About Me

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Hi there, I am Ashley. I am a full time wife and mother of 3 beautiful babies. I am a part time freelance graphic designer. I enjoy arts and crafts along with writing poetry, fantasy short stories and letters.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Upcycling For Organization

Hi there guys and gals of the random interweb!! This is going to be my first really random post. 

Today I woke up in a very constructive mood. After looking all over Youtube for a good project to start on, I began watching one of my favorite Youtubers, thefrugalcrafter. She has amazing tutorials on watercolor paintings. I love it. I was actually looking for some watercolor inspiration but what I found was even better!

Anyways, she does a series called Ask A Crafter(click to go to the video). In the recent video, someone had asked about upcycling tin cans. She showed one that she had decorated and added wire to hang craft supplies. This got my motor running. 

My computer/ drawing desk in my studio has seemed a bit cluttered in the past week and I have been trying to find a way to remove the clutter. I had been saving green bean and corn cans for a while now. I have a hoarding issue. I can't help myself. I also have an awesome boyfriend who brought me a really eclectic coat rack/mantle that someone was going to throw away. Obviously genius struck when I realized that I had all these things.

I ran to my studio, which is in my house, and drug out my cans. I had plenty enough for each peg on the coat rack. My hoarding had paid off! I hung the mantle/coat hanger on the wall and began working on my cans. 



Next I removed the silly labels and replaced it with decorative and pretty scrap book paper. I cut the scrap book paper at 4" x 10.5" strips. This gives enough overlap to glue with a glue stick. I wrapped it tight and glued down the overlapping top.

I must give a shout out to We R Memory Keepers for this paper. It is a 12" x 12" 24 sheet pack called Nonsense. It had very bright and beautiful colors and patterns that I couldn't pass up. The green is the back of the Nonsense-Zig Zag and the blue paisleys are Nonsense-Ding Dong. 



After attaching the paper, I wrapped the top in twine and hot glued it down. (Please note, that this is what I had but you could do it with ribbon, rope, or yarn.) I left a loop of twine for it to hang on the pegs and made sure that my knots were secure and glued so that they wouldn't come undone. Gluing the knots are optional but it does help when you have heavy things hanging in them.

Once the glue cooled and dried and after I tested the twine at the top, I began filling it with all my desk cluttering randomness. On top of the mantle, I placed bigger things that wouldn't fit in my upcycled cans.



 So far, I am pretty pleased with how much room I have on my desk and how functional and eye pleasing that the cans and coat hanger turned out. After adding my Blog Schedule board and what other things I need close to my computer, I feel like I have a beneficial social media work space. 



I hope this has inspired you to upcycle products around your house that may give you some random organization. Please go check out thefrugalcrafter and subscribe to her. Her videos are amazing. Also check out We R Memory Keepers and all their neat crafting products. Have a randomly happy day, guys. and check back soon for more random crafting and product testing greatness. 

Monday, February 10, 2014

The beginning of randomness!!!!

Howdy to all you random people out there! Welcome to my random life!

I hope you all are doing well in the random and vast outer space of the world wide web. I hope your own random life is going in a randomly happy direction! I know what you are thinking, "ENOUGH WITH THE RANDOMS YOU CRAZY GIRL!" 

Okay, calm down! Geesh! You should know by the name of the blog that it's going to be RANDOM. Hahaha okay, seriously, I will try to keep my randoms at a minimal. 

Anywho, I guess I just wanted to start a blog about all the things that I am interested in and bring forth a collective review and DIY area to the madness that is my life. 

Here is a few examples of my chaotic life. I am an artist, crafter, jewelry maker, and polymer clay artist. I am an avid reader and writer. I like all things books. I am even guilty of making my own books. I love to cook and try new recipes. I love doing product testing for #BzzAgent and giving my most honest opinion on the product. I love music in all sounds and forms. I am interested in sci fi and fantasy. I won't lie, I'm a geek. I love fan-domes. Walking Dead, vampires and werewolves, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, anything to do with medieval times, Dungeons and Dragons. I am addicted to Puzzles and Dragons. Who is with me? Shew, that game takes up a lot of my time. And to add to all that, I'm a mail artist with a major pen pal addiction. I love getting things in the mail! 

So pretty much, to tie all that random info together, this will be a place where I review things like products, tv shows, books, or games. I will also try to add some tutorials on how to make things. I will be sharing some of the awesome mail art I get from my pen pals. Hopefully you all will enjoy the craziness and join in. 

Thanks for your time. Hope you come back soon and see all the random things I have going.