Recycling and organization!

I saw this post at Not so Idle Hands and loved the idea.  I have quite a few glass jars lying around.  But I don't need them for my kitchen.  No way, I go through WAY more flour in a day than any of these jars could hold.  BUT remember my corner?  Full of wall to wall, floor to ceiling boxes?  Sometimes it's frustrating digging through and moving all those boxes for something relatively small.  Or something I use a lot, but is in a heavy box and therefore on the bottom.  So I thought this project could solve the problem for me!

So I took the lids and layed them out, using a spray can metal primer.

Now I loved the metallic grey she used, but my corner really needs some color.  So I grabbed the Pink!  I know it's not really a grown up color, but what can I say, I love pink, almost as much as I love red.  Maybe I'll change it up someday if I get sick of pink, but for now it's a great spring color.   And considering we're still getting snow I need a pick me up!

Then filled the jars and popped on the lids!  You can see what I started organizing, ribbons, beads (for socks)wire, buttons, glass tiles (for an upcoming project), etc...  Perfect...

Then I went by DI and found a WHOLE lot more jars!   Now I have my glue sticks, pens, pencils, erasers, dremel bits, scratch pad, tape, thumbtacks and more right at my fingertips!  Now I just have to close the shade and hope my almost 3 year old doesn't get too curious until I can find a slightly more out of reach place (right now she'll have to climb on a chair, then table to reach them, but I'm sure she won't mind...).  This is my version of spring "cleaning".  I would like to put labels on them, but rather than etch I think I'll add some chalkboard paint so I can move the insides around still!

ANOTHER blog!!!

That's what my husband will say when he hears about this.  I have my (private) family blog, my EXTENDED family blog (that no one updates so I might just cancel it) and then my cake blog.  We've moved every year for the last 9 years with another move on the horizon for this summer. Once we get settled in this next move we should be there for 5-6 years.  So I'll be ramping up my cakes to a full blown business!  I'm excited for that and LOVE making cakes.  At the same time I just LOVE crafts, and while the cakes are a great outlet I enjoy all sorts of other crafts as well.  I like to keep myself occupied (not that I'm not busy with 4 kids).  I tend to get on kicks and focus on one kind of craft style for weeks/months at a time, and then switch to something else.  My husband lost his job in June and in July we moved into his parent's basement.  We're very lucky that they were generous to let us live there.  But we moved from a 3600 sq/ft house to 2 bedrooms in a 50 year old house.  All 6 of us!  I didn't mind squeezing into the 2 rooms but the loss of MY room (not bedroom, my office/craft room) was hard.  SO I claimed a corner of the downstairs living room.  Here is what it looks like!

All of those boxes are different crafts supplies and stuff.  Actually 1/3+ is cake stuff, 3 boxes are crocheting (yarn takes up a lot of space) and the rest are each different craft stuff.  So far my crafts/talents/supplies include:
Cake decorating pans/supplies/tools/airbrush
Cookie cutters and cupcake stuff
Crochet supplies tools
Kids crafting stuff
Stamps
Scrapbooking paper/stuff (not much, since I don't scrapbook, it's just for other crafts, like baby announcements etc...)
Paints and supplies
Dremel and bits
Party supplies
Cross stitching
Pictures/albums and negatives
Sewing machine, fabric and thread
Xyron machine
and finally Misc...
And here is my desk and computer