Scraproom Tour with video

Can a scraproom and a guest bedroom coexist?  They must at our house.

The 2nd floor of our house is one bedroom and bath.  It is also my scraproom.  The room has several advantages:  privacy (i.e. quiet), the adjoining bath, lots of natural light.

The location also has some disadvantages:  Being upstairs means I can't do two things, like cook lunch and scrap, at the same time.  When the phone is for my husband, I'm down the stairs and trying to figure out if he is in the office, outside or in the basement.  (My next house will NOT have stairs!)

All that natural light is lovely when it is in the right place but sometimes it isn't.  For someone who made window treatments for years this should be an easy problem to solve but I probably have one of the most difficult sets of windows I ever encountered and you know the one about the cobbler's children having no shoes...

Anyway, another challenge is that I have to have a bed so I lose a lot of potential square footage this way. We only have one other bedroom and we do occasionally have overnight guests. Plus, if one of us is sick the guest bedroom is important.

All the furniture in this room except the chair and the worktable were part of my bedroom suit growing up. Back in those days, if you knew someone who worked in a furniture factory which was THE industry here then, they could get you a deal on furniture. My parents did and this is a Century Furniture set so it was built to last forever.  While it may be showing a bit of wear and isn't so stylish, these drawers are solid and very roomy so I've loaded them up with lots of scrapbooking stuff.

I've also let my hobby take over the 2 closets in the room.  Who needs extra clothes when you can have pretty paper?  And linens?  Those are now stored under the bed in plastic bins.  I just pull them out and stack towels neatly in the bathroom when we have guests.

So the only thing we really added was the work table which Lenny and I built a few years ago to replace a dressing table my builder made for me that was nice but not large enough.  We built the new table when I still had the idea that this should be as much guest room as it was scraproom.  The table is upholstered on top with a glass covering.  I made skirts for the bottom to hide all the storage.  Now, I don't worry about hiding too much anymore.

However, the room still transforms to a guestroom pretty quickly by removing the misting box, putting the nightstand (cutting table) back where it belongs and adding the last skirt to the table.

I did the shelves by myself and this is one place I should have splurged for professional assistance.  I was going for cantilevered shelves which I clearly had no idea how to construct.  They work OK.

I've had things organized this way for quite a while. What I was waiting on to do this video was finishing the canvases to go over the bed.  I don't know why that was important but anyway, last week we filmed the room.

Watch at YouTube:


One thing I didn't mention in the video is the doll bed.  On top of the dresser is an old doll bed my grandfather made for my Mother when she was a little girl.  She passed it on to me and I used it as a child.  Now it is an extra shelf holding some art projects and my music.

So thanks for visiting my space.  Hope you have a great day!

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Classes available on using cardstock on layouts:  Creative Cardstock
doing two page layouts:  Two Page Terrific
and a PDF of all of 2013's sketches

Wall Art

Less than 30 minutes. That's how long it took me to place on my painted wall these Eastern Blooms Decor Elements in white, playing with a couple of different arrangements, adhere them and clean up. Basically the clean up consists of throwing away the peel off materials and carrying the step ladder downstairs. That's my kind of clean up. Wall art that accentuates my fabrics and the clean white trim of this attic bath for around $15 in 30 minutes!

Vinyl wall decor called Decor Elements from Stampin' Up! stays up as long as I want it to and it can be removed if I later decide to change my decor. I spent days removing the old wallpaper but I tried a sample of this and it came off easily.

I'm really excited about this product! There are tons of designs, colors and options. If you like what you see, give me a call and I'll get you a catalog or look on-line at http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/12177.asp

Have a great weekend!

Sheer Delight

A few weeks ago a customer called and asked for gold sheers. My first thought was the type of sheer on the far right of this photo, a plain voile fabric colored gold. Then I quickly thought of all the beautiful patterned sheers I have and our choices opened up extensively. We looked at other solids but with some texture to them in various shades of gold. Her final choice was the diamond printed sheer on the left. It has a little texture and shading in the fabric and the diamond print is embroidered. I'm working with this fabric now and it is just beautiful. I can't wait to see them installed.

One of the other benefits besides the beautiful pattern and texture is the weight. While the fabric is still technically a sheer and will be unlined, it is heavy enough to hang alone without draperies - just what she wanted.

When you have a sliding door, french door or large window to cover, consider using sheer panels rather than draperies. You can draw them to filter light or let them hang in panels on the side. Sheers come in a wide range of colors and patterns adding a light, finishing touch to the room.

Happy Anniversary to Me

Yesterday marked 12 years in the window treatment business! Wow! Even in this recession, I am so fortunate. I have great clients who I've come to know as friends. The projects keep coming always with new challenges. No two jobs are never alike - different kinds of windows, different fabrics, different treatment styles all add up to a new project each time. So the job never gets boring.

I'm very fortunate that I can work out of my home. This morning I cut fabric and pressed in hems, now I'm updating the blog, and in a few minutes I'll be fixing lunch for my husband and myself. It is a great luxury to have a meal together each day before we return to our tasks. I have a lot of flexibility in my hours yet I really try to meet my clients needs. I remember what it was like to work set hours and only have nights and weekends to get anything done. It is very frustrating to need something only to find the store closes at 5 or 6. I've always taken appointments in the evenings and weekends.

Also, I've been able to expand when I wanted or needed to and to pull back and do other types of work as they came along. When I started 12 years ago, I was a full-time corporate employee, then a contract trainer. I also worked for Pro-Tint as a sales rep. Then I went to design school. The constant has been this business.

One of the best things is being creative every day. I love to create beautiful things. While I might get frustrated sometimes trying to figure something out, I do like to solve problems. It is so gratifying knowing that there is a way to make whatever we need to do work.

And of course I could not do this business without my husband, Lenny. He staples, he helps install on the big jobs, he lugs bolts of fabric to the basement. He helps me figure out some of those seemingly impossible situations. He is great!

It feels good to count my blessings. I really have a great job! There are trade-offs of course. There is more lucrative work out there, but I love doing what I do. Thank you all for helping the business grow over the last 12 years. I look forward to continuing all my creative projects with you.

The Joys of Do-it-Yourself

Last year, I decided I’d had enough of my pink bathroom. The pink wallpaper was chosen to match the fabrics my stepdaughters had selected for their bedroom. This decision was made in 1992 when the girls were teens and I had not yet overdosed on pink. Actually I always thought this bathroom was a little much but I dreaded working in such a tight space.

Finally late last summer, I started with one corner, just to see how easy or difficult it would be to remove. A word of warning: If you aren’t really ready to take down wallpaper, NEVER peal back that first corner. Good or bad, you just can’t stop. My pink paper was a coated paper meaning the top layer peels off quite easily; the second layer, not so much. I wet and scrapped strips of paper off the walls a section at a time for weeks. Finally, blank walls appeared – a ready canvas for something new.

I love color and I had purchased the floral fabric for the shade and shower curtain a couple of months earlier. A light, bright blue is enough of a change from the pink for me. I still wanted a happy room. I did make one – ah, mistake. I selected 3 potential blue paint chips and asked my husband to make the choice. I wanted him to be part of the process. He picked the one I liked the least (this is sort of how I got a pink bathroom to start with, but that is another story.) I bought a quart and did a test patch behind the mirror. Voila! Carolina Blue. Now, no offense to any sports fans, but that isn’t what I had in mind. So I mixed in grays and other shades of blue until I found a combo I liked. Back to the paint store and the perfect color (my favorite to begin with.)

I framed three old photos I scanned, enlarged and printed of my father, my grandparents with my cousin Donna, and my Mother with me in matted frames that I hand stamped.

I love our updated bathroom and I’m especially proud that I did it myself. Never will I say that I did as good a job as a professional painter, but it is my little project and I’m proud of it.

The next project is the downstairs bath and while I may strip the wallpaper myself (I have not tested a corner yet), I won’t be hanging the new paper. Some jobs definitely call for a professional. Oh, and I think I’ll be going with my own instinct on shades of color.

The BFF of all colors

I’ve been working this afternoon on pulling together some companion fabrics for a master bedroom. My client has narrowed her fabric choices to two beautiful fabrics in the blue/green and mocha families. One of her fabrics is more blue and one, more green. So all the companion fabrics go with one or the other but not both. Choosing one ensemble over the other is going to be a tough decision.

As I was working with these colors I got to thinking about how the shade of green we are considering in one fabric has been popular several times over the last 15 years or so. Blue is really coming back now and not just the Robin’s Egg blue of the last few years. All shades of blue are showing up in bedding and fabrics. I recently received a clothing catalog with a great deal of navy and other shades of blue. What makes colors work again and not make us go “Eew, I don’t want ___ color, I had that years ago”? Well, sometimes we do say that. But I think the trick is what the color is paired with. The green we are considering was paired with burgundy and darker greens in the early 90’s. Blues used to be paired with mauve or, as in my first apartment, peach. Brown is the BFF for every color today. Pair anything with brown and it looks warm, sophisticated, fresh, comfortable, whatever you want it to be.

Another thing about brown is how it works as an architectural accent. A few years ago we might put a black wrought iron light fixture in a house and maybe a black fireplace screen and they looked great. Nice neutral, not too heavy. Today, we have wrought iron banisters, light fixtures, and wall decorations. The accent color we choose for these items has to support our other colors and not overpower. Brown often fits that bill. Plus you can paint one or more walls brown. Try that with black or gray.

Black may be coming back but I don’t see brown going away for a long time. (Maybe I’d better look a little harder for the perfect brown handbag.)

Extra-ordinary

I made these pillows a few years ago for a client to add to her bed ensemble. The plain side (shown below) was supposed to be the front, but I love to play with patterns so I did something a little special with the 'back.' She was delighted and immediately made the back into the front. I've done this many times over the years and it has become a standard for me whenever I can to mix fabrics or turn fabrics in such a way as to create a unique placket (the thing that covers the zipper) for the back.

This week I've been doing some simple pillows and am having to restrain myself from making a fancy placket like the one above has. The ones I'm making are sofa pillows. No one wants to recline against covered buttons and extra cording so they need to be simple corded pillows. In this case an extra would be an unwelcome distraction.

It takes a little more work to make something ordinary into extra-ordinary but isn't it worth it? I love to see my customers delighted with the extras. I like to have options and I want you to have them, too.