Sunday 24 February 2013

Scrapbooking: Are you a nesty-crafter like me?


Hi, hi.

I have an office/craft room. And I'm very grateful for it.

I can sit at my desk all day, occasionally looking out on those hills we were chatting about last week or overseeing the comings and goings of my neighbours, and then, when I want to leave my work [or my 'mess'. Or both] behind I can close the door behind me and forget all about it.

And yet ...
... there are times when, despite my craft room having everything in one place, and a desk to work at, I just don't want to craft in there. Partly because I associate that room with working [rather than crafting-for-fun] and partly because ...

... there's no TV, sofa or James in there. And I like all those things.

So that's when the great crafty-exodus begins and I gather up:
  • my box of 12x12 papers;
  • my letter stickers;
  • my journaling cards;
  • my crafting-bag-of-many-compartments [filled with embellishments, ribbons, 'bits' etc];
... and
  •  my tool tote, because without scissors, my tape-gun, craft knife, punches, 3D foam and more ... all of the other ingredients remain just that: ingredients. When what I'm trying to achieve is a finished dish: a cooked scrapbook page:
And ideally it all needs to be within reaching distance, just an arm's length away ... and those are the days when my living room takes on the appearance of something akin to Tracy Emin's 'My Bed' art installation. [Only with fewer dirty tissues ... and more scraps of patterned paper!].
And I begin to look like some crazy crafty bird in a papery nest.

Well ... if the cap fits eh?

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The ribbon and many of the embellishments I've used on this page are available in the Aztec Deco 1 kit which is part of The Couture Collection range of creativity kits in my shop:

I love the ribbon design [so much so I based the colour-scheme of the whole page around it] and it's not something I've seen around and about anywhere else so I quickly snapped up enough for myself and to share around in kits as soon as I spotted it!

Like I say, you can find it in either in Aztec Deco 1 or in the Aztec Deco 2 embellishment sets.

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So, where do you craft?
  • Do you craft in your day-to-day living space?
  • And if you do ... are you an expert at balancing your projects on your lap and making a nest around yourself?
  • Or do you craft from up high, tucked neatly away in your purpose built IKEA-laden craft-room?
  • And if you do, do you escape from time to time to sneakily craft on your lap while watching the latest episode of Call the Midwife? [As much as I love watching Scandi-noir dramas ... I can't possibly read the subtitles and craft at the same time ... so any craft-a-longs can only happen with English language shows!]
Let's see how many of you are nesty-crafters/ crafty-nesters too ...

Julie

18 comments:

  1. I do all my physical crafting in my craft room - so I don't have to tidy it up when I stop

    But my digi crafting I take all over the place - often my local cafe and when I'm abroad hotel foyers

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  2. Oh yes this rings some bells:) I hubby comments on my 'nests' on the sofa. Usually it's wooly/sewing stuff down stairs only. All paper crafty stuff has to be upstairs in the craft room as I am far too messy otherwise.....and since I have taken over the box room the hubby has to work downstairs on the living room table....

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  3. I sit in my little garret amidst mountains of stuff... Venturing out for the odd cup of tea!

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  4. Gorgeous page Julie, I used to craft in my craft room upstairs, but hubs missed me, so now I have a huge desk in the lounge, but I still spend most of my time crafting on the living room floor.
    C xx

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  5. I craft in a corner of our bedroom but would much rather have a corner of the living room but with two little boys (6 months and 4 years old) there is no way I could leave my bits n pieces lying out in the living room so the corner of our bedroom it is AND yes it's like a very small corner of Ikea too :)

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  6. I have a scrap room which is soon to be turned into a nursery so I now prefer to craft on the dining room table - but the husband does get annoyed with the mess and lack of a place to eat his tea! My scrap room is lonely though and cold in the winter :(

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  7. I do my sticking upstairs, but you should see my place in front of the tv too - I have a sofa full of knitting and magazines and sewing and more knitting. Yes, it's definitely nest-like!

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  8. Beautifully crafted page... did you make it in your room or in the living room? :) I like how it reflects the business of the photo/subject... My craft space is in a corner of my bedroom. It does get really messy sometimes but if I want to sleep I have to clean up a bit!

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  9. I am lucky enough to have a craft room so do all my papercrafting upstairs. I sew in front of the tv....I learnt long ago that dogs and paper on the sofa do not mix lol

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  10. I craft on the dining room table - I can see the tv in the lounge from there but I do most of my cardmaking and beadwork on a laptray from the sofa. My supplies are supposed to live upstairs in the boxroom but so much of it has strayed downstairs now!! Mr P is often heard to yell 'since when did this cupboard/drawer become a craft cupboard/drawer'

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  11. this is a lovely page Julie. I craft in the dinning room with the doors open into the living room, where i can watch telly and join in on the conversations. The downside is that we have to eat in the kitchen because the dining room table is always covered! DH has suggested using a room upstairs but i don't like the idea of being up there out of the way x

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  12. What a totally beautiful page, Julie! Such soft and pretty papers and snippets all artfully arranged. And love the image of you as a bird in a papery nest :). I scrap in lots of different places too, as I rarely have a stretch of time in which to do it - I guess I am more 'on the wing' than 'in the nest' :).

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  13. Love the birds and buttons on this page.

    I usually craft on the dining table, all on my lonesome. But if I have a batch of invites to make or something else 'samey' then I'll take the bits to the sofa. If I want to spend time with the husband then I do my blogging and online stuff in the front room while we watch tv in the evening!

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  14. Hi Julie, I am lucky enough to have a craft room where I spend ALOT of time but I like to hand sew while watching the TV with hubs when he is home. My family call my craft room 'my nest' complete with princess bed for my dog! Your page is gorgeous, and I like the new picture of you.

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  15. Blimey I thought I was alone in my nesting and spreading the crafting all over my flat. There is a craft room of sorts which needs sorting, then the dining room table but then there is my comfy sofa and cat piled around with scrapbooking, knitting, reading etc. It is truly a lovenest of crafting here,
    Jo xxx

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  16. I definitely used to be a living room nesty-crafter (in front of the TV) but I started to feel a bit out of control with more and more stash accumulating around me. So I took up crochet for nights in front of the telly and do most of my papercrafting on the dining room table in front of the laptop watching catch up TV!

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  17. Beautiful page. I have one, only one, question - do your 12x12 papers really all fit in one, just one, box?!!!!! You know where I scrap - the scrappin' cabin, but I have taken to using the dining table for my Project Life pages....to my great shame, I ended up suggesting an impromptu balcony 'picnic' for Sunday lunch yesterday, because I hadn't finished my PL spreads and didn't want to clear everything off the table until I'd finished.....proper food, of course, but moved al fresco because of my scrappy needs ;)

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  18. Might be a bit weird, but I like to craft in the kitchen...in the middle of the night. We've got one of those fluorescent bar light thingies, so it's nice an bright in there and because of the time, it's perfectly quiet (so I can mutter about paper to my hearts content!)

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