A Spooky Craft Day...

I am part of a monthly craft group that we have nicknamed The Sisterhood of the traveling Paints. My mom my sisters (although one keeps dogging out on with the lame excuse "it takes four hours to get there"!), my three cousins and my aunt. We rotate houses, bring yummy food and put together a few cute crafts. This month it was my turn to host.
I already posted two cute crafts I did, but here is what everyone else was working on.

My cutie cousin, who has never been able to finish a craft...actually got one done..these cute boo and EEk blocks! (Go Alisha!!)


My Cousin in law, Wendy made these cute calendar blocks. I love the colors, I was secretly hoping she would forget them so I could keep them for my very own!


Here is my mom at our local craft store, modeling what she wanted to make. This was her inspiration for...


turning this naked wood (should I have marked this post rated R ;-)into..


nope not yet, still working on it....


Into this...


I must say I am proud of her! Maybe I am starting to wear off on her, after all, this is paper crafting, a form of scrapbooking, which if you follow her blog you know she considers scrapbooking to be a form of torture.

I wish I had gotten a cute picture of my Aunt Cec's wicked blocks before she took them home. Or my other Cousin, Amy's, cute Eek blocks.

But I did get this one

the other thing that my mom made. The crow on top is from the dollar store! The vinyl and the blocks were cute by my brother.

We all got so many cute things done! I can't wait for next month!!

Spooky fun

I added this idea to my blogger friend's Make you Monday linky party, go check out all the other fun ideas this week from other creative ladies in blogger land here. Also check out Someday Crafts linky party for more fun fall ideas.


Remember these from the last post?

Well yesterday was craft day and look at them now!




I made this to go by my front door. I had the wheat garage sale find from last month there. But I just wasn't loving it. So I have decided to make this my little seasonal corner. I only decorate really big for Halloween and Christmas. So this is were I can put at least a little nod for the remainder of the holidays.

I also made these..
(If you want to do your own, I would be happy to email the pictures to you, just leave a comment with your email address or email me at coryshilokids@netzero.com)

My DH loves Halloween! Every year we set up a haunted house look in the front yard about a week before Halloween. I wanted to keep the same creepy feeling in the front entry were the trick or treaters will be coming. Here is the front table so far with my craft day projects.
I won't be adding the final touches to this until it is a little closer to the holiday, but Halloween has definately entered the Johnson home!

Busy, Busy

Having this...

as a mother makes it mandatory that I love Halloween. Lucky for both of us I do!
Love the pumpkins...love the scary decorations....love the chocolate! And really love any excuse to craft..and what better excuse than a holiday!!

This week I have been working on this cutie...




Now, the before mentioned mother, AKA The Clever Rose is not a scrapbooker, she has a drawer that holds her pictures. The pictures are all mingled together, my wedding mixed with Levi's 3rd birthday, mixed with the trip to Disneyland and her high school dance pictures...well you get the idea. Amazingly enough she manages to find what ever picture she is looking for when she wants, so she must have some secret clever system in place! But when even she is coveting this cute altered tin, I know I have done good!





This is the finishing touch on a Halloween whimsy jar swap that I am in on Two Peas. (Yes, another! I really am a swapping junky!) But I may just have to make a few more one for me and one for the Halloween Freak...er I mean, mom!

Here is a little preview on a future post....


And this Saturday is my turn to host the Sisterhood of the Traveling Paints or Craft Day

I have big plans for these on Saturday....

Greyson's Gift

When strangers ask how many kids I have I give them the simple answer....three. When someone I know a little better asks I give them the really answer....four, three on earth and one waiting for us in heaven.

Gunner is our oldest child..here. He is 10 and a true miracle! That is thanks to his sister, Shaylee. Shaylee was stillborn at 42 weeks. Yes, I was two weeks over due. There was never any indication during the entire pregnancy that anything was wrong. We went into a routine appointment and the DR could not find her heartbeat.

After a long, difficult birth our beautiful baby girl was born. She was perfect in everyway, except she was no longer alive. We later discovered that I get a condition called IUGR - Intrauterine Growth Retardation. Essentially the placenta quits working at about 5 months. If it goes undetected, like in Shaylee's case, then it often results in the baby dying. Nothing can prevent it. But it can be controlled, with severe bed rest and around the clock monitoring of the baby and eventually an early birth. We did not know any of this with Shaylee, but because of her, we knew about it when we were pregnant with Gunner and Taya (both had the same condition). He was premature and had to stay in NICU for several weeks, but today he is healthy happy 10 year old.

After Shaylee was born, the nurses wrapped her in a blanket and we held her for several hours. When the nurses took her body, they gave me the blanket she had been wrapped in. I slept with that blanket for 3 months. And when ever I fell alone or like the pain of losing her is going to eat me up, I take that blanket out and hold it. I always fell closer to her when I do.

This is still tender and hard for me to share (even after 12 years), because the grief always overwhelms me when I get this far into the store, hence the reason strangers get the simple answer. But I felt sharing my store might encourage some of you to join my mom, sister (I hope all of them?) and I in participating in Greyson's Gift I know how much comfort that little blanket can bring to a mom or a dad when they feel like they life will never be happy again.

Every Princess needs a Palace!

So maybe it is not a palace, but I think it is better! I have always wanted a craft room. Where I could spread out my projects (or mess as DH calls it) and then leave it with out having to clean up in the middle of a project so I could serve dinner on the table or sleep in the bed! (both former places where I use to craft) And not to have to dig in a closet or a box for that one thing I bought and I know I bought it, but now I can't find it! But not any more!
When we moved into this house, we set up the room right off the kitchen as a dining room.

It has my beautiful hutch that my dad made me in it and our awesome table that seats 12 when fully extended.

We have used that room as a dining room only once since we moved in here in January! It was great, cause we were able to host DH whole family (which is HUGE) for Easter dinner.

But I wanted more space for my crafting. So I added book cases and shelves to the back wall.

I wanted it to look presentable as a dining room, but to function as a craft room! So I tried to display at least the stuff at eye level in a cute way. The first picture is what you see when looking in from the kitchen or the living room. But once you are in the room and look back at the kitchen, then you see all my craft things.


This is the sewing machine table that I inherited from DH grandma, that I previously posted about.





You may recognize these from a previous post! Ignore the crooked one, I hung them my self! The metal board holds my current fav pics and most current complete layout. The cork board ones hold more pics, some memorable (like our recent mini golf score card) and my to do list of swaps and projects I am currently working on.


On the serving area of the hutch my dad made I keep the swaps I am working on or completed and needing to mail.


I bought this tower as my first attempt to organize. Silly me thinking all my supplies would fit in to this one tiny tower! On top is three stacked bowls. I love these, my favorite florist got them for me! I think that the middle bowl is the only thing DH would claim. It is were his keys, wallet, pedometer, wedding band, etc is SUPPOSE to go when he comes home from work. (The only way they end up there is if I put them there!) The bottom one is flowers for flower clips and the top holds the families sun glasses.

There is also my beloved doc station. (My playlist currently includes Daughtry No Surprise, Martina McBride Independence Day, Def Leppard Photograph, Bee Gees Staying Alive and Mormon Tabernacle Choir Spirit of God, yea it's eclectic!)Can't craft with out some music in the background. I would like to add some letters or blocks here that say create or something like that.

These are various views of the shelves.

The plant Gavin gave me for moms day, the card and composition notebook I received in recent swaps.

The cute picture on the bottom is my daughter and three nieces. My very talented SIL, Lyndsy took this picture for my mom for mothers day. They are gathered around my moms jewelry. The snap shoot in the middle is my oldest son taken about 6 years ago at the balloon festival. Still one of my favorite photos! I love the colors and the look of excitement in his big brown eyes!

The star box was painted by my boys for their dad for fathers day. Notice at the bottom the big ugly box full of scraps. Yea, I would love to hear your cute ideas on how to make that look nice and cute.

The flowers are from my favoite favorite, that I dried. The boxes hold all the little things (washers, glue sticks, etc) The two containers are frosting containers washed out and covered with paper. One holds paper flowers and the other holds twine.


I am obsessed with cardstock! I don't think I could make a layout without it! I keep it on the shelf organized by color. That way I can see at a glance what shades I need more of.

Remember these from my last post? Erin inspired me when she reminded me of how her sweet sister, Stacey aka the Thrifty Chick, who recently passed away, used jars in her craft room. One is filled with ribbons, the other chipboard letters and the last with DH badges from his scouting days. I love the colors of them and they are very special to him, some day I will use them to make something cool for him!

These are my inspirations!

The newborn pics of my three sweethearts. Aren't they sweet! They were too precious to hide in a book.

But it is not all perfect! What space ever is?

The corner of abandoned/unfinished projects. There is the shadow boxes, I really do want to finish! And the stupid rug I started. I hate that rug! In fact I was just telling my mom that I will never finish it, the thought of finishing makes me mad and that I ought to throw it out!

So if anyone is in need of a 1/4 finished rug let me know! And if you have shared your craft space, I would love to see it!