Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 3 Clean Slate

Ok. So far, not so bad. Create a layout, make some lists, win the imagination lottery and create the Scrapbook room of your dreams.

This week started Week 3: Clean Slate. So, I went to Wookiemouse's blog, read all about this week's challenge...and the fact that we were going to hate her by the end of it, and was left with the really easy decision... start small or go for broke. No Brainer! Go for broke! I need to be firmly and irrevocably entrenched in this dining room before my fabulous spouse realizes football season is over and he can more easily move my stuff up stairs, then I can move mountains and get the rest of my crap...er...essential scrapbooking supplies downstairs. I do not hate you Zen Master Scrapbooker. This is not hard.

As a bargain with fabulous spouse, I have promised to do a minimum one layout a week during this hostile takeover of the dining room, along with the week's organizational activity...it is like that fine print with Rumpelstiltskin... and next time I get your first born child... Ok, I have been a mom long enough to realize that might not be such a bad thing (just kidding oldest child. Really.). But, fabulous spouse knows that in addition to being a member of the Scrap Addicts Guild, that I am unfortunately also a member of Procrastinators Anonymous (hello, my name is Scrappnbee and I have a...oohhh, shiny object...anybody see that show last night...) I digress. He is afraid that I would use this challenge as an excuse not to create, or creating as an excuse not to organize. But that is why I have you all!

Here is my layout for this week (done before clean slate-ing, because I know where everything is, even if others would need tracking dogs). I even got to use my new glitter rub-ons (yeahh!) ...That was Friday night.

Saturday, fabulous spouse "sent me to my room" with the promise of no commercial interruptions by children, and a cup of coffee. Wow. Um, yeah. Can I have a hall pass? ...I'll get you Wookiemouse. YOU and your little dog too. This is WAY too overwhelming. Ok, now I know officially know how my kids feel when I say "Just go upstairs and clean your room."... and I get the look that says, I will do anything, anything...just don't make me do THAT. I'll eat vegetables...please!

I am a big girl. I AM wearing my big girl panties. So, I girded my loins, cowboy-ed up, picked a corner and started. Ten minutes later I stopped.

You see I had run out of space to put things in piles. This is bad. Then I looked at my piles...

Ribbons

Flowers

Beads

Eyelets
Brads

...whoa Tiger! Put that inner OCD away! If I remembered correctly (and trust me, my mantra is: If I knew I would lose this many brain cells having children, I'd have had more fun in college... so my memory does not always serve me right), there was an embellishment and a ribbon week in my future, but not a flower week or a bead week.

So, downstairs I went, and I found some post it notes and the master week list from the message board and decided that I was only sorting by Wookiemouse's categories... at the appropriate time OCD Scrappnbee can have full reign and go to town. However, today is not that day, else it will take me to week 7 to complete week 3!

All right! Back to work. Pile by pile I had a plan and I was ready to go! Fabulous spouse would come up and check every so often, just to make sure I hadn't started doing something inappropriate with the decorative scissors, and to ply me with caffeine.

As work progressed, I did come to the realization that some things were category-less...

1. Adhesive. I mean seriously! I have at least 3 sizes of Xyron (and their cartridges), Zip dry, Tombo, Hermafix, glue dots, dry adhesive, wet adhesive, refills. So, I created a bonus post-it for this (and will tackle on a non-event week for me...like templates (sorry template lovers, I missed that craze)).

2. Mini-albums. These are not projects/kits/ whatever... that behemoth has already had to be moved twice as it has grown. These are small, blank Chipboard books, tag books, Target $1 books, you know the completely blank little book for when you are either drafted by co-workers, or compelled by school/ scouts to "create" something scrapbook-y. Wow. They have been busy in the dark and multiplied like bunnies....fertile bunnies.

3. Misc/other/ etc...what category do shrinky dinks go in? Unused page protectors? album protectors?

Like the Karate Kid following Mr. Miagi (I am sorry if this dates me and makes me old) I toiled all day long. I even got to the two boxes I had not even opened since moving in 2008...which meant moving the Scrapbook Room TV...which was actually in my bedroom, as I never worked in my Scrapbook Room, and would watch my DVR in bed!

It was boring. It was tedious. It was not as I thought when I went up in the morning, definitely not as bad as giving birth...no cool drugs afterwards though....In the end, I had proverbally waxed on, waxed off... I could not yet do the crane... but I was progressing. Oh! and in my piles of memorabilia (I totally plan on taking a bottle of wine up with me for that week....) I did find a baseball (yes a baseball) that my then 4 year-old oldest child caught in SC, and American Express travellers checks from a vacation in 1999...yes $40 from 1999. It is a good thing that American Express didn't go down in the banking crisis... oooh scrapbooking money. If only it was a fertile as those mini albums *sigh*.

Ok, Wookiemouse. You are still fabulous, your dog is safe. This is doable, one piece at a time. I am still a neophyte in the world of Scrapbooking Organization. Oh, and here is my After... Original Scrapbook Room post-clean slate!