The Butterfly Effect

Well, I am at it again. Stealing ideas and designs from my friend Maureen ;-)

You may have seen my post a couple of weeks ago with her cute cupcake cards. I have once again totally taken Maureen's idea and just made a few changes to make my version of her adorable card.

Here is Maureen's butterfly card that she did for her latest Stampin' Up! club workshop:

I love the Crumb Cake (formerly known as "Kraft") card stock for the base of the card. She just stamped a few images from the Stampin' Up! Flight Of The Butterfly stamp set, and then punched them out using the hand held butterfly punch. She added some rhinestones for bling, and a pretty ribbon to the side.

Inside the card, she stamped the swirly sentiment "If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies", also from the same stamp set.

Super cute, huh?

So... now it's time for my version:

I am still having a lot of trouble with my hands, but thankfully my diligence in doing my exercises and going to occupational therapy does seem to be paying off. But I must continue to take it easy and not overdo things. Stamping, sad to say, is not on the list of things I should be doing a lot of these days. So, when I made this card, I omitted stamping the butterflies. Instead, I chose some really pretty PTI papers that my sweet friend Debbi sent me. They are from the Everyday Blessings collection. I love them! (Thanks, Debbi!) :-)

I just punched out 3 butterflies and put them down with a glue dot on the center. I kind of pulled the wings out a tiny bit, and then added flower shaped rhinestones to them. I think I got those from the dollar bin at Target quite some time ago. They were perfect!

I added some PTI swiss dot ribbon in Spring Moss satin. Then, I glued another butterfly down inside the card. I decided to leave it blank so I could use the card for any occasion: Hello; Get Well; Birthday; Thinking of You; Shower... etc.

It was so easy and quick to make, that I ended up making several. It's great to have cards on hand for when you need them in a pinch. This is definitely a great design for making a whole bunch at a time.

Once again Maureen has come up with a wonderful card. And I can't thank her enough for letting me share it with you- as well as allowing me to grab her idea and run with it!

Thanks for stopping by today. I'll try to do something more "original" as soon as my hands are up for it!

Have a great day, and please leave a comment if you'd like. It's always so great to hear from you!

Closet Makeover Completed!

My closet is done! And what a difference! Come see for yourself ;-)

My closet is kind of an odd shape. It's not real big, but everything my contractor did to put every bit s space I have to good use was nothing short of amazing, if you ask ne. I just love the outcome!

It measures approximately 7 feet wide by 8 feet deep. The ceilings are over 8 feet high. So, he put shelving completely around the entire closet which is awesome! The shelves are almost 14 inches high and 15 inches deep. Perfect for all my shoes and boots (and more).

Okay, so here is the pictorial tour. It's kind of hard to get a real feel for it. Taking pictures of a small space doesn't always give you an accurate idea. But I'll describe things as best I can.

The first shots are of it all finished, before I put all my stuff back in:

The picture above was taken after walking in and turning to the extreme left.

This one is taken towards the right side. I love that odd shaped shelving. It holds a lot, with the left side open and the other side hidden. I think it will be great for hiding Christmas and birthday presents ;-)

Oh, and you can see the first- and thankfully the only!- "snag" we ran into. I was going to keep the carpeting. I do like carpet under my feet in the closet. But, it turned out there was a spot that we did not realize was not carpeted (under a wood divider). And patching it was not going to look too great. I figured if it's going to be done, let's do it right. So, I decided to have the same wood floor put down that we just had put in our bedroom.

Above you see more shelving that I mainly wanted for jeans. I also decided to have a couple of drawers and some shelves with doors.

And here is what it my closet looks like now that I have it loaded up again!

The photo above is the area you see when you fist open the door, looking a bit to the left

This pic of my tops hanging was taken looking a little more to the left

And, after donating about 25-30 skirts, all of my skirts now hang together without being totally squished and getting terribly wrinkled. I love that!

And this is the shelving to the far left. Mostly I have knit tops there that don't really need hanging.

The picture above is looking straight ahead when you open the doors.

And this is a bit to the left side. See how great those half hidden shelves are? They are really quite deep and work perfectly for handbags, oversized tote bags (I have lots for taking to the beach) and for my sweat pants and sweat shirts that I only wear during the winter months.

To the right are my blouses on top, and my hanging sweaters and short jackets on the bottom.

To the right of those are all my jeans. I love having them folded on shelves like in a store. :-) Again, I weeded out and got rid of sooo many pairs that didn't fit. I even have enough room for my favorite sweats that I wear more often than those others on the "hidden" shelves.

And moving along more towards the left, you start to see the last unit.

I love this area. It's nice to have a spot for my perfume and jewelry. And I may keep the"currently in use" purse there too. That is, if I can handle being so organized, lol!

I just love this shelf. It's nice to have some "special" things in the closet to help make it a pretty space. I had DH hang the little framed picture this morning. My Mom gave me that several years before she died. It says "Love bears all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7). I love the frame, and think the colors work well there. The crystal ash tray holding the pearls was Mom's from about the 1940's, and has her initials engraved in it. You can see more about the perfume bottles in another post I did HERE.

And the little antique hand painted porcelain dish also belonged to my mom. As for the jewelry box, that actually used to be my daughter's but she didn't use it much and several years ago I asked her if I could adopt it, lol. It's the perfect size ;-)

And here is one of the nice little "extras" that makes things easier and nicely organized: the belt racks hanging up on the side of the cabinet. They are pretty much hidden. I have double sliding mirrored doors, and usually open the one to the left. These are behind the door on the right.

And as funny as this may seem, this is among my favorite things! It's a retracting valet pole. You hardly see it. But it's there, and it's wonderful! I often used to hook the top of a hanger around another and turn it so I could hang things to "build" and outfit, kwim? This way I have a pole I can just pull out to hang stuff on, like this:

Isn't that great? I know, silly, but those are the little things that can make such a difference, you know?

And above, you can see some of the 40 new clear shoe boxes I got from The Container Store. I was so sick of all the ugly beat up and miss-matched shoe boxes I had, but I wanted to keep my shoes clean and dust free. And this way I can see them and not have to play the guessing game as to what pair is where. Perfect!

I also got some matching boot boxes. They are great!

And finally: No more clutter on the floor! :-)

I only have a few things left to finalize my closet make-over:

Since I had the carpeting ripped out, I think I will get a little area rug to put down. Not sure what kind or shape. Maybe round? (If you have any thought or ideas, I'd love to hear them!)

Also, I ordered THIS wood 2-step folding step stool online from Amazon. I need one to get up to the top shelves and don't want to keep the ugly metal one we have in here. It was on sale for $47.00 (list price is $57.99) and there was free shipping, too! (I hate paying high shipping!)

I also may buy some wire baskets or something for the space under the shelves on the floor that is not being used. I don't want to get back to having too much in here, but this is just wasted space, which makes no sense. Again, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

And finally, I am thinking maybe some pretty hat boxes would look fabulous on top of the empty high shelves that you see when you first open the doors. What do you think? Any ideas where to find some???

Well, there you have it. Another mission accomplished!

Thanks for taking the time to go on my closet tour with me.

Next time, I will be sharing with you a lovely card my friend Maureen made- and my CASEd version of it as well.

Until then, take care and have a great week!

Closet Clutter Overload!

Part of me can not believe I am actually going to put this out there for anyone to see. But then again, I am compelled to share this whole process with you for a number of reasons:

#1 To prove that all hope is not lost, no matter how overwhelmed you may feel by your clutter. You just need to dive right in and start! Procrastination is not going to get you anywhere

#2 To show you how the payoff of your hard work and labor (and expense) will be so worth it

#3 To "pay it forward", as I know I have often googled things like "closet makeovers" myself to obtain ideas and inspiration from others

#3 To prove to my friends who have seen first hand what a pack rat I am, that when I said this will be my "year of organization" that I was not kidding!

#4 And to pat myself on the back for finally actually getting this task done! :-)

So, here we go. Don't say I didn't warn you: my closet was really a disaster; something I am not proud of!!!

This was taken from straight on when you open the door, looking a bit to the left. (Note how nice all that stuff looks just piled up on the floor.) ;-)

And below is the back right corner. These pictures were actually taken after I already started to clear things out! Can you imagine that in addition to all this stuff, the book case was also completely filled with books?!

Lovely shelving, huh?

Uugggh... this had become such a catch-all! Even all of our family video tapes ended up in there. What is it about Mom's closet that anything and everything ends up finding a home there?

Can you imagine how fun this was to go in to and find an outfit to wear? Haha!

If this isn't bad enough, about a month ago I weeded a lot out. Seriously, I donated about 15 pairs of shoes, 20 pairs of jeans and about 5 or 6 large trash bags jammed full of clothing. And there's still a long way to go!

It's hard to tell from this pic, but on that rack, among those clothes there are over 50 skirts alone. Everything was so jam packed!

And now, it's time to begin "renovation"!

I'll be back soon with the pics of all the changes and how it all turned out. I'd love it if you'd leave some comments on these lovely pictures, lol! Seriously, I know I'd get a kick out of your reaction! Are you mortified? Or does it possibly make you feel better knowing that you are not the only one whose closet has become out of control? Don't hold back. After all, I didn't! ;-) If I can share this mess with you, I can take the feedback, lol!