Organize your Stuff: Week 25 (round 3): Negatives part 2

For those who actually have the piles of fragile negatives with which to deal, you have my deepest sympathies…we went through it with photos. As we said earlier, we have been fortunate enough to be digital since 2002 (yes, we are part of what killed kodachrome…and it saddens us…but we still love going digital and only paying for what we want printed).

All that can be said, though, was that we lucked out that this was a freebie week! We finally got our snow days here, and the kids were underfoot and not much got done. Although most of you have no sympathy for us (living with feet and feet of snow for weeks and weeks), this was a big deal, as it was our first snow since the week of Thanksgiving in November!

To make it worse, we had to listen to the kids complain all winter about no snow in Washington, then turn around and not want to play in it once we actually had some (and the snow day due to the fact that Washington does not believe in snow plows…for moral or religious reasons, we are not sure …and that they may in some indirect way harm the salmon).

Here is a picture of the kids after we threatened to take away all their electronics devices if they did not go outside for at least thirty minutes and play. …and yes, Oldest Child, if you stay outside for the full thirty minutes, then Mom will make Hot Chocolate. Thirty one minutes later, they were back inside. Ungrateful children! LOL!

This week was also the start of Cookie Sales. Here is the jar that Creative Me and Girl Friday made for their site sales for donations for Cookies for the Troops.  Girl Friday likes bling! With 20 F degree weather, when we are used to 50 F degrees, is COLD, and Girl Friday scored herself another Hot Chocolate!

Friday was our Church’s big craft retreat, and the POW was part of the set up team. Creative Me was in the zone, and we completed Illusive Middle Child’s 20 page 8 ½ x 11 camping scrapbook. Here is a sample layout. They are pretty simple, but we have a bunch of coordinating stickers for Illusive Middle Child to add his own personal touches.

Time for fun news! Sharla passed this Award on to me last week, and so now we have to come up with some more stylish sites to pass along! Thanks Sharla!!! Visit here Stylish Blog here!

As a part of this award, we need to share 8 things about us and then pass it forward!  Today, we will pass along the 8 things that you may not know about us (as this is already getting to be a LONG post!).

1. Currently, Creative Me’s favorite crafting supply is my mists! They are crack for scrapbookers, and I am totally addicted! (OCD Me thinks that they are very messy, but she gets overruled a lot).

2. Our favorite soup is Lipton’s noodle soup with extra tubatini or stars added. This is what Mom would make when we were sick as kids, or as a special treat on cold or rainy days.

3. We are a sucker for those reality shows! Since the POW refuses to let us watch soap operas since we became a SAHM, we have discovered every show from Hoarder: Buried Alive, to LA Ink, to 19 and Counting (the Douger Family with 19 kids), Deadly Attractions(peoples exotic pets who ate them) and more. Are we sure that Soaps are that bad for us?

4. Football (American Football…not soccer) is my sport (Go Seahawks!... or any team that is NOT the Cowboys). The POW goes to that crazy place at a football event, even at the Middle School level. We become one of THOSE people who nobody wants to admit they know.

5. We brew our own beer! We are a Porter or Stout girl. None of that sissy yellow stuff! Fabulous spouse started brewing beer at a shop in town 2005. When it closed, (and we had become snobby, high quality beer drinkers) we started brewing it ourselves. Added bonus: no alchohol tax.

6. We think that the WiiFit program is evil. Anyone who thought that women would enjoy putting their weight on their large screen TV for all to see (and being repeatedly berated for being overweight) obviously is still single or married to a skinny woman. BTW- we still weigh in, and then eat a donut or something…since we will never be normal (that weight was last seen in 6th grade).

7. We love socks. It allows the Inner Hoarder and Creative Me to shop together. The POW has decided that getting dressed is a joint effort. OCD Me can be business on top, but Creative Me can have a party on the bottom (woo hoo cool spring socks!). We have everything from Valentines Hearts to Thanksgiving turkeys to Fourth of July patriotic socks!

8. There is no official personality called Flesh Eating Zombie Me, but do not bother us before we have had our coffee. We live in the birthplace of Starbucks, but we drink our coffee black, and at least half a pot must be consumed before we are civilized.

Will post my Stylish Blog recipients  in the next week or so...

Public service Announcement: Tuesday, we be posting our regular and we will also be a part of the One Little Word (OLW) blog hop! Then, on March 5th, we will be helping out with Operation Write Home (OWH) with their spring blog hop! It will be busy so bare with us, but there isn’t much real organizing as next week is: New Items and Keeping it neat. Just so you do not abandon us in these final housekeeping weeks before the Organization Challenge resets for round 4, there will probably be some blog candy for each of these!

Organize your Stuff: Week 25 (round 3): Negatives part 1

We are in the home stretch for this round of the Organize your Stuff Challenge! Can you believe that there is only 5 weeks left! … then we start it all again! Here is the card that Creative Me did for the Design Team for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #55. The challenge this week was to use stripes.

Here is the sketch:

As a little side note, our moderator over at Tuesday Trio, Dailly, is in the hospital.  So please keep her in your prayers for a speedy recovery.  The Design Team will try our best to fill her shoes while she is gone.

We are not really sure what we are going to do this week for organization, as there has not been a negative created in this house since 2002…and that was 4 houses ago! Before digital, we used Advantix film, and that gets resealed in its canister after it is developed…and is currently too expensive on our current budget to transfer to digital.


So… PA Me thinks that this is a freebie week! *Yeah!!* The POW (in her best Mary Poppins voice) says that it is a tidy up the nursery…er…scrap room week. What is the point in organizing, if you are not going to put things away when you are done? Creative Me has the biggest challenge. How to make a layout that reflects negatives? PA Me thinks that Creative Me should get a pass too… hmmm…

Anyone else out there a negative free household?

Organize your Stuff: Week 24 (round 3): Memorabilia part 4

Ok! Memorabilia is still there, but Creative me has taken a tiny bite out if it by completing two more Iraq layouts (that uses OLD 2007 Memorabilia…yeah)!  OCD Me is not happy, the Inner Hoarder keeps sticking her tongue out when nobody is looking, PA Me is pointing out all the cool stuff to Creative Me and reminiscing, and the POW is on her second glass of wine...for tonight.  How was your week?

This first layout has Fabulous Spouse’s Humvee Driver’s license. Just an aside note from the POW: if posting to the internet, make sure that things like social security numbers and such are blurred out!

 

The next one has the convoy map that was given to all the drivers. Fabulous Spouse saved it…because he knew that we would scrap it for him…someday.

However, we have survived Memorabilia Week… even if we did not get much done (organizing wise). Now we are officially no longer Beauty School Dropouts…er… Organization Challenge dropouts. No need to cue the musical number, or get that black costume that Olivia Newton John had to wear. Nope. We are followers, and finishers. The POW has said so…so let it be!

Also, we were featured on Scrap Our Stash Challenge today! Check them out! See you Tuesday!

Organize your Stuff: Week 24 (round 3): Memorabilia part 3

Happy Thursday everyone! This week has been a crafty one for us. PA Me and the Inner Hoarder have been encouraging Creative Me to go to town! Anything to avoid the Memorabilia, because (to quote Becky, a fellow blogger) “Holy memorabilia, Batman, that’s a lot of stuff!” However, at one point, OCD Me and the POW did try to dive in…so that Creative Me could make a Memorabilia Week layout.

Lesson Learned: The only thing worse than ignoring your memorabilia…is looking through it. Two hours later, stuff is spread out in piles everywhere, the brain is full of nostalgia and stories, and nothing is purged. However, we did find some stuff with which to create our layout…once again procrastinating, and once again letting Creative Me go to town.

This was actually a pretty quick layout to make!  Fabulous Spouse won the office pool for the company tickets (Club Level with paid parking!!!!) for the last game of the season.  Four photos, plain blue cardstock base and memorabilia!  Memorabilia used: winning e-mail printout, program cover, tickets, newspaper 12th Man insert.  Scrapping the old school way!

Confession though, we did save a program (not the one from which Creative Me removed the cover for the layout) because it was the game that clinched the division title.  Yes, my name is Scrappnbee, and I have a problem.  The POW did recyle the used program though.  That means that there is still a chance that we will not end up on that Hoarders Burried Alive show...maybe.

The big plan is to get some more Iris Clamshells, label them each with a child’s name and fill it for the school year (I’m telling you, buy stock in Iris. We will personally keep them afloat). Currently, they are on sale, so it gives us an excuse to schedule a lunch date with Fabulous Spouse. Besides, if we buy them…Fabulous Spouse will make sure that the POW knows that they NEED to be filled and not sit empty in the scrap room.  Will try to post on Sunday, with a memorabilia layout from Fabulous Spouse's trip to Iraq. Think that we can get it done? Besides, there is always next round! LOL!

Organize your Stuff: Week 24 (round 3): Memorabilia part 2

Mmmm… Chocolate. Anyone else coming out of a chocolate coma today? Fabulous spouse actually bought us a 22 oz. Chocolate Porter to go with dinner last night! (He figured that after Tool Week at Cub Scouts for Illusive Middle Child and 8 other 2nd graders, that we might need it!...that is why he is a FABULOUS Fabulous Spouse. Love You!) As for Tuesday Trio, Sketch #54 is a red and white only challenge. Here is my Design Team entry:

You may notice that it is not a love card. That is because red and white does not necessarily need to mean Valentine’s Day! … we are already thinking spring, and play dates, and BBQs… OK, We are just looking for something other than 51 degrees Fahrenheit and grey skies and rain…

Speaking of rain… when it rains, it pours, so to speak, and we are just flooded with Memorabilia! We think that is genetic- Packrat-itus. There is no cure, only expensive therapy that PA Me would find an excuse to miss. Maybe that is why my kids’ rooms are so full of stuff! OCD Me has never been able to curb the Inner Hoarder’s need to grab fliers, programs, paper Thanksgiving turkeys, and Valentines cards. With three kids in activities, it amasses quickly!

Realistically, most of this needs to be thrown out or recycled. However, how many of you got that box of treasures from your mom when you left home and loved going through it? The Inner Hoarder just does not want to purge the wrong memories. This is not the memorabilia that you are looking for. Move along. Darned Jedi mind trick! This is why we stopped the Organize your Stuff Challenge last round.

When you first look at the piles of…stuff, it is just overwhelming! Like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder movie, not the Jonny Depp one) where Charlie is in the room with the fizzy lifting drinks. Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Then, when you take a swig, you are propelled forward, up to the blades in the ceiling and certain doom! The only way to save yourself is to sink back to whence you came and abandon the room. We have abandoned the room many times.

This time, we may not make much progress, but any progress is better than none. Prior to this post, OCD Me took the Inner Hoarder shopping and bought clear plastic bins to store the stuff that we are not ready to address upstairs as a part of emptying the old scrap room. It was hard, but not as hard as the Inner Hoarder thought it would be, since…we will admit… little purging actually occurred.

Now OCD Me and the POW need to tackle the memorabilia in the scrap room. It is scary. It is not fun. PA Me can think of a thousand other things to do…like dishes…laundry… re-grouting the bathrooms… root canal… anything! However, this is not the Bog of Eternal Stench (from the movie Labyrinth- a must have for families with kids). We will not be placed in an oubliette if we fail. This too will pass.

On to happier things! Blog Candy!!!

The winner is Daniella! Please e-mail me at Scrappnbee@yahoo.com so that I can get your prize mailed out! Thanks to all who visited and We hope that you continue to read from now on!

Thursday, Creative Me will have a Layout using some of my memorabilia… because that is why we still have it! How many of you collect the memorabilia to use in your scrapbook, but end up doing your layouts without it? Then what do you do with your memorabilia that you did not scrap??

Organize your Stuff: Week 24 (round 3): Memorabilia part 1

Let’s start this week with a Happy Valentine’s Day! We need all the love that we can get, as we are starting Memorabilia Week! In a good faith effort, we made a card for the Scrap Our Stash February challenge-love. This is the Love MME Love Me Do paper that we got last year for Valentine’s Day.

Memorabilia! It is a dirty word in our mind. This is our Achilles’ heel in the whole scrapping process! The Inner Hoarder has amassed way more memorabilia then we will ever place in our scrap pages. She has too many program fliers, artwork, ticket stubs, etc! The only thing keeping us from television show status and climbing on the piles is that we were military for so long, and every move had a weight limit (and the house has a space limit!).

The Inner Hoarder is not happy. She and PA Me (and summer break) enabled us to quit the 29 week process and derailed our organization last round. However, this time around, the POW and OCD Me will not be so easily swayed. So, since We do not have a small tropical island with a scrap room and a bottomless Margarita Maker to which we can escape, and running around in circles going Aarrrgggggg!!!! Is just not really an option… you will just have to bear with us as we play a mental game of tug-of war and try to pry stuff out of Inner Hoarder’s hands! (Some pictures tomorrow with my Tuesday Trio Design Team entry and blog hop winner!)

Organize your Stuff: Week 23 (round 3): Templates part 2

Ok, so you can see that we have very few templates. There is an alphabet template here somewhere in the scrap room…we just have not seen it since the Inner Hoarder set it aside (definitely with that Tae Bo VHS tape). OCD Me basically has the week off, as the 4 plastic templates that we do have are already stowed in a cropper hopper sleeve. So here is my layout for this week, using templates.

For those of you who are regular readers, you may note that this is not my typical 2 pager. That is because this is the last page in my 2010 album…which means that Creative Me cannot go overboard with the photos at Costco. To be honest between Creative Me and OCD Me, we are totally in awe of those who regularly scrap 1 pager-s. This is hard!!!

Now, templates do not need to be made out of plastic. In January, Creative Me cut butterflies out of cardboard to be templates for a card (link here with how to). Any Chipboard piece can be a template too. However, many templates are plastic, and that makes them reusable for misting!

Today's layout uses a template that the Inner Hoarder talked us into when we were trying to get exactly $50 on an order from twopeasinabucket.com (for the free shipping of course!) from Tattered Angels. It is amazing how using a template and some mists can transform a white page.

Things have been a bit hectic this week. The Valentine’s Day is Monday. However, the school has decided that all Valentine cards are due Friday. Unfortunately, PA Me did not plan ahead very well, and Girl Friday (and therefore Illusive Middle child) wanted to make from scratch Valentines for 25. The POW thought that she could feel a migraine coming on. Creative Me was ecstatic. OCD Me checked out completely. PA Me put it off as long as possible. The Inner Hoarder went shopping (those kids weren’t going to eat through our cardstock! … and Michaels had it on sale).

And with a marathon of markers, we survived…but the Cricut is on strike after cutting over 100 different pieces. They had fun though. And in the end that’s all that counts! (PS- just a little sad that Oldest Child is now in middle school, and therefore has outgrown Valentine’s Day…until he rediscovers girls…but we are OK that he has not rediscovered them –yet!).

As for my award...thanks again to Sue, a.k.a Midwestgirl.  Please check out her site (click here).  She is a fabulous photographer and does great layouts!
 
My first under 100 follower blog is Becky: Fourth House on the Right
I love her projects!  They are so much more than just layout and cards!  She has done wall art, containers, picture frames, and so many more creative things that make Creative Me SO jealous!
 
Second is Mrs. Bzb: Mrs. Bzb Creates
Mrs. Bzb creates cards for a charity called Card Cupids.  She sends all he cards she shares to children in hospitals, and to me that is really cool.

I hope you accept!  If you do, just link back to here, and share with 3-5 blogs that you love that have less than 100 followers.
 
The POW is searching for a few more.  We would like to share some international love, but many of the sites that we have discovered have over 100 viewers so far!

Organize your Stuff: Week 23 (round 3): Templates

This week is Romantic Week at Tuesday Trio. This is not just because they are romantics at heart, and Hallmark sells more cards to people who love each other than are mortal enemies. This is because Monday is Valentine’s Day (or Singles Awareness Day). This is when your significant other spends a car payment on flowers (however, due to allergies, we know that if Fabulous Spouse gets us flowers that we did something naughty and he is trying to kill us…ok, just roses). So, Here is my Design Team Card for Tuesday Trio and Sketch #53.

This week is templates week. How many of us were scrapping when templates were cool? The funny thing is, that just like bellbottoms and leggings, everything old will be new again! Now, templates are a delivery device for misting! As a glimmer mist addict…totally not recovered, but The POW took the charge card away from the Inner Hoarder and Creative Me. No new mists. No templates. The POW has been around the block and knows that those new templates will end up with the old templates...which we are not one hundred percent sure where the Inner Horder put them... collecting dust with the Tae Bo workout VHS cassette that the Inner Hoarder also still has (you know that you have a Tae Bo video somewhere in your house too!).  These are the templates that OCD Me can find, but we think that there is an alphabet one in the scrap room somewhere that the Inner Horder has stashed!

Oh, on a really cool note, Sue, a.k.a. Midwest Girl passed this blog award on to us:

This blog award is for blogs that people love that have under 100 followers.

To accept, link back to the sender (see above).  Passit on to 3-5 deserving bloggers!

By Thursday, I will hope to have mine!

*Infomercial disclaimer: non-blog candy readers skip to comments* For the blog hop, here are the entries that qualify so far by 1) being a follower, and 2) answering the post question:

International Blog Candy

Monday, 31 January 2011: What do you need to organize?
Hilde Janbroers- stamps
Daniella- paper
Arad Dikla-ribbons (does not show up as follower)
Moody-stamps (does not show up as follower)
Sarah-ribbons (does not show up as follower)
Orit-stamps
Ayelet-ribbons
Alma7-paper, stickers, stamps

Friday, 4 February 2011: Do you have a die cut system? Do you use it?
Becky- yes, no
Tammy-yes, yes
Sharla-yes, no
LindaMT-yes, yes
May-chu-yes, yes (does not show up as follower)
Lior-no

Monday, 7 February 2011: What is your favorite farm animal?
Vicki- lambs
Jackie- sheep
This is the last week to enter. If you think that you are a followerer, but are not, you still have one week to register. So, today’s question for a chance at the blog candy: do you have templates that you use?

Finally, here are the other Blog Hoppers drom Tuesday Trio:


Dailly http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/userblog.asp?foldername=daillyg
Chen http://cheniros.blogspot.com/
Orli http://orlishamir.blogspot.com/
Shir http://shir-benovich.blogspot.com/
Zehavit http://zehavitshaked.blogspot.com/
Maya http://mayadahan.blogspot.com/

Organize your Stuff: Week 22 (round 3): Intermission

Just because The POW does not have enough things on her plate already, Creative Me somehow got control of the laptop and was trolling the internet looking for challenges. She stumbled upon a site that really spoke to her… Operation Write Home. This is an organization that collects cards and sends them to the Troops so that they can write home to their loved ones (since there is no Hallmarks or stationary stores in the war zones).

Their Wednesday Challenge was a barnyard card. Now, OCD Me was busy cleaning the house for the Super Bowl and we had our regular layout to assemble, and PA Me put that off until Thursday night, but Creative Me was busy planning. As soon as the Super Bowl ended, we were creating sheep.

Our first one failed.  Girl Friday and Illusive Middle Child donated their thumbprints for faces, and then it was time for bodies! First, Creative Me tried to make a white flocked sheep, but the flock…while soft ad fuzzy…was too transparent. Then Creative Me tried three other ways…liquid aplique, white pen, and stickles and liked them all!

SO, here are our three sheep…er ewes (which if you are translating this from English to another language ewe (a female sheep) sounds like you in English).

Liquid aplique

stickles

white gel pen

International Blog Candy

*Infomercial Disclaimer* For those of you not interested, skip to the end! For those of you participating in the Tuesday Trio Blog Hop, this is the end of the first week! Tomorrow, we will have a list of all participants who have qualified for the blog candy drawing during week 1. However, it is not too late to enter! If you live on planet earth and have the ability to receive mail, you can be entered to receive this small packet of paper crafting goodness. You just have to do two things. 1) be a follower of this blog (their rules, not mine), and 2) answer a question: Today’s question is…what is your favorite farm animal? You can enter every time we publish a new post! So, if you started on Tuesday, this would be your third chance at winning! The other blogs are at the bottom of Friday’s post. I will enter them again tomorrow! Enjoy!

Organize your Stuff: Week 22 (round 3): Dies Part 2

Alright! We have a confession to make… my name is Indigo Montoya, you kill-ed my father! Prepare to die! Woops, channeling The Princess Bride. Again. However, I must admit, that using my cuttlebug was not nearly as painful as we thought that it would be. In fact, the results were actually kind of neat! The POW is also kind of proud that we were actually able to scrap an event that actually happened just this Tuesday- Girl Friday’s Daisy Investiture Ceremony! (It is official…she is a Girl Scout!)

PA Me kept us away from that box all week, which was actually pretty easy with the three kids and their extracurricular activities. (At least that is what she kept telling me when the POW and Creative Me headed towards the box). Luckily, OCD Me finally got fed up yesterday morning…yes, it took until Thursday morning to open the box. OCD Me took out this contraption and read the directions (yes, we do read directions), only to find out that somehow during the one time that the cuttlebug (doesn’t it kind of sound like cuttlefish? Ewww slimy and tentacle-y….Stop it PA Me! Anyway…) was out of the box it did not get put back with all of its parts. Creative Me had two embossing folders, but only one of two “B” plastic plates.

So, off to lunch with Fabulous Spouse, who happens to work near a big box store that takes 40% off coupons, and then back home to… little guys out of school, homework, picking up Oldest Child from sports, taking Oldest Child across town for another school activity, almost making it home then getting called by Oldest Child to bring dinner (as the POW asked Oldest Child to get originally, but Oldest Child was convinced that there would be food), getting food and returning across town, and then repeating the process thirty minutes later! Finally, though, the layout is done! And Creative Me is proud of the result of using white core paper in the embossing folder!

Illusive Middle Child mini album update: Cover Complete! (and photos in place). Spoiler Alert: yes, they are all Halo Legos in battle with each other.  Yes, as a Mom, most of these pictures look exactly the same.  No, to Illusive Middle Child, they are unique and highly critical to the story telling process. End Spoiler. Now all that he and Creative Me need to do is use the Cricut for some titles and add some journaling, and not cause OCD Me to send him to his room! Then we will be ready to share the whole thing.

As for storage, we are afraid that is going to have to wait for Round 4.  OCD Me will just have to be happy with a neat space in its box.  This is because the scrap room was overrun today by the last vestiges from the old scrap room… which by the way, we are happy to report, is empty and ready for paint!  Thanks Fabulous Spouse and Girl Friday for the final hauling! (PA Me was able to stall, what, a year to get all of Creative Me and the Inner Hoarder’s stuff out of there! Not bad…for PA Me that is!)  Tuesday is Week 23: Templates...does anyone have these anymore?

Oh, I almost forgot! *Disclaimer: Infomercial time* We are almost half way done with our 2 Week International Blog Hop with Blog Candy for Tuesday Trio! Remember… these Blogs slice, dice, and even julienne…paper (you thought that we’d say fries, didn’t you!). Now, for a limited time, you can win some paper crafting goodness...picture last post!... for the low, low price of FREE! One lucky lady (or man…) who 1) is a follower (their rules not mine) and 2) leaves a comment answering the following question: do you have a die cut system (the POW says a Cricut counts) and do you use it (or are you like my Inner Hoarder who has one in the box but never uses it)? If you left a comment last post, here is your chance to be entered again! Remember, if you have an address and win, we will ship! If you have a guard animal…that is between you and your mailman!

Here are the other Blog Hoppers:

Dailly http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/userblog.asp?foldername=daillyg
Chen http://cheniros.blogspot.com/
Orli http://orlishamir.blogspot.com/
Shir http://shir-benovich.blogspot.com/
Zehavit http://zehavitshaked.blogspot.com/
Maya http://mayadahan.blogspot.com/