Easy Organizing Tips

As you saw from my earlier post, my crafting area is a total mess. While doing a quick Internet search on organization of crafting supplies, I found a few nifty ideas and tips that I wanted to share.

Add jars to a shelf for easy storage of buttons, ribbons, and other small embellishments.

Prevent pen and marker frustration by storing your writing utensils sideways. The ink won't pool or dry out. And it is easy to find the color you need.

Keep a picnic utensil container on your crafting table to store items neatly. Plus, the handle makes it easy to take on the go.

Fill a notebook with magazine clippings, color palettes, sketches, and other items to keep inspiration at your fingertips. A purse-size notebook is ideal for when you get those creative sparks while out and about.

Make your craft supplies inspirational and functional by arranging items by color. It'll cut down on planning time and brighten your work space

More great organizing and crafting tips coming this week.

Creativity Bug ~ Sue

Organize your crafting space

Keep your bookshelves tidy with baskets and bins. Use baskets to corral loose items, such as fabric samples, paint swatches, and project folders. Add labels to each basket to identify its contents and give your shelves more personality

Use vertical paper storage holders to store a lot of paper in a little amount of space. Sort paper by color to make it easy to find

Always create a backup of your digital images by burning them to a CD or DVD. Make sure to label the disk properly; or make an index of the images on the discs. Then place in jewel cases for easy access.

Use ribbon as a decorative accent. Placing scraps of ribbon in glass canisters is a great way to keep scraps tidy and add color to your space. For your favorite rolls, hang a small rod and place ribbon across, sorting by color or pattern.

Keep your tools in reach with a lazy Susan. Organize by type of tools and label accordingly to ensure they return to the right spot.

Don't have time to scrap the last concert or trip you took? Save ticket stubs, name tags, and souvenirs in an accordion file until you're ready to sit down and create a beautiful page.

Keep your ribbon neatly organized in inexpensive floss containers. Wrap ribbon that is less than a yard around the paper spools. Then organize by color and pattern, making it easy to find what you're looking for.

Keep small accents in clear jars, then place in a spice-jar organizer for easy storage without spending big bucks.

Dress up empty wall space with a pegboard storage area. Buy pegboard at your local hardware store. Then add molding around the edges and paint according to your room. Customize your board with other gadgets such as hooks, baskets, and shelves.

Use inexpensive thrift-store jars to show off your supplies as a decorative item in your craft room. Clear jars make it easy to quickly spot an embellishment you need.

Find just the right paint color by placing tubes in a handy spinning spice rack or lazy Susan.

Try these ideas to get your crafting space organized!

The Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Organize 2011

Cluttered table tops, an overflow of supplies, and no floor space to move around? Then welcome to our world! The Creativity Bugs have a new year's resolution to become organized. Which means starting today January 17th, you will begin to see a series of posts concerning organization of crafting spaces and supplies along with organization tips and tools.
Here is a picture of Sue's crafting area. Oh what a mess!

The Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Happy New Year!

Wishing you and yours a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2011. Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!

Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Who took my mojo?

Please tell me that I am not the only one this happens to. I am busy all day long for one reason or another. As I work, all kinds of good ideas just floating through my brain. When will I get a break to actually work on a project? How many more minutes, hours days? Then out of the blue a magical few hours open up in my day. No hubby (big honey) and no child (little honey) to bother me.

Where do I begin? What do I do first? Then it happens. I stand there looking at my hundreds, okay probably close to a thousand dollars worth of craft supplies and I’m dumbfounded. I stare and I stare and I have NO flipping clue what to work on. Could it be that I have too many projects? Do I have too many crafts? Do I have just too much of everything? So, what is a multi tasking, overworked, under appreciated crafting mom to do?

Well, here is what I did. I surfed the web and bookmarked a few hundred more projects to work on and called it a day. Or more like, my family put in end to it. Little honey came back from her play date and big honey came home from work. So, it was back to making dinner, clearing the table and probably more cleaning. I’ll work on those projects one day. I promise! Until then I guess I will just dream about the next time I have a few hours to myself and see if I actually get something done.


Creativity Bug ~ Sandy

Pounce on over.... Collar Craze

It is Tuesday Pounce Day with the Estian Newbie team and today the Creativity Bugs have chosen Collar Craze as our personal pounce shop. As pet lover to our brood of 2 cats (Poofy and Annie) and 1 dog (KeeKee) collectively, this store caught our eyes.

Collar Craze is owned by Lynsie, the mom to 3 dogs - 2 Labradors, Thumper and Ditto, and 1 Great Dane, Ximmy. She also has 4 cats, Kit-ten, Banshee, OnzaPous and ReignaPous. She started making collars for Ximmy because it is very hard to find large enough collars to fit a Dane and  had so much fun making them that she decided to sell some.

The collars are made with expert craftmanship in a number of different designs and fabris. They fit neck sizes 16 - 22", but special orders in different sizes are always welcome.

For the masculine dog, why not check out the Brown Collection - Paw Print Martingale Collar

For the female dog, our favorite is the Pink Zebra Striped Martingale

So adorably modeled!

So take a moment to sit back and online shop at Lynsie's Collar Craze.

The Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Chicken What? Chicken Bog!

Last year at Christmas my sister-in-law and I helped out her mom for Christmas dinner. I made this delicious Emeril’s Stuffing and she was going to make something called Chicken Bog. She lives in South Carolina and apparently this is as common as, I don’t know; hotdogs and pizza to us Midwest folks. Her husband loves this stuf!. It looks like something you would find in that Annie movie that they fed the orphans. It looks bland and so unappealing, but this stuff is heaven on a plate, or bowl in our case. The spicy melded with the cooling rice. De-lic-ious!

Here is the recipe tweaked from Paula Deen’s original Chicken Bog recipe.

Ingredients

• 4-5 chicken breasts

• 1 pound smoked link sausage

• 2 links andouille sausage (I used Trader Joes chicken andouille)

• 1 cup chopped onion

• 3 tsp butter

• 1-2 gloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons Seasoned Salt (recommended: Lawry's)
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon of garlic powder
• 3 bay leaves
• 8 cups water
• 3 cups raw white rice

Directions

Slice the sausage into 1/2-inch pieces. In a stockpot, sauté butter, onion and crushed garlic until just translucent. Next combine the chicken, sausage, seasonings and bay leaves. Add the water, bring to a boil, cover, and cook at a low boil for 40 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot and let cool slightly. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Add the rice to the pot and bring to a boil, stirring well. Boil for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat, cover the pot, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the rice is done. Remove the bay leaves, and return the chicken to the pot.

This can be transferred to a crock pot to keep warm. My in-laws love to throw some hot sauce of their choosing into their bowls.

We have slowly been introducing what we have now pegged as “Bog” to our neighbors and friends. The Bog craze is sweeping the Midwest, or at least our little corner of Illinois/Wisconsin border.

Creativity Bug ~ Sandy