Taking over the dining room!

This is nothing new. Ask any of my stitching friends and they will tell you that it is a universal problem. LOL!

I think my hubby has given up on telling me not to take over the whole house! LOL! He kept saying that, for as long as he has space to do his work, read his books and be able to watch TV without having to step or avoid any of my stuff, he’s happy! LOL!

He reminds me, from time to time, that I have a whole craft room, yet my things are everywhere! LOL!

Well, when I was only doing cross stitch, crocheting, scrapbooking and making cards, the space in the craft room was sufficient. But, when I started making bags and quilts, I realised that my 10’x 11’craft room is no longer enough! LOL!

I needed space to lay out my fabrics and battings, and since my craft room is an L-shape, I kept banging onto the shelves and my 3 sewing machines just couldn’t all fit into the room. So, I slowly started inching my way into the dining room! LOL!

I also prefer to work downstairs at the dining room because I want to be as close as possible to where my hubby is watching TV, and the dining room is just perfect! The dining table is also the place where my son does his homework and workbook, and so, I can keep an eye on him while I work on my bags or quilts. It might not be quality time, but, at least we are together, instead of me being cooped up all alone in the craft room, while hubby watches late night movies on TV and I get to properly supervise my son as he does his work. I also get to multi-task as I can get the cooking going while my embroidery machine is running. *grin*

I did some reorganising of the dining room last weekend, and re-oriented the dining table to make more room for my son to do his work and my hubby can bring his laptop down should he wants to do some work and still keep my company as I work on my projects.

When before this I would be sharing the dining table with my son to do my cutting, sometimes eating into his work space with my fabrics and rulers, this time, I created some sort of a nook for measuring and cutting, which is away from the dining table.

My son likes this new layout, and my hubby is happy that things are a little bit neater and more organised. I now have a proper place for my rulers which I bought at Sakura, and had placed it at the top of my cutting board. Makes looking for my rulers easier now, when before this, I kept losing them under all the fabrics and my son’s books! LOL!

I also went out to buy some plastic containers to organise my big collection of embroidery threads, and I like it that now I can see all the colours that I have at a glance.

I also have less problems with my threads getting entangled as they are now separated by colours. I don’t have all 40 threads getting entangled together, but, instead now only the threads that are put in the same container gets entangled. It’s less of a headache. Now I just need to find a way on how to get my threads to tangle less. Any suggestions?

Here’s the corner for my Janome sewing machine.

I still need to organise the back portion of the machine where I had just dumped some of my UFOs. I am still thinking how to do it.

On the dining table, I still have my embroidery machine, but at least it looks neater and I have direct view of my son as he does his work.

I hope this arrangement stays neat for as long as possible, though you and I know that that is almost impossible! LOL! But, I am sure my hubby thinks otherwise! LOL!

Thanks for your patience, Dia! Hugs!

A first page done last! *grin*

Yup! This is supposed to be the first page for the All Day Outing at KLCC, but I couldn't get myself in the mood to write the journal first when I started out on the scrapbook after such a very very long break from doing scrapbook.

I finally completed this page tonight, and I am happy to 'show it off' to all my `loyal' readers. *smile*

The page is pink, my favourite colour *wink*, and I had used wrapping paper for half of the background which I cut out along the motifs, instead of taking it in total, and mixed it with a pink squiggle page on white for the other side.

The "OUTING" letterings are stamped and cut out using Technique Tuesday's Boulder Skyline Clear stamps which I bought during my trip to Singapore last year. Finally I get to use my clear stamps! In fact, with this latest project in scrapbooking, I am finally using most of the scrapbook stash I bought in Singapore. Now it makes my trip really worth it! LOL!

Some of the cliparts are from PcCrafter. Oohh! I simply love their graphics, and they are so easy to download. I get them instantly! No waiting for the CD to arrive! I can use them immediately for my projects, no matter how late I am up working on a project while the creative juice is still flowing! LOL!

Aiman's 1st scrapbook page!

About 2 weeks ago, Aiman was feeling restless and bored at home as he was home earlier than usual as I had taken leave to run some personal errands, and so decided to pick him up from school too and bring him home. I thought it would be a good idea for us to spend some extra time together.

So, when he complained about being bored, and since I was about to sit down and do some scrapbooking on our outing to KLCC Park the week before, I decided this would be a good time to get him interested in scrapbooking.

I gave him a box of images and cliparts to choose from, a box of photos from the outing and asked him what he would want to write. He had no help from me what so ever in the layout of the page, nor did I tell him what to write.

I only helped him to cut out the alphabet 'KLCC', as that was what he wanted me to do, using my sizzix die cutter, and corrected his grammar for the write-up. He had typed the story himself. I helped him put in the clipart as the background for his write-up as he has yet to learn that in his ICT class in school.

Not bad, huh, for his first ever scrapbook page? *wink*

And here, below are his mummy's scrapbook pages.......all 5 of them! LOL! *grin*

It's only a ONE DAY OUTING, but it took me 5 pages to tell the story! LOL! I just had to capture all the moments of fun that he had at the park! I still have one more page to make! *wink*

Once the last page is done, it's time to go back to my stitching which I had abandoned for the last 2 weeks!