Tag Archives: Organizing

My Art Studio!

Good morning!

I am so excited to be posting this, this morning!

I started cleaning my “art studio” in my house, last Saturday! I thought it would be something that I could just take a weekend and get it done, BUT what it actually ended up being was the entire weekend, and every available hour all week, and part of another weekend to get this place under control!!

I went through every box, cubby, file, container, bucket, and every nook and cranny to make sure I touched EVERYTHING!!! Making sure that every single thing that I came across would be allowed to stay in my creative space!!

I am happy to report that it is now FINISHED!!! Whoo! Hoo!! 😉 Even though I realize that this room may stay this pristine for all of 5 minutes, at least I have photographic evidence that it was done, at one moment in time!! 😉

Please click on any picture to show larger. 🙂

Art Studio

Art Studio 2

Art Studio 4

Art Studio 5

Art Studio 6

Art Studio 8

Art Studio 9

Art Studio 12

Art Studio 14

Art Studio 13

Art Studio 15

Art Studio 16

The last thing that I want to do in this room, decorating-wise is to skirt the tables so that all of my miscellaneous clutter…er, I mean supplies are hidden. In the meantime, I am just so excited to get in here and start creating again!!

Here is to a FABULOUS day!! 😉

Signature Line

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

Getting Some Big Jobs Done!

Good evening!

Has it really been more than a week since I have last posted! EEK! Sorry about that! I find that I am a little behind in my Brave Girls’ Soul Restoration II class, and am seriously trying to get caught up before the next lesson and assignment comes out this next Tuesday, but that is not what I want to talk about tonight!

What I want to share with you, this evening, is a couple of REALLY BIG jobs my sweetie and I are doing around our place this weekend.

First off, my sweetie is busy building us a garden in the little backyard of our condo! I am SOOOOO EXCITED to be able to harvest our very own fresh salad fixings from a garden where we grew everything ourselves. I am not exactly sure what all we are going to grow, but so far I know we are going to both red and green leaf, and Romain lettuces, spinach, both cherry and grape tomatoes, and some herbs – cilantro, oregano, rosemary, and basil. Doesn’t that just sound delicious!! I can’t wait for our first harvest!! I will totally make sure to keep you posted on that, but in the meantime here are some pics of my sweetie finishing up the building of and filling of our new raised garden bed:

The measurements of our new garden bed is 4′ x 8′, and alth0ugh it is not as large as the garden we will have when we have our little farm, I figured it would be great practice!! We are planting our veggies sometime this week, and I will make sure to share pictures then too!!

Here is my handsome sweetie, and garden-builder!! Isn’t he adorable?? He just kept saying what a great feeling it is to be working out in the “yard”!! I just LOVE seeing him so happy!!

So, while my sweetie was busy building our new garden bed, I was busy on a big house project myself; purging, cleaning, and organizing the art studio!! That is such a GINORMOUS JOB, that it is going to have to take more than just one day to do!!

I had stuff squirreled away in every single nook and cranny in this room. My goal today was to get EVERYTHING pulled out, put as many like items together as possible, and then go through as much as I could while sorting everything into multiple bags: confidential recycle, donating, garbage, and put away all of the rest!

The long table on the right of this picture is not normally in this room, but my sweetie brought this in for me so that I would have a place to do all of my sorting! Thank you, Love! 😉

As you can see, I still have a LOOOOOONG way to go!!

I am excited to get this room completed, but I am going to need a little bit of help!! My sweetie has agreed to give me some moral support tomorrow, as I do the hard work of really paring down!! I want to get rid of the old to make way for creating the new!! This space is going to be a HUGE part of that future!! When I think about that, it makes getting rid of stuff kind of exciting!! 😉

So, before I start again in the morning, I am going to spend the evening hanging out with my sweetie!

Here is to a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

 If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

Getting Over Overwhelm!

Good morning!
I know that I do not normally post in the morning, but I had some free time this morning, and decided to not procrastinate any longer! I know that I have been MIA for a few days, and I have to confess I have just really let myself get overwhelmed with my normal daily life.

Let me back up a little bit:

The other day when I was so worried that I was going to have our place flooded, I sat at work with that thought in my head for almost 8 hours. Over and over, I kept making a mental note of what things I HAD to have saved from the first floor of the house. What both surprised, and disturbed me to know is that there isn’t much that I care about losing down here. Besides my sweetie and my two dogs, I have a chest that belonged to my grandpa – he was an artist, and it is where he kept his art pens, that I would want saved, and the other thing would be my books that live downstairs. Not all of those, but a few that I consider “friends”, I would feel sick if I lost those too.

What does that mean in the big scheme of things???

Well, what kept going through my mind as I was thinking of these “HAD TO HAVE” items, is that maybe I have surrounded myself with things that I thought were bringing me happiness, when in reality, they might just be taking up space in both my home and in my life. I don’t want things that just take up space, I want things that add joy and value to my life. Even in saying that I know that things will never really do that, only people and experiences will bring me joy and value, but I live here. This is the place that should rise up to meet me when I get home. I started to wonder if that was what was making me feel run down and overwhelmed in my life.

I literally spent all weekend wallowing about this, and pining for the life I might have been if I would have not been focusing on unimportant “things” (yes, it was a very deep weekend for me!)  This morning I woke up and decided I was done wallowing. Today is that day that I start taking some kind of action to clean it all out, clear it all out, and decide what I am going to surround myself with from now on. No more unconscious living for me, thank you very much.

So, this morning as I sit in my living room, writing all of this down, I am surrounded by all of our Christmas containers, both old and new. I am working on getting all of the Christmas decorations cleaned out and re-organized into new, un-mangled bins/drawers  so that I can help make Christmas decorating more fun, less chore. It may take me all week to get this all put away, but as in all things baby steps, baby steps.

In the meantime, I have also created a daily chore list for my sweetie and I, so we can get make the cleaning of this place a little more manageable as well. No ladies, chore charts are not just for your children any longer!! 😉 Before I zip off to work this morning, I just thought I would share this new chore chart with you!! 😉

Daily:

  • Make the bed
  • Cycle the dishes through the dishwasher
  • Wipe down stove top, counters, and microwave, if needed
  • Take the garbage out, if needed
  • Wipe down the dining room table
  • Straighten the sofa
  • Clean the dog’s water bowl, if needed
  • Fill the dog’s water bowl
  • Pack lunches
  • Empty lunch bags as soon as get home so it is ready for next days’ lunch
  • Cycle laundry, if needed
  • Remove garbage from car if needed
  • 15 minutes picking up after ourselves before heading up to bed

Whew!! between the two of us, we should be able to manage that pretty well!! and I bet it will make a nice difference on how well this place looks. I will keep you posted!!! 😉

Have a FABULOUS day! :-)

Where Did the Day Go?

Good evening!

My sweetie just came in and asked me if I knew what time it was, and when he told me it was past 10 my bottom jaw almost hit the ground! IT JUST COULDN’T BE!?!?!?

But, apparently it is!!

I got home late this evening because I had to take a huge bag of stuff back to The Craft Warehouse this evening – apparently, I had momentarily lost my mind this weekend, and gave myself a insane crafting supply shopping spree!! 😉

Anyway, that took me almost 2 HOURS, all by itself!! Then I grabbed dinner, got home, watched a quick show with my sickie hubby, and then went straight to the art studio to continue progress on getting the room clean!! It is soooo close!! I think I will have about one more trip to the thrift store, and a couple of more trips out to the recycle bin, and I will be officially DONE!!! I CAN’T WAIT!!! 😉

I know I had told you that I would get a couple of pics posted tonight, but I let time get away from me, and pics of any kind are just not going to get done this evening!! I am sorry!!

I will have them posted tomorrow evening!! FOR SURE! HANDS DOWN! I will make sure to post them AS SOON AS I GET HOME FROM WORK!!!

Anyway, I am soooo excited about the next chapter of my life – WHATEVER THAT IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE!!! I am going to take my tired self to bed so that I can dream about the rest of my week!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉

A New Evening!!

Good evening!

For most of the day today, I have been frantic whirlwind of cleaning, organizing and purging!! My art studio/office is starting to look better, but it seems that as soon as I clean up one pile, two more show themselves!! Those sneaky little pests!!! 😉 I did not take any pictures this evening, however, I’m confident that I will be able to in a few days, and the room will be completely done!!! WHEW!!

In the process of cleaning, purging and organizing my office/art studio, I am learning to realize just how important a safe place to create is for me. This is ABSOLUTELY priceless!! I am excited to see where my imagination can take me, and I know that having a clean, organized, clutter free space that truly represents my personality is something that EVERY GIRL should have! Especially, if one is trying to tap into one’s inner artist! I can honestly tell you that I don’t know where I will end up in 1 year, 5 years, 10 or 20, but I CAN tell you, that it is GOING TO BE GOOD!!

I want to give a shout out to my husband, Jason!! There were many times today, and this whole weekend, where I have been completely overwhelmed and needed either some moral support, cheerleading, or just someone with a stronger will then I to physically remove some items from our place that just needed to get donated or recycled!! Jason has done that for me, as he has on many occasions!! I love you, Sweetie, and I could not have gotten nearly as far as I have without your help! YOU ARE MY ROCK! You make my life so much better, and I still thank God that you are in my life. I TRULY am one lucky girl, and I OWE YOU SOOOOO BIG TIME!!! Thank you, Jay!

As for this week! I am not sure exactly what to expect yet, but priority number one is to get this art studio/office finished!!! Mamma needs a place to create!!

Work will be busy, but really, when is it not?? I also need to make sure that I get a couple of weeks on the calendar for our vacation! We are planning on camping with my sister’s family at the end of the month, but even that time has not been approved just yet! So, I will have to do some negotiating with some of my co-workers on that!

I am wanting to take a Zumbe class! I was planning on starting that next week, but I was burning my candle at both ends, still am, and that is going to have to wait a little while longer!! 😉 That is part of the reason for uncluttering my home so that I have more time and energy for doing the things I want to do – like Zumba!!

Have I told you that I am still doing my Artist’s Way morning pages, and weekly artist’s date with myself. I am, and I am still loving it! I was surprised to see that I was on week 9 of that process!!  The old Christina really never did very well with following through on things like this. This new Christina can’t imagine never not doing it!! They have radically changed the way that I look at my life, which in turn has changed me!! For the better!! I am so much happier than I was in the past, and I have reconnected with my creator, and now have hope for a different future than the dismal one I was settling for!! now, if only this new Christina could just lose some weight, and figure out world peace, all would be DIVINE wouldn’t it??? LOL! 😉

Until I speak with all tomorrow…

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉

 

Art Studio Reality Check!

Good evening!!

Wow! Where do I start??? I have a lot going on, right now, but I wanted to share about an EMBARRASSING secret that I have been living with, that is becoming a bigger and bigger obstacle on my path to to my creative self!!!

This evening I spent a little time in my “Art Studio”. I say art studio in quotes because my space that can become my dedicated art space AKA Art Studio! Well, let me show you some pics:

I am ABSOLUTELY MORTIFIED of this CATASTROPHIC MESS!!!

(Click to enlarge)

and just take a gander at my work table!

(Click to enlarge)

How the heck am I supposed to get any CREATING done in this HEAP of a room!!

AAAAAAAACK!!

My craft room has become a problem for me, as you can see from the ATROCIOUS pics above!! So, I have decided to host my own makeover intervention with myself!! This whole transformation is being brought on because I have been spending some time reading the latest publication of Where Women Create. I want to have a room comparable to one of these women’s FABULOUS art studios!! With interesting and fun storage idas, everything organized with their own style stamp on their spaces!! I just know it will make any art I create that much sweeter!! Ok, that might be wishful thinking on my part, but it really would make it be a space that I would LOVE to spend time in, and not a space that I cringe to!!!

So, more to come! I will definitely keep you all posted!! 😉 Over the next week or few, depending on how long it takes I am going to be taking some progress pics to show you what progress I am making on turning this room into a place of BEAUTY and CREATIVITY!!! This may take a while!! 😉

In the meantime,

Have a FABULOUS evening!!! 😉