Scrap your Stuff Challenge: Week 13 Stamps

For me, this is it. The infamous Week 13- Stamps. Thirteen is such a confidence inspiring number… Apollo 13… Friday the 13th …but… (let’s put PA Me back in the box for a minute). The question of the week was, how many individual stamps do you have? Seriously?! As I have alluded to in the past, if there is any one thing that is my downfall in scrapbooking , it is stamps. Crisann the Fabulous- can you say Triskaidekaphobia? Don’t you realize that it is never a good thing to make an addict, with no real desire to change, confront their addiction? Or roll around in it like Scrooge MacDuck in his money vault, reveling in the largess?

This was a throwdown that both PA Me and OCD Me could really get into. As you will see in the photos later, I am not totally unorganized, so counting wasn’t hard. It was just time consuming. I actually broke out the excel spreadsheet to do the math…and me and my laptop began to count… one box at a time. One block stamp…ah ha ha…two block stamp… ah ha ha… (In hind sight, I’d rather be cookie monster).

Cookie monster in mind, and with the prodding of a very nervous Inner Hoarder, it was eventually dinner time on Monday, and I had to stop, or I would never get done. Those uncounted stamps, which I have declared my absentee ballots… are waiting in reserve in 2 little baskets, in case someone comes to challenge my total…4,881 individual stamps. If needs be, I have my hanging chads in reserve, but I am fairly confident that I am a full fledged cirosis of the wallet, hard core, stamp addict.

Here is my layout…

My boxes aren’t any more organized (sorry, Zen Master Wookiemouse), and I did order more stamps today (sorry Fabulous Spouse)… but I at least have a starting place (thank you artist-ju for the stamped idea album idea).

Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 12 Ribbons & Fibers

First, I would like to tackle the Question of the Week for this week by our moderator, Crisann the Fabulous: Remember during the first three weeks of this challenge when we worked through the space audit/brainstorming/clean slate challenges? Is your studio transforming into what you envisioned or have you changed directions along the way?

Realistically, the answer is a definite maybe. I am almost halfway through my hostile takeover of the Dining Room, and the mess that I cleaned up at the end of week 3 is back, and I am fighting insurgents planted by both Fabulous Spouse (piles of mail and memorabilia) and Girl Friday (a 5 yr olds crafting mess runneth over and over and over). As I reintroduce items to my scrapbook room, I realize that in my mind (like many scrapbookers…I think) I have much more storage available than in reality. According to my Inner Hoarder, I do not have an excessive amount of anything (except stamps, but we will deal with that next week). However, I am still completing at least one layout a week, and usually incorporating something from whatever week it is, and I do not feel out of the loop while doing it. Here is this week’s layout, using DMC floss to “connect-the-dots.”

As for this week, for many people, it can be daunting. Ribbons, threads, and fibers…when left to their own devices… can overwhelm a scrap space and become a snarled mess to rival any jewelry drawer. Some, left unchecked, can multiply in the dark (I have seen it happen). Fortunately, or un, while I have a healthy amount of fibers and ribbons in my scrapbooking, I have yet to succumb to a full grown fiber fetish (partially because I think that Fabulous Spouse hides in a corner going “this is not the ribbon you are looking for…move along” in his best Jedi voice).

Those ribbons, fibers and threads that I do have, OCD Me has corralled for the most part (well more than half, at any rate). However, as OCD me always tries to tell PA me, there is always room for improvement. …and lets face it, there are some ribbons, etc that have escaped their tackle box prison, and others that are still at large, having never been captured, tamed, and kenneled with its kin. This is my before ribbons… Like OCD Me said, not bad- but could be better.

So, I sat down with my unruly ribbons and got to work. At some point, Girl Friday got a hold of my camera and here is an unflattering picture of me (post bathroom cleaning and mid ribbon wrangling). It was a few hours worth of work, especially when OCD Me got the idea mid-organization to sort by color rather than thread/fiber type. I also had gotten a $1.50 Clearance jar, and this was to be the home for those ribbons who were still on spools and needed a home. Eventually, I may put together some sort of dowel system, but between swim lessons, little league, boy & cub scouts, and church functions… reality and PA Me have to put their feet down. So, for now, here is my after, not perfect, but getting better.

Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 11 Stickers and Rub On's

Well, this week was stickers and rub on's.  As I have alluded to in the past, and will become embarrassingly evident when we hit stamps week, I am a stamp girl, and have been since the late '90's (yes, I am that old/young).  I do have a few though...  Okay, maybe a few more than that.  Girl Friday was more than willing to help me purge though.  Inner Hoarder went back to her corner to rock this week, because there is nothing more devistating to her than letting go of a sheet of Sandylion or Mrs Grossmans from 1999, that she knows that she will need tomorrow...or someday... and Girl Friday has used them ALL in less than 4.2 seconds on one piece of paper, that she then cut up, glued on top of itself, then (as a well trained Pacific Northwesterner) put in the recycle-ables before I could even take a pic!

I was inspired, however, to use my Star Wars rub ons to do this Star Wars in Concert Layout...and yes, I did actually use 12 separate pictures for the left page! BTW-trying to figure out what picture to cut from the layout was part of my delay posting this week.  Finally, I decided to use them all!

Question of the week from Crisann the Fabulous, is this: Are you enjoying the process of the Organization Challenge.  Honestly...yes.  The griping that goes on is part of the catharsis, and the fact that it is really just easier to complain and lament work, than to say "yeah, sure that was totally easy".  We all know that person and subconsiously hate her.  I have accomplished more in this 11 weeks than I ever though that I could.  Fabulous Spouse is actually impressed, and more involved than I thought he would be.  Girl Friday is excited and as inspired as a 5 yr old can be, and I really feel like I am claiming a useful space.  (I may even graduate from Procrastinators Annon...never mind.  It will never happen.)

This is my before pic for the stickers.  My main goal was to reduce my stickers so that they all fit into this one Iris case, and to do it quickly before the Inner Hoarder went into a full on massive corinary due to Fraud, Waiste, and Abuse by Girl Friday (who felt that she had won the 5yr old and under Little Girl Lottery).

The rub-ons I kept, even though most of them were crop freebies (to keep Inner Hoarder happy).  The rest went smoothly.  PA Me got OCD Me briefly distracted with the lure of a Crop in Style Sticker Binder, but in the end, just decided to stick with my bin for now (Maybe for 2011?....be quiet OCD Me!).

So, with Girl Friday in th Crafter's version of a sugar coma, I had my stickers and rub ons contained, and another week behind me, and another relatively easy week ahead. (Thank goodness, as Little League Season has started!!!)

Organize your Stuff Challenge: Weeks 9 & 10 Embellishments & Alphas

Whew!  What a week!  I finally caught up to the Scrapbook your Stuff Challenge, only to have my blog hit counter hijack my site and and redirect me to the yellow pages every time I clicked on it. *grrrrrrr*

However, my site is fixed (yeahhh!), and here is my layout from this week (using some of my alphas).

So, this week I started embellishments.  Wow.  If there is one thing that I seem to have a lot of... ok I have a lot of, well, a lot of stuff... and one of those things is embellishments.  The POW and OCD me worked well together, and had a plan for all of the maddness... and they took lots of pctures.

I began by emptying all of my crop bags (I have 3 of them) into a 70 gallon Sterlite bin.  I added the pile of embelishment from upstairs, and the stray embellishments that have been taking vacations in my dining room, scoping out the joint, and checking out the neighborhood.  Now, for someone whose scrapbooking storage consisted of a closet until 22 months ago, it was a pretty full bin.  Next to it is my two Close to My Heart embellishment trays (sorted by color), my brad container from the fishing department at Wal Mart, and some other bins from failed organizing.

After I did this, OCD me took charge which was OK.  Group therapy is working, and the Inner Hoarder and PA Me still have the magazines from idea week to play with and distract them.  Everything that was not CTMH was sorted ino sub categories all over my floor.  Since this is the main hallway, and I knew that Girl Friday was in hiding, waiting to pounce on any weak or straggling embellishments, this spurred me on to complete the task as quickly as possible.

Fortunately or un, OCD Me has flitted in and out of my scrapbooking life since I began, and so my brads (minus a few strays) were already sorted, envelopes were together, same with buttons, never got many flowers, but beads and eyelettes were everywhere.  That was where OCD Me and the POW spent most of their energy.  Fabulous spouse, having hit a low point in sports, found it entertaining to watch...and help...and fend off stealth attacks by Girl Friday (although some beads did give their lives so that the rest could live).  Here is the before and after.

This actually took about 3 hours, but there were SO many little beads, and tiny brads, and eyelettes!

From there it only took another hour or so to get the rest put together and into "temporary" storage (the tax return has not come in yet).  The Inner Hoarder was actually impressed...yet again... at how OCD Me can organize a big pile of stuff into a little one without purging. ...What can I say... its a gift!...

What made my day though, was that there really was nothing to do for week 10.  I am an acrylic stamp junkie and so my Alpha stickers are few.  OCD Me already had them living happily together in a Cropper Hopper Pouch, and so all I had to do was take this picture and call Week 10 done as well!

Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 8 Projects, Unfinished Pages, Kits

This week, I am still playing catch-up to those on the http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/ web site.  While many of them are on Week 9, I have been tackling Week 8: Projects, Unfinished Pages, and Kits.  All those weeks ago, when I was sent to my room to perpare for a clean slate, I kept looking at this massive pile that was getting bigger and bigger...and after its third move to the corner... even bigger still, and thought this is going to be my hardest week.

But you know, it was not so bad.  OCD Me and the Inner Hoarder have been in therapy together with the POW (after she escaped from last week).  So, as a reward for decidin that I was just going to do it this week, I took off and went to a crop.  OK, so PA me missed her sessions.  She meant to go, really, it just never happened.  Besides this had been scheduled for months.  So, I took Friday off of work.  Girl Friday helped me pack up the van... and unpack at the church mulit purpouse room.  She was not happy that she could not stay with the 49 other crafters, but I told her that if you were not old enough to drive a car, then you could not stay.... So, she offered to show me that she could drive my car.  Instead, I offered to take her to Costco for samples (and to pick up my pictures).  ...it is that whole shiny object thing.  It runs in families.

I got home at midnight Friday and Saturday, with 50 8x8 layouts complete for my annual Mother's Day albums that I send out... this year they WILL be out before August. ...unike the last wo years! Sunday, we watched the US lose at hockey in overtime to Canada in the Olympics, and then went to work.  Here is my layout.

Fabulous Spouse then brought down the piles of ...well mostly kits... and I sorted everything...all over the floor...One of the biggest things that I had to sort was one year gift membership to Club Scrap. I don't think that I ever used any of it. It took 2 big Cropper Hoppers and 2 smaller sleves to get it manageable...and I still cannot find December. Oh well.  Then we watched the Olympic closing ceremonies, and went to bed. 

OCD Me was in a very happy place the next day, as she got to use the P-touch label maker a lot.  A lot of the papers got re-appropriated to general paper and the embellishments set asside as the POW convinved the Inner Hoarder Me that it was OK as these were things I had gotten free or as prizes from crops, and if it stayed on its own, I'd never use it.  The Basic Grey Kits ended up in the the Basic Grey file, Wild Asparagus with My Mind's Eye, and a few others were left as kits, even though it was really just paper lines with their stickers.  I had my brother's wedding scrapbook from 2004 (I think at this point it will be a great 10 year anniversary gift), and 7 other projects.  It really came together very well. 

The after is here, and about half of the size of the original, and the only thing that went in the recyleables was the seven 12x12 cardboard shipping boxes that were eating up some of the space. ...now to tackle embellishments...