Welcome to my studio.

We crop weekly here, and often serve sour apple martinis, which we have dubbed "scrappletinis" in honor of our tradition.

I have been scrapbooking since 1997, and my space has evolved from a bin in a spare bedroom to giant mess in many forms as I moved 4 times since then. When we bought our current house, one of the requirements was a space I could use as a scraproom.

A year after we moved in, I signed up for a class at Big Picture Scrapbooking called "Get Organized Be Inspired", and spent 13 weeks working on organizing and decorating my studio. I'm in love with the results! I got so many great ideas from all the other scraprooms posted on the internet, esp at 2peas, that I am setting this site up in hopes that it is helpful to someone else. I hope you enjoy the tour! If you have any questions, e-mail me and I will be glad to answer them!

Click on images to see larger.

Wall Shelving System: Pottery Barn Wayne Shelving, purchased on mega-clearance Jan '07. No longer available.

Wall Color "Seacliff"

Pottery Barn-inspired typography: Pottery Barn was selling "typography cards", which were basically cardstock with individual letters printed on them. The ads showed various wall displays with holiday-themed words and background papers. I created this in response to that, spelling the word "Scrapbook Girl".

Room for friends: I host weekly crop nights with neighbors and friends, and have my room set up to accomodate myself and 4 guests. If we have more, I have some card tables I can set up in the area in front of this wall.

Comfortable chair: one thing I envied in the rooms I viewed was a comfortable seat. I had decorated the baby's nursery in similar colors, and recently replaced the glider with a little table and chairs in his room. The color really didn't fit anywhere else in my house, but was perfect in my room.

 Built-in wall shelving in middle-left of photo: purchased 16" laminate shelving from Home Depot for approximately $130. Had them trim all pieces to 13.5" to accomodate Cropper Hopper Vertical Storage which is 13.25". Hired a friend to build these, he decided to do 4 separate book cases with shelves resting on shelves rather than screwed to the sides, for extra stability since paper is so heavy. He built them and then stood them up and caulked them together for a nice trimmed finish. The bottom 4 rows are 15" tall, the top 3 are 6"tall.

I love ribbon and use it a lot, so I decided to display it openly and fairly close to my workspace. The middle shelves on the right house my larger xyron machines, scanner, and pazzle. I arranged the bottom shelves to accomodate my totes which I take when I go to crops.

Apron: I embellished my Scrapbook Girl apron with ribbon and bling and beaded trims. So cute!

 Office Furniture: Lucky break at an Office Depot sidewalk clearance deal. Took the already-assembled floor samples of a discontinued line of furniture for 60-70% off retail. Had a few minor blemishes, dents and scrapes which were well worth the savings. The bottom cabinet of this desk houses my wide format Epson R1800 printer and accessories. Journaling Nook: One of our class projects was to gather our journaling supplies into a basket. I thought these two small shelves on my desk were perfect for this since they're in reach. I have pens, small alpha stamps, quotation booklets and rub-on sets, as well as handmade cards, stored here. My quicKutz binders and tool are located on the top shelf above these.

On top of the bookshelf is the memorial board I did for my mother's funeral, along with a childhood portrait of her. She passed away in January 2007.

On top of the "library" in the next photo is the memorial board I did for my dad's funeral in August 2005, along with 2 paintings he did when he was younger. The blue vase is a family item.

The bookshelf houses my empty albums, works in progress, and photo storage binders.

The tote on the bottom left was a lucky find at Big Lots, I use it to transport my pazzle.

The microwave belonged to my dad. I put it here thinking we'd do popcorn in the scraproom, but we've never actually used it. The mini-fridge was my requested mother's day gift last year. It holds lots of diet mountain dew, bottled water, girlie beers, carrots and cheese sticks. These are directly across from my desk where I sit to scrap, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to dress them up with wall rub-ons.

I framed 3 sheets of the patterned paper I used throughout the room and hung them on the wall. The paper is from the "Tres Chic Peacock" collection by Stacy Claire Boyd. When I decided to use it to decorate my room, I searched online and found a site selling packs of each design at wholesale, so I would have plenty to play with for projects. I ended up using a LOT!

The photo on the door was an expensive mistake. I was ordering enlargements from our wedding online, trying to save money, and accidentally ordered the ones that had not be color corrected. Oops! The photos are too dark, but they make happy scraproom decor. The print on the right is of a painting by my MIL Val Grant, which she was working on when he visited her on our honeymoon in Turks & Caicos. More wall rub-ons here as well, I had a lot of inventory left over from when the company I was with sold these.
Iris Chests with Patterned Paper:
Someone had the great idea to line their Iris chests with patterned paper. I know how to take a good idea when I see it! I couldn't believe what a difference it made. I was wanting to get rid of my Iris chests because they look so cluttered, but now they look fabulous. I did not adhere the patterned paper, I simply set it inside the drawers and put the contents up against it. I do not access the drawers frequently, so it works for me. For the wider drawers I pieced together pieces of paper to go the entire drawer width. If I wanted to make this more permanent, I would run the patterned paper through my xyron and adhere it to the insides of the drawers.		 Buckets: Target puts these in their dollar spot periodically in various colors or patterns. I bought a bunch of them when they did these, knowing I planned to use those colors, not knowing what I'd use them for. Now I am storing all sorts of things in them, from chipboard sets to embellishments. I like the pop of color they give the room. Photo Boxes: This was a wonderful, inexpensive update to the room. It made such a difference to use all white boxes. I bought them whenever they were on sale at Michael's, AC Moore, or Hobby Lobby, for $1.50 or $1.99. I have all sorts of things stored in them, including photos, memorabilia, paints, fibers, eyelet tools, etc. Stuff I still use, but not that often.
Workspace: I actually scrapbook on the "executive desk" that came with the furniture I purchased. It is larger than a folding table, and has a middle drawer plus a larger drawer on each side. I have my cardstock scraps stored in file folders in the left drawer, and my tool tote in the other drawer, which helps me keep my desk cleaner, and also helps me find my stuff to go to a crop elsewhere. Layout Display: one of our class projects was to develop a system to display recently completed layouts in our room. I had this pinboard which was perfect, so I hung binder clips from the pushpins, and the layouts from the binder clips. I was not enthused about the project at first, but now I'm loving it, and my family enjoys coming in and seeing their layouts. I have a space for each of the kids and will make sure I always have the most recent layout of each kid showing. Tags: I used 1.5" metal-rimmed tags from Office Max. I ran the patterned paper through the printer, and used a 1.25" circle punch to punch out the labels. I then used my circle coluzzle to cut out the brown cardstock to mat the paper on. I ran both circles through the xyron, stuck them together, and stuck them on the tags. Then I used my crop-o-dile to punch a hole, and tied ribbon through that. I adhered the tags to my storage containers using pop dots.
   
Just a closeup of my PB-inspired typography letters.    
Ode to Stacy: I loved the jelly beans pictured in Stacy Julian's scraproom, and she is such an inspiration to me. I came across this cut glass bowl that belonged to my mother. The lid had been broken and clumsily glued back together, and several times I nearly threw it away. Now the bowl has a perfect home in my scraproom. I have starburst jelly beans in it, they're so yummy! My desk drawer with the tote of essential tools in it. This helps me keep my desk neat, I know where all my essentials are, and it's super easy to pack for a crop. Inspirations clipboard - one of our class projects.
 
Cute plaque I found at Kohl's. I had bought the G at Archiver's a while back and realized this small spot of wall where the beam is would be perfect for it. I ran the paper through the xyron, adhered it to the G, then used an exacto knife and sanding disc to cut and sand away the excess. Then I thought this little magnetic chalkboard with hooks would be perfect also. My next project is some magnets, which we were supposed to do for the class but I was traveling that week.  
   
My first "scraproom". I didn't think to document at the time, this is the only photo I have. In the foreground you can see my mess. It was so pathetic, but I was so proud of it! We used the spare room to store tons of junk, and one corner was for my scrapbooking. This was after I had been scrapping for two years.    

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