I cheated...

Yep, I cheated. I am so close to uncovering the table in my Craft Room, it is almost scary. I am, however, running out of places to put all the stuff that is still left on the table. Add to that my need to clear off the two tables in the Dining Room - this is the stuff that usually lands on the Craft Room table - and I was feeling very challenged.

I am a realist. Where I can see, given enough concentrated, uninterupted time, in theory I could completely organize the Craft Room, it's not going to happen in the next few months, much less the next few days. So I cheated. I just needed another 6' table, so instead of stressing over the one in the Craft Room I went to Lowe's and bought another one. DONE!

So then I still needed to clear off the two Dining Room tables, which are really the Dining Room table and one of the 6' tables I leave up between classes - it's just pushed up against the bookcases so I can walk around in here. After I cleared off the real Dining Room table, I decided to disassemble it into its parts-is-parts (top and base). It is a round table and can be part of the challenge in getting more people in here. The top is now propped up against the wall, and the base is in a corner of my bedroom.

I now have two 6' tables and 12 chairs all set up, and the new table is even clutter free! Yay!

I also made sure I had all the project directions printed so I can hand them out as we do each project. I did manage to find all of them this afternoon, so I think I am all set! I do not have to make up kits for this event, I just need to have all the supplies staged so we can easily moved from project to project next Sunday. I see a light at the end of the tunnel!

As I was out and about yesterday, I stopped by Michael's to get the latest Paper Crafts Holiday Card issue, and, well, I meandered and found a few more things I simply had to have. They had pillar candles on sale, so I grabbed a bunch of them to use as Holiday gifts for all my customers. I like to do something nice for them since they make my business hum along at a pretty steady pace, and they are very forgiving in the 'it is cut crooked' area. I mentioned to one of my customers today that I had figured out how to stamp on candles, and she asked if they could do that as a project at the November or December workshops. Well, I see no reason why not! Except now I need to come up with another idea for gifts for them! I actually have an idea in the back of my mind; I just need to see if I can make it happen. ;-)

Also while at Mike's, I sauntered down the Martha aisle. Normally I skip it, but a few of my friends have caved and bought one or two things, so I decided to look at what was there.

Durn it, if there was not a set of clear letters! I missed out on the Karen Foster Snap Stamps (I found out about them as soon as they stopped making them), so I thought this would work just as well. A lot of the cards I make to sell have sentiments on them that come from many sources, and I usually do them on the computer and either figure out how to print directly on the card, or I print it on a separate piece of card stock and cut and layer it onto the card. I hope this will let me set the sentiment into a 'stamp'. We'll see.

By the way, some of my favorite sayings besides "You are older than dirt" - a best-seller - are things people say to me that I then have to quickly write down before I forget them. For example, "I drive way too fast to worry about my cholesterol." and "It's hard to be optimistic when your Fat Pants don't fit". One of the Farmers at my Saturday market has a sign in his truck that says, "If you think OSHA is a small town in Wisconsin, then you're in trouble." I am still trying to figure out how to use that one. ;-)

Also while at Mike's, I was looking for white tissue paper to use for making the candles, and right next to the tissue paper were bags. The little light bulb in my brain went off and I realized I needed some for my Stamp Camp. You know - another project to eat up time so I do not have to clean off my tables! ;-) Normally when people come over here for classes, they make 5 cards and those fit easily in the zip-top bag I give them with their kits. For the Stamp Camp, they are making 3D projects, and they will need something to hold all their stuff and to get it home.

One of the only issues I have at classes is people getting their bags of cards mixed up, so I thought I'd hang a tag on the outside of each bag for them to write their names on. That way they can use the bags again, and it keeps me from messing up the bags by stamping or wheeling crooked! I used the SU font CD to print the words, and stamped the bracket image from the new Gift Labels set and snowflakes from the Snowfall set. I like how they turned out. I have them hanging on the back of a wrought-iron lamp, and they are perfect! My attendees will just grab one as they come in next week. And the best thing is they take up zero floor space!

All this cleaning and furniture re-arranging has me weary, and I just threw in a load of wash so I can go to work in the morning. I hope to actually stamp this week after work so I can be ready for my show on the 10th and my workshops on the 11th & 13th. I have a lot of ideas, and I hope to get to work on them soon!