Where it all begins........

Welcome to Camp Fire Lady Creates! I would love to share some of my tips and techniques for using many of the wonderful crafting tools and products that I have in my arsenal through pictures and tutorials that may help you to better understand what you yourself can do with them so you can easily create your own works of art.

I have been crafting since I was child and have stole.... er, uh, picked up some interesting ideas and techniques from friends and family and even some that I have experimented with on my own. I am a very visual learner and I hope that showing you through pictures and tutorials, it may make it easier for you to understand and try them out for yourself. Keep in mind that I am not an expert, I just like to share my crafting experiences and experiments with others.

First I should show you where all of these ideas and projects are conceived. When we moved into a three bedroom house, the third bedroom was intended for a guest room for family to come and visit. Well, after waiting 5 years and the guest room sat empty, I decided to make it my own. Behind this door lies an amazing sanctuary where I spend most of my days.......

Are you ready? Hold onto your hats ladies. This may be the dream of everyone who has ever wanted their very own crafting space and it is all mine! This did not happen overnight and don't be discouraged if it doesn't come to you quickly, but I will show you some of the things that keep me organized and keep my supplies close at hand. Ready? I will not keep you in suspense any longer. Here is my work station.....

Actually, it is two work stations so that I can work on two different projects at once and not have to clear my space to start a new project and for when my teenage daughter decides she wants to stretch her creative abilities and sit with me. I will pan around the room so you can see it all. This is my storage of crafting supplies......

Everything is labeled for ease in finding what I need. On the top shelves are some of my 'must have' crafting supplies and machines that I will share with you later.

Some things are behind closed doors. These storage cabinets are from Home Depot. I bought three of them and left the doors off of the one in the middle because the shoe box containers hang over the edge a bit so the doors won't close. The shoebox containers are from Big Lots for around $1.29 each.

I found this little beauty at a yard sale. It holds all of my paints, glues, sprays, and it sits on a cake plate round that spins so that I can turn it around for easy access....

The counter tops for my work area are from Home Depot as well. My DH cut the boards to fit along two of the walls and the excess cut from the boards I use as my work surface so that I don't mess up the counter tops themselves. If you look at the picture on the right, in the far right corner of the counter surface, the ends are supported by bathroom cabinets from Home Depot. I left the drawer off that hides the two bottom shelves and placed matching wicker baskets on the shelves for more storage. If you look closely underneath were the two boards meet in the corner, you will see a two shelf bookshelf from Home Depot that supports the center of the counter tops that has smaller matching wicker baskets for storage. The counters are all screwed into the tops of the shelves to secure it.

Also underneath the counters I have stacked two modules that I found at Michaels on sale for 50% off in their sidewalk sale that store my many papers. Needless to say, I bought a bunch of different modules that you will also see in the pictures. These modules normally run around $20 each. A 40% off coupon is good to use on these too to save you some money.

Here are some more of those modules that I told you about. They are great for storing your supplies to have everything you need at arms reach.

I have posted more pictures of what is in my craft arsenal in the slideshow that is off to the left of this blog posting so I don't bore you with a long post but there are a couple other shelving items that I have that I want to share with you then I am done. I got these on Ebay from a place called Organizemore. The link to their items are here on my blog on the left hand column under My Favorite Links. I paid about $30 each for them and they are sooooo worth it. Check these out...

Yes, that is a Cricut Expressions machine that I will post a tutorial about later. One of my favorite crafting supplies.

And last but not least, a few other must have's in my craft room are a collection of my favorite songs to sing along to while I create and my favorite hard candy, my lemon drops......

a bulletin board to display my works of art and others that I can draw inspiration from, and a great view of the trees behind our house so I can watch the birds migrate through and the squirrels jump from one tree to another.

I will be posting a lot more about crafting so I hope you will bookmark my blog and join me as I experiment with new products and techniques and share with me what you think. Stayed tuned for a wild ride!