my first post!

Hello and welcome to my little piece of the blogoshphere: april's craft nest! I have been inspired to create an additional blog, besides my family one, dedicated to all things creative: crafts, sewing, ponderings, musings and things I find beautiful. I was inspired mostly because of my new guest-closet-made-craft-nook, which I call my craft nest. I finished it about 3 weeks ago and I just love going in there to craft, create and just to ponder. Here are some photos of its evolution.

The beginning: the upper shelf:

Cute little banner--I will soon create one that says craft nest!

If you are interested in the play-by-play of how the craft nest came about, please continue reading a little cut and paste from my original blog:

I decided to carve out a bit of square footage dedicated to one of my passions: crafting (really "projecting" i.e. paper crafts, painting, sewing, thinking up ideas, messing around, etc.)! I like to have projects evolve--to think about them over time and mull over ideas. I have not been able to do this very much between working and being a mommy and wife lately and boy have I missed it. It is difficult to leave projects out with a toddler and my projects typically last longer than a single nap time, so I wanted a space where I could leave my "ideas" out and a place where I could feel creative. I also needed a place where the door could be shut because my darling hubby does not like to have clutter and messiness around and to him my crafting, projects and just my name spell= m-e-s-s!

So.... I created a little crafting nest in our guest room closet. I started about three weeks ago. Four trips to Lowes, a trek to Ikea and several weekends and my mission was complete! AND I only spent about $125 for everything! The biggest single item cost was the acrylic sheet that covers the desktop--and that was just under $20. The second single item cost was tied: the 4 legs from Ikea and the shelf from Lowes, which were both around $16 each! (I wanted an Ikea LACK shelf, but they were out of stock when I went). I could have saved almost $30 if the table top I originally wanted from Ikea was in stock (it was only 3.99!!!!) but it was a tad smaller and this one is custom shaped to our closet, so it worked out in the end. My least expensive item was the green paint for the peg board. It was a oops sample size paint can (to paint 4'x4') and it was the perfect shade and amount! The nice lady at Lowe's marked it down to 50 cents without me even asking!!! I am starting to sound like one of my favorite website authors bragging about deals and explaining projects step by step, but I am just too excited! All in all I purchased 20 new items (or types of items) for this project. My best reduce, reuse, recycle item is the white cloth which is covering the ugly particle board desk top (under the acyclic sheet). When I could not get the Ikea desk top I wanted I had to go with particle board since it is smoother than plywood. I was going to spray paint the underside of the acrylic when I decided to cover the desktop with fabric instead. I went with white since I wanted a solid color surface and a clean slate when starting my projects. I just staple gunned the fabric under the desktop and set the acyclic on top and presto--a beautiful white clean surface to begin multitudes of projects!

Since these photos were taken, I even got a little clip-on lamp from Ikea (for about 6 bucks! love it):

Makes it much nicer to work in the closet now. I was using a floor lamp inside the closet before, but it made me a little nervous since the bulb was up high near the shelf full of paper products.

Well, thank you for stopping by! I hope to fill this blog with lovely things to help me remember what I have worked on, what I have been thinking about and what inspires me. I hope you will leave a comment so I know someone out there is reading this:)