A trip to Maine (and the completion of the craft island)

Our older son and his girlfriend have been vacationing in Nova Scotia the past week. It turned out that it was far more expensive for them to try to fly back to San Francisco from Halifax than it would be to take a ferry to Portland, Maine and then come here and fly from Boston, so we took a quick trip to Maine today to collect them. They will be here for the weekend and fly home Monday morning. Portland is about two hours away for us so it was a nice day trip.



Just over the border into Maine we stopped at a rest area - I got such a kick out of this sign - an official government reminder to eat right!



We found the hotel easily and collected "the kids" from the lobby. We decided to go into Portland to the waterfront for some lunch. The area is full of little shops and restaurants - lots of them have clever names and interesting signs.



A juice bar,



a pet supplies store,



and an ice cream shop.



I did check out one shop with some interesting pop up cards but my only purchase was this pretty bar of lily of the valley soap.

For those of you who have asked about the progress of the craft island - it is done! (If you want to see the earlier posts about the island, they have the label "craft island" - here is a LINK).




To make the top work surface, my very handy husband used a large sheet of clear plywood and added molding to fit the size of the bookcases to help keep the top from sliding.



Above you can see the finished underside of the top with the molding and plywood painted.



Here is a close up of the mitered corners - doesn't he do nice work! The finished size of the top is about 36 x 79 inches - lots of room to spread out my pages and projects.



I put the same shelf liner that I used between the base platform and the bookcases on the top of the bookcases to protect them from scratches and to help grip and stabilize the top.



High five for the successful completion of the project! I am going to work with just the painted surface for the time being but I may eventually add a laminate top layer or look into getting a piece of tempered glass. I can now finish moving things around and really get settled into this new work space.

The rest of the weekend will be busy with family and I have another medical procedure scheduled for Monday. I am trying to catch up with email and other messages and I apologize if you are waiting on an answer from me - things should be settled down by the middle of next week.

An "Island Update"

This may look like a gigantic monstrosity but to me it is a thing of beauty! The "island" has made it to my basement (or should I say "lower level"!) crafting space. I have been surprised to see how many people are interested in this project so I have a few more photos to post for you.



After finishing the platform in the garage and painting it to match the bookcases, it was time to bring it into my space. We decided it would be easier (and gentler to our interior walls!) to bring the platform around the back of the house. I work in our finished, walkout basement with a large sliding glass door and the island's destination was right inside that door.



The platform is very heavy so my very handy husband and helpful son had to be careful getting it through the door.



The island platform has arrived! You can see the large locking wheels - there are six of them to support the platform and make it moveable in my space.



I did not want to actually attach the bookcases to the platform - this gives me the flexibility to reuse them in a different configuration someday. To be sure they would not shift on the platform, we rolled out some of this shelf liner - it is a thin ribbed plastic and will create a cushion and a non-slip surface on the top of the platform.



First one of the larger 4 x 2 IKEA Expedit bookcases was settled into position...



then the 2 x 2 bookcase on the end...



There was a brief delay to check on the tennis (Men's Finals at Wimbledon)



But eventually the third bookcase arrived! (please ignore the mess in the background - you know how it goes when you reorganize - first you have to make an even bigger mess to get everything shifted into the new "right place").



So there it is - a big beautiful island with 20 cubby holes for me to store all sort of things - mostly paper and albums but some tools as well.



The platform and wheels makes the finished height about 39 inches, which is perfect for me since I am a tall person. I think my back will be happier too since I have been cutting on the pool table (with a cover on it) and it is much lower. If I can get away in the next few days, I will head to IKEA for some more of these plastic bins that fit the openings precisely and will hold a LOT of paper and other goodies. We also still need to add the top counter which is cut and sanded but hasn't been painted and finished yet.

Today was an absolutely hectic day - I didn't have a chance to do even a single Cricut cut - I am feeling the withdrawal symptoms! Jen and I had two classes to teach and we had some internet issues that gave us big headaches with the screen sharing! We all wondered if there were too many people watching the Michael Jackson Memorial online and gobbling up all of the bandwidth. Thanks again to our lovely and patient students for bearing with all the glitches - in the end we did manage to cover everything but it usually is much, much smoother! The Word Book class for Thursday is completely full but we will be posting the next group of classes by the end of the week.

So tomorrow is another crafting day - I have several swaps to finish up so they can get to their destinations by the 15th. I plan to have something to share here too. Thanks for taking in another chapter in the "island saga!"

Fourth of July - a beautiful day!

I have been telling you about our rainy summer for weeks now - it really has been an unusual year. Today was the first "perfect" day of the summer - just in time for the Fourth of July.



We have a traditional "Picnic in the Park" here in Concord and there was a great turnout to celebrate the holiday and the nice weather.



Lots of local clubs and non-profit groups have booths where they sell food, promote their causes, hand out information and offer items for sale. I am a member of the local quilt guild, the "Concord Piecemakers" and we usually display a quilt that has been made by many members contributing squares. We raffle the quilt to raise money to help cover costs of making quilts for donation for people in need and to support the quilt museum.



I had to laugh this year when I saw that we were in a slightly different location than usual (due to a big mud puddle) and our spot was right next to a silhouette artist! Quite a coincidence since I have spent the last day or so totally wrapped up in working with the new "A Child's Year" cartridge - I can't get enough silhouettes! (I made a lot more things this afternoon and will post them tomorrow morning - this is an amazing cartridge!).



Here is a close up view of this year's raffle quilt - it is so bright and colorful and a very talented member did the fantastic machine quilting.




Our younger son and his girlfriend stopped by on their bikes - I guess they have outgrown the "decorated bikes and baby carriages" parade that happens each year.



Several musical groups perform and everyone has a great time. There are lots of activities for the kids, bouncy castles, the police radar sign set up to time their baseball pitches, face painting and cotton candy and a chance to put out a "fire" using a real fire hose!

It is always a lot of fun and I am so glad the weather was cooperative. We didn't venture into Boston for the Boston Pops and the fireworks - we just watched them on TV from the comfort of our couch!

So Happy 4th of July! I hope you had a great day wherever you are.



One more photo - my very handy husband has the "platform" for my craftroom island done! Here he is attaching the super heavy duty wheels - this structure will handle a lot of weight (we all know how heavy paper can be - and I have a lot of paper!).

You can see my car with the "flipped" Cricut head in the background. I made it from Wall Pops and forgot that they have color only on one side so when I flipped it the sticky side was white ( I originally planned to put it on the inside of the glass). I couldn't waste it - so I put it on this way and it has been on the car nearly a year and still looks great! (I even go through the car wash with it).

I Love it When a Plan comes Together!

Tonight we got the second and third bookcases assembled and ready for the next stage of construction. You can see in the photo how I will set them up with the two that are 2 x 4 cubes back to back and the 2 x 2 cube case on one end. The other end will be inaccessible (perpendicular to a fixed glass sliding door) so I didn't add a case for that end.



My very handy husband went to Home Depot this weekend and bought all of the lumber and wheels to make the platform that will make this a movable island and also the wood for the top work surface. I may have a piece of tempered glass cut for the top but we will see how the painted surface works first.

I spent a little time thinking about the containers for some of the shelves and I was happy to discover that my large Creative Memories Power sort boxes will fit perfectly in the cubes. I plan to get a few more of the plastic cubes that fit perfectly and we have some matching Expedit two drawer inserts from IKEA to build as well. This island on wheels will replace a folding table that is just a bit shorter and narrower with limited space for storage beneath it due to the leg mechanism. I am so excited to have it getting closer to being done and I just can't wait to "move in" to all that storage space!



It was a busy day and I had lots of new projects to think about! I find it relaxing to work on a complicated design when I have a lot of things going on - it helps me to focus my thoughts. So I worked a design that I have had in the back of my mind for some time now - with a lot of variations. Above you can see a screen shot of the preview of the design I was working on - I haven't even had a chance to test the cut yet. There are 50 elements to this design and, since I made it "adjustable," that means 49 of them needed to be nudged into position - which took a very long time.



The first screen shot shows the design as a nearly full page cut (eleven inches square) and the screen shot above shows the same design "adjusted" to a 4 and 1/2 inch square which can be cut on the baby bug mat. I like to make adjustable designs so many people can use them but they are very time consuming and tricky to make. I dearly wish that the Design Studio software would be upgraded to include "select all" and "group/ungroup" functions. I use these functions all the time in my Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus software and they make it much simpler to create intricate designs quickly and accurately.



Thanks for letting me share the progress on my birthday project - next time you see these units they will be riding on a platform with wheels (and they will be out of the family room and in my studio space).

I will try to test cut the design I showed you very soon - maybe even tomorrow. In the meantime, can anyone guess what cartridge or cartridges I used to design it? (just leave a comment if you think you know).

If you were waiting for our next classes to be posted, we have added a word book class for this week and one for next week as well. There is also another Basic Cards session next week. I have had a request for an evening "Getting Started" session for Tuesday, July 7th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern - if there is enough interest we will add that to next week's classes. You can sign up by following the directions on the LMSYHTDT blog. We only scheduled one class this week due to the 4th of July holiday.

A successful shopping trip!

We made the trip to IKEA today - and now I can really get organized! We found the Expedit shelves and did a little figuring to be sure that we could get the configuration that would fit my space and create a comfortable work and storage area.



I ended up with two bookcases that have 4 x 2 cubes and one that is a 2 x 2 cube. The first box we opened had lots of pieces - and no directions!



Fortunately, the second large box did have the directions!



They were fairly simple to assemble, but it is a bit fiddly getting everything to line up.



Here is the first large set put together - we will do the rest tomorrow and then my husband has promised to build a platform on wheels to hold the three of them together as a movable island (they will be horizontal, not vertical as this one was in the photo). I want the entire unit to end up at countertop height so the platform will help to raise the shelves up - and I will be able to move it within my space if I need to have more floor space.



I got a couple of these plastic inserts - I will probably get some more for the lower level of shelves. The 2 drawer units that match the shelves were also reduced from $30 to $15 so I got some of them for the upper level.



With the other Saturday activities and the 60 miles roundtrip to do our shopping, I didn't have much of a chance to do any crafting today - but I did make this card for my neighbor to take to a graduation party.



I used Lyrical Letters for the "Congrats" and the diploma is from Wild Card. I cut the first diploma from glitter cardstock and then I created a shadow in Design Studio to help it stand out from the background paper. I added a bit of bling for the ribbon around the diploma and layered a cute patterned paper and red cardstock on the white 5 x 7 card. I also used the metallic cardstock from the DCWV Citrus cardstock stack - that mirror finish is so shiny and pretty (but hard to photograph!).


I can't wait to get my "birthday" shelves in place tomorrow (and thanks to those of you who sent me birthday wishes - my birthday is actually not until the second week of July but I wanted to get my organization project done before then so I can celebrate in style!)