In my Dream House

I often imagine my dream house.  

I have such a vivid picture of it in my head that I doubt I'll ever be able to find a real house in existence that even compares to the beauty and splendor I've pictured in my head.

One thing my dream house will most definitely have is a HUGE and perfectly organized craft room.

I picture it looking something like this:

or this:

or this:

I especially love the design aesthetic of this crafty little closet but imagine it on a bigger scale...

What do you picture inside your dream home?

Just a Quick Update

This week was absolute craziness! Three papers, a quiz, classes, and halloween all in a matter of three days was just a little overwhelming.  But now that the craziness is over I've been crafting my little heart out and should have plenty of new things up in the next week!

What to do with one hundred cigar boxes?

I have to admit I have a craft supply shopping addiction.  I got to the craft store for one thing and come home with twenty.  I find inspiration in pretty much everything I see and can't wait to get it home and create something new.  Now why is it that when craft supplies come free I can't find the same creative motivation?

My dad is an avid cigar smoker and collector which is great news for me because the boxes cigars come in are absolutely beautiful and my fabulous daddy saves them all for me.  The problem is I have NO idea what to do with them.

I've been searching the web for ideas and picking my friends brains and I just can't seem to settle on an idea.  I've made one into a jewelry box:

But that really doesn't seem like the direction I want to go.  My newest inspiration is this fab altoid tin:

I love the idea of creating a whole little world inside my boxes and making something completely unexpected.  What do you think?

Branding

I've been working all day on a mood board for Modern Day Dauphine.  What do you think??

And on a Side Note

My little blog has reached just over 1000 views!

Baby steps of progress!

Small Spaces

As a college student and young adult I've been granted the somewhat difficult task of decorating small spaces since I moved out of my parents house and into the dorms a little over six years ago.  Moving into the dorms was such an exciting time, but while most college freshman are looking forward to making friends and having more freedom I was looking forward to having my own space to decorate.  I was lucky enough to have a roommate who didn't care too much about our room design as long as it was cute and her David Beckham poster got to be up on the wall.  Shopping for our dorm room was so much fun and it was my first real experience with decorating. Of course I'd always decorated my bedroom but this time I had a budget and set furniture and in the words of Tim Gunn I had to "make it work."  After designing That room I was hooked on design for good and I actually learned to love designing small spaces.  I posted some photos of my personal small space at my old apartment here but here are some small spaces designed by others.

Don't these rooms just inspire you?

Wow

OH. EM. GEE. Taylor Swift does it again. Her new cd "red" has been playing in my apartment, car and head on repeat since the second it came out on itunes.

My favorite song is 'I Knew you Were Trouble'

Have you heard the cd yet? Whats your favorite song??

I Don't Want to Jynx it but...

I have a job interview tomorrow. And im pretty positive about it. Theres a very good chance I'll be waiting tables again very very soon.
However, I have very mixed feelings about it right now. I am so lucky to have parents who are supporting me while I try to get my etsy store to take off (and I actually think I figured out part of the problem but more on that later) but the support theyre giving me leaves me very little money for fun and craft supplies. So the money Id make serving would definitely be much needed and welcomed. But the time I'll spend making that money will significantly eat in to my homework time, which in turn will eat into my craft time and then the etsy is even further set back.
I realize I'm getting a little ahead of myself because I don't even have the job yet but these are all considerable concerns.

If you were in my position what would you put first? The money or the craft bussiness of your dreams?

Ten Commandments for Crafters

1.  Thou shall clean paintbrushes immediately after use
2.  Thou shall wait for paint to dry completely before moving on to the next step of a project
3.  Thou shall not paint on an uncovered surface
4.  Thou shall not use an xacto knife with out proper surface protection underneath
5.  Thou shall not take someone elses idea without significantly altering it to make it your own
6.  Thou shall never buy when they can DIY
7.  Thou shall never use spray adhesive or spray paint indoors
8.  Thou shall give handmade gifts instead of store bought whenever possible
9.  Thou shall never let a fear of failing hold you back from trying a new project
10.Thou shall be proud of your own work, even when it doesn't turn out perfectly




What crafting Commandments do you follow?

What's my Motivation?

I can't lie...I'm stuck in a bit of a rut.

So today, I'm going to make a list of all the things that inspire me, and hopefully some of them can inspire you too.

• www.craftster.org - This site is an amazing community of artists and crafters who post their craft projects and often tutorials for everyone to see.

•  Champagne Lifestyles on a Beer Budget is a great blog by a girl around my age living the fabulous life but on a budget.  Lots of DIY and decor.
• Dance...all kinds.  Taking a class, seeing a ballet, watching the little girls on dance moms, it totally and completely inspires my creative side

• The show Flea Market Flip on HGTV.  It takes two teams of two to a flea market and gives them a budget and three tasks.  They buy items at the flea market and then crafts them to fit the tasks they were given and then sell them at the flea market.  They are seriously creative and come out with awesome items to sell.
• My bedroom

 

As I said, I'm struggling to find inspiration right now...what inspires you?

Dissapointed

So today was a pretty disappointing day as far as my etsy shop is concerned.  For those of you familiar with selling on etsy your items expire after four months and today was that four month mark for me.  I guess I just thought I'd be doing better by now and I didn't think I'd have so many unsold items when this day came.  So now the big question is:

What do I do to boost my sales?

currently I've been looking at blogs like handmadesuccess and handmadeology which have a lot of great marketing ideas.  I guess I just need to put them in to practice.

I Hate to Admit it but...

I've fallen off the wagon.

The organizational wagon that is.

For those of you who've been following along you may remember This post where I told you all about how perfectly organized every aspect of my life was, thanks in large part to my ipad.

Well unfortunately for me, it takes a little more than technology to stay on top of your game.  Planning and scheduling can only take you so far but it's up to you to follow through.  

Now I'm not a lost cause yet and I will say that all of my organizational tools helped me notice how off track I was getting.  So my new plan is to make small adjustments in my day to day in order to get back to the happily organized modern day dauphine I was a month ago.

How do you stay organized?

Just a Little Update

So school has been crazy busy and I've had very little time to work on my long list of craft and DIY to-dos. Despite that I have ads running on both facebook and etsy and have mad three sales in the last thirty days! YAY ME!!
What do you do to advertize your blog?

xoxo

The Modern Day Dauphine

In honor of breast cancer awareness month

Halloween Mantle

Here's my Halloween mantle in my apartment:

And some close ups of the bulletin board I made:

What do you think?? 

How are you decorating for Halloween?

I Have a Secret

Ok.

So it's not so much a secret as it is a new project.

meet my new craft desk:

yes, it is slanted.  yes, there is a big gap between the cabinet and the desk top. yes, it's missing a wheel.  yes, it is a hot mess.

But none of this concerns me.  I can't wait to work my DIY crafty magic and turn this train wreck into a beauty fit for a princess.  But for now, all plans for this project are top secret. 

And as soon as I finish this episode of Grey's Anatomy, project closet purge will begin!! More on that later!!

I'm back and Menu Plan Monday

Hello there my faithful readers

Sorry to have left you for the last few days but I was in Las Vegas celebrating my dad's 70th birthday.

The trip was exactly the break I needed to relax, breathe, and come home ready to stay on track with school, organizing and life in general.

Tonight's task: Menu Plan Monday

So you're probably wondering "what's the deal with all those shakes?"

Well, a few months ago I tried the new diet fad Body By Vi.  It seemed to work pretty well so I've decided to give it another chance (and happen to have over a months worth of shake powder left over) to lose a few pounds for Halloween.

So that's the deal on my menu for this week...let's hope I can stick to it.

Next task: cleaning out my closet!

current desire: craft desk

My current workspace, while very well organized is just a plain old Ikea desk that I painted to match my room.  It works...but that's all it does.  I'm currently in the market for a new desk that includes storage like these:

I'm thinking I might have to use my DIY skills on a thrift store find since these are all out of my budget...I'll have to wait and see!

And on the Etsy front...

I made not one but TWO sales today at Modern Day Dauphine! YAY!!! I only wish I knew if it came from the etsy add, the facebook add, the sorority facebook walls I posted on or sheer luck!

Wallet Purse Problems and Problem Solved. For Now.

I finally found the perfect wallet clutch...

Or so I thought.

When I saw this clutch at TJMaxx it seemed like everything I was looking for in this Previous post.  It had an acordian style pocket with two sections and a zippered pocket, ten credit card slots, a spot for cash and a removable chain that lets you use it as a wallet, clutch, or cross body bag.  And on top of that I love the style...especially for $15.  So it's perfect right? Wrong.  Even though I was able to close it with my cell phone inside it in the store, once I put my credit cards, business cards and check book inside, I could hardly get it to shut and once I put my change in the zippered pocket it wouldn't close at all. This is all I can fit inside it:

So unfortunately even though it seemed like the perfect size, it's too small to close with the things I want inside it.  And now that I've found a shape and style I like, I'm not sure I'll be satisfied with anything else so for now I've come up with a solution.  Rather than use this one wallet to store everything I'll ever need (which is sort of a pipe dream anyway) I have divided my things into multiple little bags:

• gift cards (which I have about 20 of at any given time)
• "the essentials" (hand sanitizer, lotion, tissues, etc)
• make up
• wallet

Even though it's not a perfect solution, it does make it easier to move from bag to backpack and the wallet holds just enough to be able to take out as a clutch at night. Barely. Now I just need to make some labeled zippered bags to hold each set of items.

My First Meal Plan Monday

Here is my meal plan for the week.  I found this template at The Project Girl and I love it.  The best part about it is the space at the bottom where I can post all the ingredients so I can make my shopping list for the week based on what I do and don't have in the house.  

Now I know this seems like an extremely basic week but I have a few excuses reasons for that.  First of all as you can see I'm leaving for Las Vegas Thursday night so I don't want to buy any groceries which will go bad if they aren't used.  Second of all I have school all day Tuesday and Thursday and need quick easy food.  Third of all I don't have time to go shopping since I'm planning tonight instead of on a Sunday.  Overall I'm ok with it but hopefully as the weeks go on my menus will improve.

Menu Plan Monday

Following along with my current organizing obsession and a serious interest in losing weight I've decided I need to organize the way I eat.  I started looking for ways to better plan my shopping trips and weekly menus and came across I am an Organizing Junkie and their Meal Plan Monday series.  Starting this week I will be spending time each Sunday night planning my menu for the week and grocery shopping Monday mornings as Organizing Junkie suggests.  However since I just discovered this idea I'm a day behind this week and will be planning my menu now and posting it later tonight!

Goooooo GIANTS!

My dad is a HUGE giants fan. Huge as in he needed a tranquilizer to get through the Super Bowl last year. This month is his birthday and not just any birthday but his 70th. So since its such a special occasion my mom and I splurged and got him a ton of giants paraphernalia and I spent the day hanging it in his office

Current Desire: Clutch Wallet

If you've been following my blog then you know I'm all about organizing and simplifying my life right now. Now that I'm back in school I'm constantly switching between my backpack and my purse and then to a clutch on nights out. This creates the issue of moving my must have items like credit cards, business cards, my check book, etc back and forth between the three places.  While window shopping at Francesca's today I came across the perfect solution: 

A combination clutch and wallet.

It had more slots for credit cards than my current wallet, a spot for my check book, pockets large enough to hold my phone business cards, even my sun glasses.  By keeping everything in that I could easily switch between my purse and back pack.  I MUST have one.  Not wanting to buy the first one I saw I decided to do some research first and have been looking for one online.  I still haven't found the perfect one for the perfect price but here are some that come pretty close:

Make-up Organization

So right now I'm on a huge organization kick.  As I mentioned in my previous post I've been on a mission to organize everything in my life from my bank account to my bedroom.  One thing that was just not making the cut was my make-up.  I had everything in one big train case like this:

 

While this provided some ability to compartmentalize, I was limited by the size of each space and it just wasn't enough. So I started looking for options and I came across some flat file cabinets like the ones below and thought they would be perfect with some drawer organizers.

There was only one problem...They are all COMPLETELY out of my budget.  Aside from the fact that I couldn't possibly afford one I liked aesthetically, I had a very specific size and shape in mind. This is constantly a problem for me, especially as a DIYer. I think everything should be tailored exactly to fit my needs and if it isn't I'd rather make it myself, so I turned to my favorite website, craftster.  There I found this absolutely beautiful completely handmade flat file holder.

Now I had a new problem............I know nothing about wood working.  Once I saw this I knew I wouldn't be happy with something that didn't fit my exact needs so I started to come to the very sad conclusion that I would need a new make-up solution. Enter Target.  I found this:

Now I know what you're thinking. What is so exciting about a plain white plastic set of drawers.  First of all the price was unbeatable at 13.95 when compared to some of the flat file cabinets at over 100.  Second of all, something so plain would be easy to embellish and use my DIY skills to make it the perfect addition to my room.  Third of all it was the EXACT shape and size I'd been looking for.  However the thing that really sold me were the 5 dollar drawer organizers I found that were the eact height and shape of the drawers.  Perfect.  Now it sits next to my dresser filled like this:

Not only is everything organized into neat little compartments, but the drawers are filled in the order I apply my make up from top to bottom.  The only thing let to do is decorate it.  How do you organize your make-up?

Not Four Years But For Life

As I've mentioned previously, I'm an alumni of Alpha Phi and I can't even put into words how much that means to me.  So today while I was looking through Facebook at all of the new pictures my sisters still in the chapter have been posting of all the new girls who just joined I got an idea.  Why not use Alpha Phi to my advantage? Since a huge part of my target market for my etsy store is college age girls, and this is the time of year when the girls get new little sisters who they make or buy gifts for, I decided to post a little advertisement for custom gifts on our chapters Facebook wall.  Then I realized how many sororities there are on campus and that they could all be potential clients as well and left a message on every chapter's page and had my friends at other schools post for me on their chapter's walls.  Even if all it gets me is some more exposure I'll be happy!

In other news I also launched an add campaign on facebook to get more "likes" on my facebook page.  So far I've gotten three new "likes" from strangers across the country so I guess that's a start.  What type of things have you done to market your etsy or blog?

And in the spirit of crafting for littles, here are the gifts I made for my own Little sis a few years back!