FYNES DESIGNS -

If you follow along on Facebook you’d know a couple weeks ago I was the featured crafter on the Canadian Living Magazine craft blog. It was so fun to sit down and do a little Q&A with them, really makes a girl get to thinking about your craft past and present! I was also asked to share a craft tutorial with their followers. I chose to share my Weekly Dry Erase Calendar. This is my favorite wedding shower gift to give. With wedding season hot on our heels I’m sure you could use a good DIY project to gift your gal pal. This project is inexpensive, can be whipped together in about an hour, and requires little skill (I know we’re not all crafty to the max). Check out the dry erase calendar:

You’ll have to slide on over to Canadian Living to get the full tutorial, but I couldn’t resist sharing the DIY Dry Erase Calendar here too. Simply add a sweet sentiment to take your project from regular calendar to sweet gift.

I hope you’ll pop over to check out my interview with Canadian Living to learn a bit more about me, see my favorite project, and check out the Dry Erase Calendar tutorial.

Posted by Virginia & filed under Crafts, Home Decor, Wall Decor. This post has 3 comments.

Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all you Mama’s out there! It just so happens I have a few special ladies in my life too! I was so pleased to receive the Grace collection from Authentique to create my special Mother’s Day cards. Grace has the perfect sentiments to show Mom how much they mean to you.

The Grace collection is chalked full of beautiful sentiments to compliment any lady in your life. It may be too late for you to get ahold of them for this Sunday, but the sentiments would also work perfect for a birthday card, or a scrapbook layout of you and mom.

I love that the Grace collection is soft and vintage, but you can draw out bright accents to uplift your project.

The flowers were created using May Arts satin pleated ribbon and yellow burlap.

I hope you can draw some inspiration from my Mother’s Day Cards if you need to create some of your own.I wish you all a Beautiful Mother’s Day. Have a great weekend!

The supplies used in the making of this post are design team products, I was not compensated for this post. The projects and options expressed are my own.

Posted by Virginia & filed under Cardmaking, Crafts, Made with Paper. This post has one comment.

Thanks for all your lovely comments last week about my beautifully bright Craft Room. You guys are awesome! Today I’m sharing some more details about the craft room nitty gritty. I want to show you how I put those thrift store finds to good use. (P.S. this is a picture heavy post).

Lets start with the pegboard. I love having everything in my reach from my chair, having it visible makes me actually use what I have!

I used pegboard hooks to hang the larger tools, a screwdriver rack to hold my scissors, the handle stamp storage I found at my moms. wood-crate-storage.jpg.jpg I picked up these small crates for 99¢ each, they hold so much, and easily rest on two long pegboard arms.

I like to keep my desktop ~~clean of clutter~~ slightly organized so when I want to switch from paper crafts to sewing everything has a home.

The cupboard doors which I salvaged from my sisters kitchen reno, house my past scrapbooks. On the edge of the desk you can see there is a tiny gap which is great for storing bristol board, foam core, etc.

The drawers of my desk are home to ink pads, stamps that I don’t use as often, hardware, paper cutters etc.

My favorite organizers are these old school Tupperware dishes. The orange and red are actually called ‘Tuppercraft’ from the 80′s, I love that I can just slap the cover on and take on the road. The green one is a bread box, for sewing notions.

The baskets on the end shelf hold paint, books, and a basket of kid craft items, (they have their own craft desk, but insist on helping me too).

The record player turned craft room storage is the perfect solution for supplies. I added a backboard and a strip along the front, removed the metallic trim and glass door, and gave it a much need coat of paint. It can be wheeled closer to the desk when I want my paper in reach.

At the sewing table I also have a pegboard, it is an old picture frame with pegboard inside (screwed to the wall for stability).

I store fabric with binder clips for easy access, again so I remember I have it!

The cake stand hold a variety of notions, buttons in the cookie jar, binding tape in the berry box, and a little space for pins and gauges. The mason jar holds May Arts flowers.

Next to my sewing table is my ribbon storage rack . Check out the details of that DIY.

The Craft Room Workbench is home to all my heavy tools. The Frugal Memo Board holds my Cricut and Cinch tools plus all my little snippets.

The yellow basket from a yard sale wasn’t good to hold much, but gives my knitting needles a much-needed lift.
The workbench drawers hold all the accessories for each tool- dies, cutting mats, cartridges, vinyl, and binding rings.

The crates hold yarn, yardage of fabric, mini albums, envelopes, and items I find on clearance for future projects.

There you have it, all my ideas for craft room organization. Have any suggestions to make it better? What is your best idea for storage?

Posted by Virginia & filed under Craft room. This post has 4 comments.

Today is the day!! I’ve been waiting 6 long months to share my dream CRAFT ROOM with you! I spent so much time planning (check out my pinboard), building, painting, and creating, I am ready to rest and reveal what you’ve all been waiting for… the best craft room on the east coast (in my humble opinion)! Insert drum roll heeeere…

I had so much fun creating this space from the ground up. I gave my old desk a coat of paint and added the salvaged cabinet doors to the shelf on the end.

The sewing table I picked up at an army surplus store for $30, she how ugly it was here. The old VHS stand was given a little modification and turned into a ribbon storage rack. I am so glad I could put the ironing board close to the sewing machine, it used to be an obstacle course to get to it.

You may recognize the Embriodery, Printables, Scissors and Nail Art from Cheap Art Week.

craft-room-table

I downsized my pegboard wall, but maximized the space by using small wooden crates and clips so items could be stacked.

I love my Frugal Memo Board , I can poke, magnet or clip just about anything to it! The killer craft room workbench has great storage, it’s so functional. The lamp shade is the only full price item in the room ($16).

This collection from MME was the starting point for my color scheme, just so happens that I found paint in the mistints that coordinated.

The rolling craft room storage cart is repurposed from an old record player cabinet that was living in my moms attic.

Rolling craft supply storage cart by Fynes Designs The dress form I scored at a shop that was no longer selling clothes for $30!

I love that this craft room is so functional, there is a place for everything, and a surface to do everything on.Thanks for stopping by, please follow along to check out what’s inside those drawers, cabinets and gather some more craft room ideas! I try not to beg for pins but I would really appricate it you would consider pinning my craft room reveal. I’ve worked so hard on this project I want everyone to be able to enjoy it.

I’m sharing this at: the 36th Avenue, 52 mantels, Artsy Fartsy Momma, Live Laugh Rowe, Somewhat Simple, Create Craft Love, 30 handmade days, Shabby Nest, Fingerprints on the fridge, Miss Mustard Seed, Tatertots and Jello, Practically Functional, Be Different Act Normal, Sew Craft Create, Reasons to skip the Housework, Nifty Thrifty, Life on Lakeshore, I heart nap-time, DIY Showoff, Mad in Crafts, Uncommon Design, Not Just a Housewife, Sugar Bee Crafts, Today’s Creative Blog

Posted by Virginia & filed under Craft room. This post has 36 comments.

I’ve been building my craft paradise for the past 6 months. Urgh, Oh Em Ghee, did it really take that long? The story goes like this… building a room from scratch takes a lot of time (period). I had a great team to help me; My main man master carpenter brother - Neil Shannon, my wickedly awesome hubby-Justin (whom some of you know as craft slave), and my awesome-possum neighbour friend (who seems to get roped into everything)-Darrel. I could not have done it without their help, THANK YOU!!

Today’s post isn’t the gooey goodness you’re after, but I promise the reveal is coming. I just wanted to show you what I started with before you see the beautiful room it is now. You may be asking yourself why did she need a new space, the last one was bigger than any girl would ever want?? (See my old craft space here). We decide to invite an exchange student into our home, and he needed a bedroom. As code would have it (and common safety sense), a bedroom needs a window, the craft room was the only basement space with windows. I did have to forgo natural light and a some square footage, but I am so happy with my new space those things are faint memories!

The budget for this space was less than nothing.When you subtract the cost of drywall, fixtures, flooring, etc. (thankfully labor was free) there isn’t a whole lot left for prettiness. I managed to find all my paint in the mis-tints, found a desk at an army surplus store for $30, snagged a few things in my moms attic, picked up fabric, baskets, picture frames at thrift shops for next to nothing, and repurposed everything else.

The biggest snafu I ran into with this build was the lighting. Hubby put in loads of pot lights but they were close to the furnace vent, so when the blower turned on the lights went out because of the overheating safety (blah). Then I waited for LED lights to arrive (which took far too long, hence most of the delay in the reveal). Side note: anyone out there that does drywall for a living – kudos to you, this is the least fun, messy job I have ever done in my life. I can’t wrap my head around why someone hasn’t invented a cleaner method of this yet! Don’t I look great in that mask?