the real need for an online organization scheme and I'm kicking myself for not starting this sooner.  I have 443 blog posts on this blog and 3061 photos on flickr. Some of these have been tagged, but a big number (2318 on flickr) are untagged. I have some work to do.

Tags not only organize, but they help you be "found" if that's your bag. There are so many tools that read online tags I won't even go into it here, but there are tons! I would love to have more readers and online buddies so I'm willing to at least try and see what happens.

So I guess I have another goal this year... operation online organization.

My plan:

1. Find themes and categorize. This is something I have at least started here and on flickr with sets and typepad categories. I sometimes forget to use these, but at least I have a starting point.
2. Do some research. Probably the more "fun" aspect of this goal. I want to find which tags are more popular and what the commonalities are among expert taggers.
3. Make a list. After researching, I will need to make a list of tags that I will use most often and make room for additions.
4. Start tagging. Definintely not for the weak in spirit. I think I can do it. Especially if I just buckle down for a weekend and do it!
5. Reap the benefits! Hopefully becoming organized will help me find stuff that has been lost, help new friends find me, and make this the  blogging fun I want it to be.

So what do you think? Is this a silly idea? Are you a faithful online organizer? I would love any tips any of you have!!