My scrapbook expo trip Orlando 2015

Oh my what a fun time I had 10 days ago at the expo in Orlando, FL. I had a game plan all along with my crafting friends Veronica and her daughter in law - Jessica. We Arrived at the Gaylord palms convention center early Friday morning. while others were parking we parked the 4runner in the drop off loop and started unloading all of our supplies. 2 wagons and 2 scrapbook totes a cooler and an IKEA raskog cart later we were heading into the crop area of the expo. It was such a long walk from there i was drenched in sweat once we arrive to will call. Veronica and I grabbed our tickets and door prize, while Jessica manned the supplies. Once that was all said and done we promptly went and grabbed our table that Teal, Lisa and her crew saved for us, which was AWESOME!

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We had dinner at the sports bar that was at the bridge between the convention and the resort. Jessica Had loaded tater tots. Veronica had Wings. I had the $16  burger.... and it was DELICIOUS! the best part of that meal is that we didn't have to leave the area to eat. everything was right there. Now when we checked into our room it was a journey to get to the check in desk from the convention side. then our room was on the opposing side of us... we unload our belonging in the room and freshen up. Veronica happens to take her shoes off and the carpet in the room was soaked.... so i called the front desk and they said i had to come to the front desk to get a new room.... Soooo we gather everything back up and head a mile to the front desk get another key and then walk all the way to that room. needless to say i was exhausted by the time i got back to the crop area to begin crafting. Next time i definitely want to go Thursday, Friday and Saturday.   

On day 2 the line to get the tickets for the giveaway between 8-9 am was INSANE! too bad we didn't get to win anything but we had so much fun. At the crops, Jessica won a door prize the first night and the second night Veronica won a raffle prize. And she so graciously shared her prize with us. I hadn't laughed so hard as i have when i am with this amazing group of ladies. Our friend Kari- (we met her on the last day the year before) was there and she joined us on Friday and stayed Saturday to crop the day away and she took some more classes. I had made some whipped cream and cream cheese dip. and i brought fresh strawberries. I also made chicken salad and egg salad and Hawaiian bread rolls. I wanted to not leave the area too much to go get food. so i brought my own. everyone ate some of what i brought which made my heart happy.

 

The crop theme for Saturday was to celebrate and decorate your table to look like your favorite holiday. Our friends Teal and Lisa and her two other friends all decorated their table to 4th of July theme. They ended up wining 2nd place. but they were 1st place winners for me!  

This is Teal she is so bad ass. I love her to pieces. So glad to have seen these bitches.

My slice of heaven on earth.

I would like to share my journey on the making my craftroom. 

I have been a crafter, artist, ever since I could color, cut, and paste things down. I loved being creative no matter the medium. We bought our house from a close friend of mine and slowly have been making changes to it as the budget allows. My husband got to make his "Man cave" with his garage. And a few months later he suggested I put some time into making the front room in our house into a craft room.

I was so happy I could burst. I went hunting on pinterest   www.pinterest.com/curvymik/


I moved all the furniture that we had already, Hand-me downs and things I had kept with me for years. The previous owner of the house had painted everything the terracotta color. Here was my room with the basics I had already.

 I wanted something a bit cooler and brighter so i went with a few choices from home depot 

I went with #2 for the orange wall and #3 for the lighter color. I went with Bher premium latex paint. in Cozumel and Jamaican Bay And I used white as my trim color. My husband had nose surgery so I had to do most of the painting myself. And with an 18 month old runing around it took like 3 weeks to just get this completed.

I started off looking for vintage, industrial, worn look. I wasn't really into the whole cube system that everyone was going with from Ikea. I went looking at thrift stores, goodwill, Our father's closet, the Bargain Barn. All kinds of places before one day heading out to get lunch with my husband we found a habitat for humanity Restore location. We went walking around and then I found this------>

 

I opened one of the drawers to discover a Ethan Allen brand on the inside. Did a good ol' google search and found that this was part of a buffet set from 1976, So I had to get them. $350 and it was mine!  

Then I went on to find some flooring. I found some at another restore location in Orlando.

We laid out the boxes to figure out what pattern we liked and this is the way we decided to place it.


Now that I had my floor in, I slowly moved all my little things in.

I am still not completely happy with this set up so I changed everything in it again. 
I got a paper rack and a triangular grid wall display on casters. I was so excited.!




By the way there are just some of videos of my crafting space on instagram. I do what I can with what I have and this is what I came up with. Hope I have inspired you to go organize and make your craftroom reflect your individuality.


www.instagram.com/jessicawaltoncrafts
 and to take a looking into my personal life head over to my other IG account:
www.instagram.com/curvymik84



Thank you for reading
Jessica

Developing ideas for a Chore chart for the family. =)

Ok so here I am thinking again about how to organize and clutter free my space. I see that I have some old cookie sheets. I am debating whether or not to use chalkboard paint or fabric or spray paint them different colors then line them with decorative paper. 

I want them to look nice in our living room, not too childish, not to tacky.... I know we plan on painting the house in the future... 

anyways beyond brainstorming what materials to use. I have to develop a whole system that everyone can understand, 

I plan on paying each child a daily goverened amount if all requirements have been made to make all the "to dos" to a "done"

There is Daily chores

• Make bed
• Brush teeth
• Give the dog water
• Take out recycle
• Wipe down table after dinner
• Brush and floss teeth Empty Basket
• wipe down counters 

There will be designated days of the week where one area gets focus on, 
weekly chores- 

• Change sheets
• individuals laundry
• clean room top to bottom. 
• Mopping,
• sweeping
• dusting
• vacuuming

seasonal chores

• Empty pantry
• empty pots and pans
• clean office
• clean pool deck
• garage
• go through closet and purge things too small.
• Mom's choice
• Dad's choice

There is also a chance for bonus points for do something extra special for mom or dad

Washing all Kira's sippy cups
picking up dog poop
taking care of kira is dad is on the phone and mom isnt around. 

Kira may get a sheet as well to get her on track with behavior/ potty and nap schd.

Rewards will be priced not according to what it actually costs to do the event but how many days it takes to earn the amount to spend and to learn to save for something special like a trip to a theme park or dinner and movie.

My husband and I have to sit down. Make a chart and value each chore and reward accordingly. I will then make the magnetic board for each child to be able to see what they have accomplished.

Now there is a discipline/behavioral side to this as well. they have 3 strikes each. only 3 allowed a day. then after that money is subtracted from their earnings. 

I plan on using play money to have them count and handle it without it being "real"

I also plan on making one for myself and my husband so we can keep track of our side of the house. 

1. Clean our bathroom
2. wipe down counters
3. empty trash out
4. sweep
5. mop
6. shower
7. tub
8. sinks
9. mirrors
10. Cars/truck

Jessica-Clean Art room
 Jason- Clean Office/computer area, pool/

I look forward to seeing my children grow and learn from this and i hope it becomes as effective as I hope in my head that it will be. 

As you can see I have a lot of sporadic ideas floating around. I need to settle down and make something by Sunday of next week. I want to start implementing this system as soon as i can and still be classy.

 Hopefully I will make things go well, soon


Have a great day !

First time blogger long time artist playing with Mixed media.

 Here are the newest tags I have been making recently. I decided to just play around with my new Tim Holtz Distressed stains. I have Peeled paint, Broken china, and Vintage Photo. I also just got the Metalic distress set. Which I love!

I used Walnut distress ink to age the tags up at bit.
The ribbons are from American Craft and I love the tinsel ribbon!!!
I have been playing around with Washi tape and metal embellishments just trying to see what flows right or not. Trust me I have several tags that I messed up. but all in all its all about trial and error and getting the right consistency to your work.

 Here I stained the ribbon with my new stains and used my crown and friends stamp for the steampunk style tag. and for the rooster, I stained the ribbon and painted the button to look copper. and added the game spinner and just kinda played around with distressing the edges and stamping.

 Here was so brainstorming on what I was going to set up to be my first daughter -Jade's shadow box.  I still feel like I am missing some things I want to put inside the frame before I stick everything down.

 Here is a diaper motorcycle I made for my cousins' 2nd daughter soon arriving. These are so quick and simple. I loved how they just come out! So unique and fun!

 Here I made 2 different mother's day cards. One for Veronica, the purple one and The other for my mother. They loved the cards and I loved making it for them <3

 This card was just to play around with texture and pattern. My daughter soon there after destroyed it. =(

 Baby shower card =)

 My first card ever.... I embossed it as well. I fell in love with embossing when i saw how beautiful of a texture you get.

 Im not a fan of how this came out butttttt trial and error i guess

 still working on my mustang painting.... lol

 quick sketch i made on the cruise to one of the savoinet that was working on the ship. She was such a doll <3

 Here are some quick pages I squeezed in and actually finished.

 My work space is chaos!