Me and My Space - Bottom Shelf - a lot of the little things

Hi There!

So I stood in the middle of my craft room and was trying to decide what was next to show you. I think over some time I am going to just totally run out of things to show you - I guess I'll have to do some re-organizing and buy more huh?

But then I decided that I should show you the bottom shelf on one of my back shelves - The right shelf...

This is where a lot of my little things are. You know brads - some buttons - snaps - alphabets.. that kind of thing. Now these things I have had in these boxes for many many years. Back in the day of my SCRAPBOOKING! And this system still works for me. These are items I don't use all the time, but if I want it.. I know just where to find it.  There are a couple of types of boxes. Cropper Hopper double sided storage boxes, and then those inexpensive floss boxes you find most everywhere. And those fit PERFECTLY into these nice tidy white fabric shelf boxes. I found these a while back at Wally World (known as Walmart) on a clearance isle. They were like $2 each. That is cheap nice organization I say! And they do look clean on the shelves.

So when you look into the fabric boxes you see the storage boxes. Some are labeled nicely with an old fashioned label maker - (In a later Me and My Space, I'll open up these boxes for you, just too much to do in one post for today)

And then some are just hand written on with a black paint marker. I probably couldn't find the label maker in my mess when I did these. Before my real "Craft Room" I really was a total mess! LOL (Again.. I'll show inside of these boxes later - promise!)

As I said, these are items I just can't live without.. but I really don't use that often. And honestly when I do open these up I ALWAYS find new/old things that have been in my stash forever, the days of working scrapbook pages. I now look at these items with a different eye (oops eye pun there!) But seriously with a vision of card making and crafting and not just a page in an album. So things are all new and exciting when I creek open these old boxes and I find great treasures!

So now I wanted to show another personal item in my space that makes me happy to have out and see every day. This was a gift from my Dad on one of our Sunday outings we took with him. After Hubby and I married, years ago, we would go on these day trips with my Dad. Most of the time it was focused on going to a country restaurant (Dad was a big dude, and Good Food and eating is something we always enjoyed doing to spend time with him) But on these trips we also loved going into shops - antique/gift shops. Once trip we found these fabulous Paper Mache Cats.

He looked JUST LIKE one of our cats. "Tuffer" I fell totally in love with it. But honestly - he was a bit pricey, especially for newlyweds! I purchased a little one, and was happy with it. But then out came Dad with "Tuffer" - and handed it to me. I was thrilled. The real "Tuffer" has long left us, and this guy has had a pretty hard life over the past 20+ years - The past cats have knocked him around quite a bit. Hubby has re-attached his head more than once, as well as his tail. But even with the boo-boo's I still totally adore him. He looks over my space.. and just makes me happy! We lost Dad to cancer in 2000 - and I miss him terribly but seeing things like this make me remember the day, the fun and my Dad and I smile -

HUGS and-