IKEA

Oh yes, who would've thunk it. I've actually gotten into this Smash Book idea.

I'm a clean & simple scrapbooker. Give me some paper and I can make something with just a few pieces. And pretty much all of it will be straight, and pretty flat on the page.

So the idea of a smash book where you just, well, smash stuff in should be a bit frightening to me. It's not. I think the idea is pretty genius. I have a box full of boarding pass stubs, theater tickets, passport pics, and all of it I know will never make it into a scrapbook album. But now I will have a place to put them!

I'm actually not sold on the actual smash books, I'd rather make one myself.

Or three. Because what I would like to do is one that contains random bits like the stubs and tickets and other fun things that you might gather up in everyday life, one containing inspiration ideas like cutouts from IKEA catalogs (shudder, gasp! Cut into IKEA catalogs?? Yes, that's why I get a second copy :) Which are all still intact right now so finally time to get out the scissors!) and so on, and the third will be for quotes, which I'll mostly be printing off Pinterest

Because I'm making my own I'll have to figure out what to use. I have a stack of scrapbook paper that I'm fairly sure I won't be using for albums or layouts anymore (although I did give a bunch of paper away a couple of years ago, I finally do some "use it or lose it" and now I regret it. I'll never be able to throw anything away now!) and some other novelty paper that's sitting in the basement in a moving box. I'll be throwing those through the paper cutter and the Cinch.

But I have found a book, or album that I couldn't resist for this purpose, at one of my favorite places. IKEA.

I'll give you one guess which color I bought it in.

The pages are white. Not so much fun then, but the coil binding is Cinch/BIA compatible so I figured I could dismantle it and put some of my own paper in. But then I saw this pin. Now, this is actually a page from the blue smash book by K&Co, but it looks stamped and either someone thought it was, or figured that you could make that yourself using stamps. That's pretty genius. I would still have to take the coil apart to be able to stamp all the way to the edge of the paper, but this would be a fun way to play with stamping.

I haven't decided yet which of the three smash books this one's going to be though. I have other projects to finish first anyway, but my box of smash book things is filling up pretty well in the mean time.

First I'm off to finish my "Me: The Abridged Version" album, finally. Started over a year ago but now I'm really motivated to get it finished before the end of November. And after that, finish last years December Daily album, start this year's December Daily album, and then I'll restart One Little Word. Oh, and I'm thinking of doing Project Life next year too. Argh. I might be taking on too much here.

Edit: Ok, so I'm supposed to be finishing my MeTAV but I couldn't resist. I have a gazillion stamps that are just great for this idea that I've practically never used. So here's my first attempts at stamping the IKEA album pages.

Yes!! I have a scrap room! Well, that is, it's still a combined room (scrap & office/computer) but it's a lot better than the tiny corner in the bedroom I had. I managed to squeeze quite a bit in there but it really was a squeeze.

When I moved I had a pretty good idea what I wanted for this room so the basics where done pretty quickly but it took me some time to organize all my stuff the way I wanted. And now it's finished. Well, pretty much, there's still a few details to do but I want to show you what it looks like now.

I had the expedit and the paper station in my old place, the rest of the furniture is pretty much new. And you might have noticed, nearly all IKEA :) 3 billy's on the left, one for work, a galant desk and a table my dad made.

In the Billy's I have a whole bunch of small Samla boxes. 4 of those didn't really fit on one shelf, but if I raised 2 of the 4 a little the edges would be above their neighbors and it would fit. I ended up using DVD boxes to raise the boxes. I also thought they looked a little cluttered, being transparent, showing all the different content, so I made labels. The white cards are interchangeable so I can change them when the contents changes, the pink cardstock is hanging by embroidery thread :) through holes I drilled in the boxes using a Dremel. I used eyelets in the cards for the thread and beads at the ends. I used the BasicGrey Notch & Die tool (yes, that old one that was a bit of a hype but most, including me, didn't really know what to do with!) to create the half moon slits to slide the cards in. The cards are just printed on 200grams white paper and cut to size.

Here's the middle Billy from the front. At the top, the Samla boxes, then the flowers in Krus boxes, then Agen baskets with felt, fabrics, and such.

I have my punches in the tall Alex drawer cabinet.

In the top drawer there's stickles, floss, and embossing powder

I just got the new shelf inserts for the expedit, love those.

I also stocked up on the pink knubbig lights when they where dumping them a while back, creates a little atmosphere next to the cold but useful TL light.

On my desk I have my sharpies and other pens in four Rektangel vases, sitting on a Barfota candle dish (that dish unfortunately seems to be discontinued).

So this is it as of now. Above the expedit I have a 'little' project in mind. I'll show you that when it's done.