Snippets of Autumn's project life album and my cozy craft room.

Last month I because totally fed up with my tiny craft room always being a mess and dumping ground for everyone's crap. Being a small room there is no room for anything extra so when things came in here it was usually on the floor. I grabbed some new cube shelving from Bunnings, desk and drawers from Kmart and a slab of melamine from our local hard wear store for a new work top (this sits on top of a chest of cheap drawers proving that a room reno does not have to be expensive) For well under $200 and a whole lot of elbow grease I now have a room that I am fairly happy with, can walk around with out tripping over and most of my most used tools etc are right at my finger tips. I hauled two huge bags of rubbish out, a large basket of stamps and paper to go to the old folks home for their craft sessions and those items that I really couldn't part with but are not used on  a regular basis went into a cupboard in the back room.

 The view walking in.

 This is probably the most accurate depiction of the wall colour, it was my youngest sons room prior to him moving into one of his older brother's rooms when he moved out. 

 Yep, I'm a stamp addict :-)

 Where i love to be

Love having little things like this gorgeous clock a friend made me for my birthday last year out on display. these are the things that mean a lot to me.

 I love this quote on my wall, an everyday reminder that our lives should be filled with some sort of creative endeavour, whether it be with your hands or mind, in a craft room or garden with a pair of scissors, a camera or a pen, where ever, when ever or whatever.

This year I decided to change project life up a little bit. Each year I start off strong but always seem to fade out a bit over winter when I am busy with football committee commitments and photos for the club. This year I have decided to do seasonal albums and so far not only am I loving it but also mostly keeping up. Mainly because with the pressure of weekly pages not there I can record as much or as little as I like, only the big events or the every day moments if I get the time. Each season so far has been different, Summer was a 6x8 hand made mini, the current 

Autumn one 6 x 12. I must say that I really love the 6x12 size as it gives me room to do a full 12x12 spread over two pages if I have a large story to tell or simply one page if not. The concept of changing format each season is good for me as I tend to get bored with one style only. 

Formal mini

Yesterday I started my youngest's formal album, today I finished it, yay me. I'm so good at starting things, not always so good finishing them off, mainly missing out on the journaling. My solution to this, minimal journaling, problem solved, pictures always speak louder than words to me anyway. I love the size of these Instagram albums, small enough to not to be an overwhelming project, big enough that you don't have to squint to see your photos. I added plenty of flip out, fold up type photos as some of them just wouldn't work at 4x4 crop and other some interactive elements. It's one of those messy albums with lots of hidden bits and pieces, one that looks and feels better in real life than photographed. 

I found it hard to believe that my baby is old enough to be getting dressed up for this right of passage. It was a little bit emotional seeing him all dressed up in his suit even though I have been through it lots of times with all the other boys doing a year 11 and year 12 formals and Joe partnering a girl at a formal in Penola and MCing this one, but here is something about the last one. Seamo's friend Jasmine was his partner for the evening and looked stunning, they looked so good together both dressed in black.