Time to reboot the scrapping room!

As New Zealand is known as "The Land of the Long, White Cloud", Australia is proud of its status as "The Land of the Long Weekend"! For reasons lost in the mists of time, it has been traditional for many public holidays to be tacked onto a weekend, to create a long one. But the Easter weekend is naturally the favourite as we take Good Friday AND add on Easter Monday to compensate for Easter Sunday falling on a day we already have off! Only a couple of decades ago, we even had Easter Tuesday, which I think was a day off to compensate for the Monday, which we were already off for because of Sunday! Sadly these days, while office workers add flexi-days either side, round out the two weeks with a bit of annual leave or "chuck a sickie" with fortunately-timed vague illnesses, those who work in retail can find themselves working  all but the still respected Good Friday (although even that can find those in the food service industry rostered on that day).

While Easter is a sacred religious festival for some, a cultural celebration for many and a feast of chocolate for all, it is also a time when those on holiday divide into two camps: those who go away and those who stay home. Those who stay home tend to turn the four days into an autumnal DIY opportunity of painting and other household maintenance and redecorating. Which is what this rambling introduction for the benefit of my overseas readers is all about!

My lovely scrapping room isn't working efficiently for me as I am moving more and more into art journalling. Scrapbooking is a basically "dry" craft activity, where the mess tends to be scrraps of paper. But now I am using a lot more "wet" techniques - paints, sprays, stencilling, mediums etc. I really need to distinct work areas to keep my dry stuff out of harms way when the wet is flying thick and fast.

I popped into Ikea after work and picked up this on special:

I plan to set it up to be my dry workspace and use the storage drawers and cupboard to keep my journals when I am not working on them. At $69 instead of $99, it was just the size I was looking for to tuck in and create an L-shaped area with my current desk.

But like all simple solutions, it means that much of the other furniture in the room needs to be rearranged so it will fit in. I am going to use it as an opportunity to do a thorough clean out, purge some unloved supplies and refresh the space.

I also plan to squeeze in some art time before and after over the four days - as well as get some rest - LOL!!! Photos to come!