My Scrappin Space (Before and After), and some early spaces too

 So I've had many many spaces designated as scrapping spaces over the years. I started out using an end table in the evenings, back when all my supplies fit in a tiny grey box. Then it all fit into the box plus an Iris cart, then I added a Crop-N-Style XXL, and then I outgrew it! Then I acquired my own table in the corner of the dining room, which led to my own room because we were in a 4-bedroom apartment with only 2 kids at the time. Then when my youngest was born, I eventually moved the bedrooms around so that the older 2 shared a room (their choice), and had a playroom so that their friends were no longer able to jump on beds, the youngest had his own room, but his toys were in the living room area because he was a toddler, I moved my scrapbook stuff back out into the living room so I could scrap during the day without worrying what the kids were doing. I had a neat set up using a 6ft table from Staples and those storage cubes from Michael's. You can see most of it here, with the Cricut bag in the way.

Then we moved into a 3 bedroom house, with a front hall we didn't use so I turned that area in my space. It had it's pros and cons and I moved it around more than I created!

 

 

 

Now my kids and I are in a new city, new home and it's a rental that I don't want to paint/wreck (the other places were rentals too but were more lenient in decorating). I also downsized my supplies BIG TIME before the big move (well we downsized a lot of stuff-I'm sure the garbage men in my old neighborhood were glad to see us go! lol)
So, this is what it started out as:

As you can see, it's brown and boring and dark. Not nearly what a great scrapping space should look like!

To transform my room, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I kept leaning toward pink, as this space is in my bedroom and my bedroom decor is browns, pinks and creams. Then I was sitting on my bed one afternoon, talking on the phone and my eye kept going to the blue on my Cricut machine. I started leaning towards the blues. The next day I was at the dollar store and I found stackable trays, paint, and square jars all in the same blue! Well I took that as a sign and snatched it all up!








I went through my scraps of patterned papers and took out all the ones that were mostly blue, cut them into 1 1/2" wide strips, left them at their varying lengths and then used my distressing tool along the length of both sides.Then I used modge podge to stick the papers to my cork board in a diagonal pattern. It was surprisingly hard to make it look random and not develop a pattern along the way! I had also painted the edges of the board ahead of time in the blue so that I wouldn't get paint on my papers (I'm a messy painter, can't to a straight edge to save my life!) I put on a sealer coat of modge podge when it was all done, just to make sure it all stuck well. Then I put strips of cream ribbon going diagonal in the opposite direction, attached with clear push pins. 

I found a roll of wallpaper to put on the wall, instead of paint, and that REALLY made a difference! Talk about instant gratification! The wallpaper was $30 for the roll (I checked clearance bins, but they all reminded me of funeral homes or hospitals, so that was a no go!) Plus I knew I would only need 1 roll, so it didn't seem like a lot to pay) I managed to do this whole space for about $50 by the time I add in the new storage things, paint, etc. Along with the edge of the cork board, I painted the front edge of the table white, the legs the same blue as the cork board, and I also painted a clear plastic magazine holder in the blue
So here is what my space looks like now:

Quite the transformation!! It's brighter even just sitting there, although I would like to get one more of the lights I have on the wall on the right, to put on the left, as my bedroom light is only one bulb, which is no good for night time scrapping! I think a cool blue floor mat would be nice too instead of the cold floor, but all in good time!