O.C.D. - Organized Clutter Disorder

Yep, I have it....OCD. Not just in the traditional sense (um, hello? WHO touches door handles in bathrooms anyway?) but also in the sense that I have a tendency to organize my craft room around small clusters of slightly organized entropy. I was recently given a small side-table shelf-like thing that I thought I'd stick up in the craft room to organize my paints. However, upon bringing the thing into the room, I realized that I had nowhere to put it. The knitting section of the room was precariously close to commingling with the sewing part of the room. My beads were out and about all over the place, and the mountains of fabric that I recently bought (for a flippin' STEAL at the 4H fair) had no place to go. A moment of panic ensued. I don't know about anyone else out there, but it's REALLY hard for me to get into a crafting mood if my stuff isn't organized. And it's REALLY hard for me to keep my stuff organized when I flit from one medium to another. It's a vicious cycle, really, and I had to break it. After digging through a closet in the craft room in an effort to conjure more storage space out of it, I found a bag that contained items of clothing that I had been searching for for YEARS. Oh, also the giant, fossilized computer that we moved with us and have never thought of since. Panic gave way to despair. Enter: Our hero, Andrew. Together we measured out two walls for shelves and went off to Lowes. Since we're basically two idiots when it comes to home improvement, the first set of shelves took some time (yeah, never give the slightly OCD person the laser level) but man, are they secure. For the first time ever I used a stud finder and we actually installed the things properly. The room is still a mess as the other set of shelves have to go up (they are small so we had to buy wood and they needed a coat of paint), I bought some chalkboard paint and I'm going to make one wall a chalkboard and the other a corkboard, and I've got a few hooks so I can hang a piece of bamboo somewhere to organize all of my ribbon spools. Yee-haw! Here's a peek at the beautiful and insanely leveled shelves.Ah, don't you feel the sense of calm they instill? Sweet, sweet organization.

Alright, so our summer vacation is rapidly dwindling and we have one more vacation to go before Andrew starts preseason (that sporty boy). Our bestest friends decided to be total poo-heads and move across the country to San Franstupido...WITHOUT US. The downside is we don't have friends that we can call on a moments notice to hang out and do nothing with anymore, the upside is we have a place to stay in San Francisco. Their daughter Sophie needed something for her new room, I thought. So with the help of the stitchettes, here's what I whipped up. I've blogged about this before, so you might remember the tea-stained linen and the linen floss in natural colors. Anyway, here is it all framed up in an easy-peasy picture frame from Michael's. I ditched the glass, and glued the fabric around the back of the frame, then used a staple gun to secure it. Any excuse to use a staple gun, I'll take it;) I'm pretty happy with it and like the summery feel of it. Anyway, it's getting on a plane with me tomorrow...see you in a week!