Craft Room Progress

Now that we've moved the girls into the larger basement area, this left their room that looked like this:

To now look like this.  It was an awful catch all, junk room.

I decided I was going to clean it up and claim it as my craft room.

It's not finished yet, but the progress is coming along nicely.  Especially now that I have Fear Factory masks I can bring home and paint.  I have a space for that!

A Rare Day Alone.

In the name of days that can be selfishly taken all for myself, I think there would be a few ways I would choose to spend it.  First and foremost I say set me on a beach, or poolside, with palm trees and a really good book and that's all I really need to declare the day perfect.

Another way would be on an adventure with my family, exploring something or somewhere new and just enjoying a "first time" experience with the people who are mine.

I would also take a day of creating.  I have no end of projects that I want to work on: let me get my hands into a new cake design (here or here), or onto the house that I'm turning into a witch house, or how about a new painting?  I've dabbled with some watercolor recently, but have two ideas for a canvas that I really want to get rolling.  I also have three makeups rolling around in my head and a brand new airbrush that I really want to play with.  I have a couple of sewing projects (tweaks, because let's face it, most of my "sewing" happens with a hot glue gun) that are piled up next to my sewing machine as well.

I found myself with a rare opportunity to be home alone today, and I knew that I did not want to waste it with errands and cleaning like I usually do when I find myself with free time.  Free time is such a relief when you feel you have so much to catch up on, but frankly, today I wanted to catch up on the things that make me happy.

The biggest and most urgent project I have pending is my happy space.  My space where I will make all my creative magic happen.  My space where I can lock the door and all my supplies will be left untouched by children thieving hands.  My space that is all my favorite things and colors and I didn't have to compromise with The Man on the decoration of, and use of space in (though normally we decorate well together so I'm not actually complaining about that, it's just my space).  With all the projects that I want to work on, the one thing I'm missing is a great space to do it in.

Since we moved the three big girls out of the room they shared in the basement (here), and spread them out in the bigger portion of the basement (because teenage girls need room), The Man graciously turned over the now empty room for my use (we'll ignore his pile of stuff taking up a full wall of one side of the room... for now).  The room has been mine for over a year now, but it's just been filling up with clutter.  It's become the catch all of things we don't know where to put.  Not to mention all my different art supplies, and the lack of any type of organization bins or shelves or anything.  Also, kids.  Kids who use said supplies and then leave them lying wherever they feel like... all over the floor and counter.

Plus, the paint in the room is still catered to 9 and 10 year old pre-teen girls.

The room is more of a stress pit for me than a creative, safe haven.

So today, in my rare day off, the only errand I ran was for chick-fil-a lunch and Coke while I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.  I have a very clear vision of one wall that has a counter attached to it.  I'm using the leftover gray paint from when we painted the office (gray being my favorite color) and will paint the wall gray, covering the pre-teen rockstars who loved music so much, and will hang my giant antique mirror on it.  This will become my makeup space.  West gave me an incredible makeup box for christmas so all I need is a stool for my models to sit in and an air compressor and that space will be set up prime for makeups.

But while I'm thinking about it, I feel I also need a shelf along the top of the wall so I can display all our wigs and hats on styrofoam heads.

I plan on creating zones throughout the room for my different projects.  The makeup zone will be the perfect beginning.

Also, I've watched an embarrassingly high amount of Face Off. today.

All in all, my hands are covered in paint and my head is full of makeup daydreams.

I declare today's rare day alone a success.

Over The Weekend.

The summer is coming to a close with school starting for a couple of my kids, and myself, tomorrow, and for the rest of the kids on Wednesday.

The plan over the weekend was to get everything ready for school, which is no small task when you have half a dozen kids, but we got it done.  Done enough, anyway.  There's still a few straggling things I'll have to pick up with the next paycheck, but for the most part we did it.

We got the haircuts done and got the kool-aid dye jobs done.

Tell you what, I can't wait for that fad to be over with.

The kids are excited, and that's a good thing.  We have our first high schooler this year, four middle schoolers, and only one in elementary.

This school year is going to be busy with three different schedules, and who knows what activities, but I have a feeling it's going to be a good one.

Over the weekend The Man and I attended a sushi making class at Rice Basil.  I bought a groupon for the class back in February and had given it to The Man for Valentine's Day.

If you have a spare afternoon, and a groupon, we would highly suggest the class.  We learned a lot about not only the art of making different kinds of rolls, but the art of eating raw fish and not getting sick.

Did you know wasabi counters the raw fish?

I didn't.

I think I should stop skipping it.

Granny Suzann called and invited us to see Footloose at the amphitheater.  So we grabbed the kids who were home and went with her.

"Now we are like Kevin Bacon!" Guardians of the Galaxy Reference.  And also, I can't keep myself from calling it Fooxloose in my mind.  Youth Conference reference (here).

We've taken to rearranging the basement.  We had the three older girls sharing a bigger room, but the bed situation was a little tight on the top bunk.

We also had an issue of keeping the bedroom clean and how exactly to monitor that.

So we've spread the girls out in the larger basement area (pictures to come later) and took all the storage and craft items from the larger area and put it into the room.

I'm claiming it as a craft room.

So this was my project on Sunday morning.  And probably every evening for the rest of the week.  Cleaning out all the junk we piled in there to make room for the girls in the big area, and organizing everything else so I can have my own space.

It's been really frustrating having all my craft stuff out where the kids could get into it whenever they wanted. Things have been lost and broken so many times.  I'm looking forward to having it out of reach.

And I can paint the room whatever color I want.

Coming up this week:
School starts for 7 of the 8 of us
My mom goes through surgery for her breast cancer
Another follow up on my lasik (seeing 20/15!)
Dentist appointments times 6

Also, this week I'm back on my schedule of being a better me:
Running before work (ugh, so early!)
Purposeful study of the gospel every night before bed (starting Talmage's Jesus the Christ (here), I can't wait!)
Flylady routines (here) are back on for cleaning/organinzing

I got thrown off with youth conference but I'm back on it.  I do so much better in life when I have a schedule to follow.  Otherwise, I just get lazy and procrastinate and get nothing done.

Okay, Monday, let's do this.