Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 1 & 2 (Part 2)

201o! Happy New Year!!! January 1st marked the "official" start of Week 1: Space Audit of the Organize your Stuff Challenge at http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/. In order to do this, I needed to plant my flag in the fertile land that I was to call my own, and figure out exactly what it was that I did...or didn't need.
.
The first thing to do was remove the large masculine office desk from our dining room (seen in Before-Dining Room).... you know so that I could replace it with another large, er...functional, scrapbooking desk! Out too went the dented filing cabinet (on the right)... and in went the dancing little girl (my self-appointed Girl Friday).

New Years brought a boon for me, with 1/2 price scrapbooking storage at Michael's (Yeah!!!!). As a frugal, dining room expansionist... I knew that this was my chance to acquire all at once, that which would take me months of 40% off coupons to acquire. I channelled my inner "Kid in a Candy Shop" persona, and was off to shop!
.

When I got home, Girl Friday was at the door! While my boys had slunk off to the play room muttering something like "this is not the helper you are looking for", my daughter saw a chance to "help". I had my first inner zen moment about jetmax cubes, then. The Cube itself, is so easy to put together that a preschooler could do it (and I have the photos to prove it). It just takes a lot l-o-n-g-e-r...
.
Also, the inner drawers are SO tedious with their teeny screws, that if it wasn't for the previously mentioned fabulous spouse (and college football bowl games!!), I doubt that I would have gotten past drawer #2.
.
Sooo...in two days, I got 10 jetmax cubes (for the price of 5) done and was ready to redo Week 1: Brainstorming (officially), and complete a layout.

It was actually nice to sit in the dining room, listening to my fabulous spouse help lead his teams to victory on the field through mass male ESP, share punches and oohhh over the creations of Girl Friday, and break up what ever the boys were doing in the play room that had me convinced that a herd of wild rhinos had been smuggled in with the cat from the back yard.
.
This time I got a real list...
What Works:
1. Solid Papers in Cropper Hoppers
2. Clear Stamps / Acrylic Blocks
3. Inks
4. Digital Photo Organization
5."Must have"/easy reach sack of tools
6. Cricut cartridge storage
.
What Doesn't Work:
1. Ok... the obvious...1/2 my stuff still upstairs
2. Counter space too small
3. Embellishments in too many places
4. Ribbons not organized
5. Patterned Paper
6. Pre-digital Photo storage in bulging plastic shopping bags


Here are my cubes in place, with 12 photo boxes (for photo week... also gotten for 1/2 price.

This leads to Week 2: Brainstorming (officially). Wookiemouse challenged us to think of what we would envision of our space, if money were no object. For me, that meant that if in fact fabulous spouse was transformed into non-philandering millionaire spouse, then my Scrapbook Room would be Martha Stewart/ New England Colonial. You know, fabulous trim, fluted moldings, cool pewter labels with antique, hand written labels that can only be reproduced if you are MS and own your own quill making ducks and geese and crush your own berries for ink... I know, not realistic, but Wookiemouse never said anything about realistic...
.
Back in reality, fabulous spouse was on travel, and I brought down my two Ikea Expidit bookcases and scrapbooks. Also, I came to realize that stacking boxes on carpet is not the most stable of ideas....so it was off to my other store (besides Michael's and JoAnn's) that I am usually banned from without supervision...Home Depot.
.
I built a platform for my jetmax cubes...to keep them stable, not because my inner OCD makes me overdo everything...
.
Here is my middle child on the platform (I did manage to get my oldest to help...briefly). My boys are like rare, endangered species that are not often photographed in the wild, as they have been over exposed by my maternal paparazzi instinct.
.
.
.
And finally, my transforming room for Week 2. No, I am not sharing the devastation upstairs... I ...er... forgot to photograph that. (It is a part of the letting go....yeah....um hmmm....).