Organize your Stuff: Week 5 (round 4): Scraps & OLW Blog Hop

First, our stuff… As for scraps, even before our first round in the Organize your Stuff Challenge, we had our scraps in order. Mainly because Girl Friday… and sometimes the Illusive Middle Child… like to craft alongside Creative Me, there is really not the hoard of scraps that Inner Hoarder would otherwise collect. It is recycling at its finest! My kids know that if it is in this accordion folder it is fair game, and that seems to protect the rest of the stash.

This is a card we made using 100% scraps from our stash. It uses the same sketch as the Tuesday Trio card that Creative Me made for Tuesday. So if you want to know how Creative Me made the paper pieced the embossed paper background, there will be a tutorial on Tuesday as well!

Today is May 1st, and that means another chance to share our homework, and the work of others for the One Little Word class with Ali Edwards and then get on to our stuff!

Junior Residents of the Shoe

Our word for this year is Embrace! … and Embrace we have. This month, we have learned the following:

WMD sucking our thumb

…to let the Clutter Fairy do her thing…it makes her happy, that in most cases we can sleep through the WMD (side note: WMD turned 5 months old this past week, and the colic wail has gotten much better… except for when it’s not. She is definitely not shelf stable yet.) however that is not the case with the dog or the cat they wake us every time, that being the Lady of the Shoe means that you spend much less time on the computer- but that is not necessarily a bad thing, that finding scrap time is also harder because you can find 5 minutes to surf the net…but not an hour or more to do a layout, that no matter how many personalities you may claim to have on your blog, they cannot be in 3 places at once…therefore at least one of 3 children will be disappointed, that Fabulous Spouse will always be the favorite parent as he flits in and out of the shoe when he is not on travel, and that it is really nice to have family close by…even if close is the guest room.

The Family at Sky Resturaunt
(I'm far right)

This month we were asked to add a letter to ourselves to our OLW scrapbook. The theory is to go back a year from now and read it. PA Me put this off for as long as possible, one because we were busy, and two because we just did not know what to write. Then, feeling a bit nostalgic, and with the POW knowing that there was a blog deadline, we got down to it. The biggest thing that we realized while writing this is that all of the upheaval that we have endured and embraced will be coming again. A year from now, Awesome Auntie, the WMD, the toddler, and the menagerie will be heading home to wherever the Navy takes them. Meanwhile, Fabulous Spouse will be three months into a 400+ day deployment to Afghanistan (unless his orders change again), and we will have gone from three parents to one. That change will be harder to Embrace than this one… even if it means that we have lots of Me time and get to officially retire our Lady of the Shoe status.

MAY 1 BLOG HOP LIST
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog
Lisa Allen www.backtoallen.com/writers_blog
Abbey R http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/
Jill C. http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/
Amanda K. http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/    <---You are Here!
Cheri A. http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
Rebekah P. http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Lynn W. http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/
Monica B2 http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Chrissy http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com/
Jen S. http://www.byjen.com/
Monica B1 http://www.scraplifters.blogspot.com/
Katrina http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com/
Julie Ann http://julieannshahin.blogspot.com/
Jenn http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
Donna B http://www.donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/
Karen D http://womenontractors.blogspot.com/

Organize your Stuff: Week 4 (round 4): Paper Part 1

Yes, we took the week off. PA Me had us spending quality time sitting on the couch with Fabulous Spouse, who was home for a change, letting the animals and children run amok without a care and doing all sorts of Easter Stuff… So belatedly… Happy Passover to those who celebrate, and Happy Easter to those who celebrate that too!

Here is our card for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch 64.

Creative Me rotated it so that the diagonal ran left down to right, and then finally got to break out the Alice in Wonderland stamps that the Inner Hoarder got when we went to Portland in March. The coolest thing for me personally about this card was that I was able to custom color clear rhinestones to match using my Copics! Since Copics are alcohol based inks, they stick to the glass/plastic. Cool, huh?

As for papers, we have come a long way since round 2! The big thing now, is that Creative Me and OCD Me have begun to see eye to eye in the paper department. We have found ourselves separating all of our major scrapping holidays, reoccurring sports, and clubs from the rest of the patterned papers. The big thing that the POW has to remind us, is to not break it down too much, or we will not be able to find anything… again!

Another lesson learned this week, do not try out the free internet games that your kids are playing so that you can relate to them. If you do, PA Me will take over your lives, and you will be sucked into a black hole of nothingness… BTW-it is called Minecraft, and the graphics belong on an Atari, but it will still mesmerize you. Keep Away!

Organize your Stuff: Week 3 (round 4): WOYWW & Clean Slate Part 1

Quick post this morning…or we will never get it in! Sorry for no Tuesday post. Will you forgive us? It has been crazy here with just Awesome Auntie and myself here wrangling cats…er… kids. Somehow PA Me has moved this down the priority list below feeding children, tying shoes, making sure that dogs get let out and the WMD stops crying… So needless to say, Marry Poppins, we promise to be good, if you would take us off the black list! Please!!!

Here is my WOYWW work desk.  Visit the Stamping Ground to see the list of other WOYWW desks! Do you see the dust settling and the lone cricket chirping? This photo is the first time that we have stepped foot in here since our layout. Goodness!

future wrestling layout

Thickers for future camping layout

The POW promised pictures of our new Thickers to the ladies at the Organize Your Stuff thread at Two Peas in a Bucket, and so here they are:

As for this week, this is where we start the real cleaning process. Will you go for broke and box up all your stuff, and put it back a week at a time? Or just tackle it as you go? This round we will be cleaning and tweaking as we go. However, in Round 2 we did Go for Broke and box up everything, and it really did help us A LOT! (link here to see my Clean Slate Go for Broke entry). 

Next on our plate, science fair!  (Save us!!!)

Organize your Stuff: Week 2 (round 4): Brainstorming Part 2

Here is the layout that Creative Me made this week while The POW has been wrangling Spring Break children.

Yes, if you look closely, Creative me is trying to play nice with the sewing machine again. The sewing machine, however, is being a mean tease, and again we had tension issues, and the bobbing thread did not catch the top thread for part of the inner stitch on the lower left.  Creative Me knows that if OCD Me had kept it to herself, you never would have noticed, but OCD Me thinks especially not nice thoughts about the sewing machine and really wants to donate it to Goodwill or bored sreet kids with access to tools and no fear of destroying things.

It has been one of those weeks. Spring Break in the rain of the Pacific Northwest. To make it even better...or is it worse, we have been black listed by Mary Poppins and the Nanny, and Oldest Child is on no electronic privileges and had therefore decided to try and channel the dog whisperer with the poor over stimulated dog. The Illusive Middle child has decided that personal space is optional (and by optional, we mean that it no longer exhists), and is practicing to be a sportscaster by giving Awesome Auntie a play by play of where any given pet or person is at any given time…totally unsolicited. Girl Friday has vacillated between junior mother and Velcro needy child…depending on the hour.

As for the rest of the shoe, Fabulous Spouse is still in Hawaii on military orders. He flew there first class. Yes, it is Spring Break, and he is in Hawaii and we are here in the rain. We were definitely a bad grasshopper in our last life! Fabulous Spouse’s brother is leaving today to start his IA for Iraq. We are hoping to not have to seek help for Awesome Auntie’s emotional health, but that is why we are here.  Us and chocolate.

We will see how the little ones take it. The POW is taking bets that the WMD (Wailing Mama’s Daughter)…thought you’d like that Awesome Auntie… will see no change. The toddler (we have toyed with SoB… Son of Brother, but it doesn’t suit his disposition) aka the Air raid siren emitter (ok Arse isn’t any better…we will keep working at it) may have a rougher time of it. Lucky for him, Illusive Middle Child will keep us informed, and Girl Friday will adopt him and hug him and squeeze him to itty bitty pieces.

Finally, the before picture.

Considering what my kids rooms look like right now, this looks positively clean!
Here is where we started:

See you Tuesday!  Are you ready to actually start putting things away?

Organize your Stuff: Week 2 (round 4): Intermission- WOYWW & OWH

Enough acronyms for you?
The POW is going to try something new this round and try to participate in the WOYWW group. What is WOYWW? It is What’s On Your Workspace Wednesday. OCD Me is hoping that this will keep us honest with our mess, and curtail PA Me when it comes to cleaning up our scrap space.

What Mess? Well, here is what our space looked like after Creative Me started working on some Father’s Day cards for Operation Write Home (OWH).

The big thing is that we have to make sure that Awesome Auntie’s Declutter Fairy does not notice our scrap room, or we are in trouble. PA Me feels that she can happily not clean up after herself in many other areas of the house… in order to take one for the team. This makes both OCD Me and the POW nervous. They point out that we have three kids, and that creates enough clutter without adding to it!

Anyway, here are our cards. We will make a few more before sending them off to the OWH folks. Off to pick up Girl Friday from a Spring Break play date!

Organize your Stuff: Week 2 (round 4): Brainstorming (part 1)

Infomercial: If looking for OLW Blog click here!

To start this week, here is our card for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #61. Inner Hoarder voted for Copics to color our images this week, to justify our getting them in Portland, and both OCD Me and the POW were pleasantly surprised on how well they worked. Markers are not just for little girls anymore!

We needed to add an element of movement, so Creative Me had to figure out exactly what kind of movement to add. Finally, Creative Me settled on a shaker box. Construction is simple enough. Cut out a section of clear plastic or page protector and adhere to frame. Pour some beads or shaker material in the middle of your design, and use foam tape or lots of pop dots (with no air space for the beads to escape). This is the result:

With two rounds down, we are confident that we have earned at least our yellow belt in Scrap Book Organization. Who knows, with a little luck the POW will learn the Wushi Finger hold (Kung Fu Panda) of Scrapbooking, and we will be able to minimize PA Me’s influence.

This week we are supposed to fanaticize about our dream scrap room, should the ever illusive Scrap Fairy appear on our door and grant us our scrapping room desire. This is a no strings attached, no fine print where it was actually some embezzler’s Grand Cayman Island secret account that went to you instead, or that someone had to die for you to get your inheritance (we watch too many movies. Sorry!). Instead, it is your real fairy Godmother Moment (Disney version not Shrek version).  Do not worry, no pumpkins or mice were harmed in the making of this scrap room!

The POW is convinced that we are officially old, or maybe just old to this, as we are almost happy with what we have. For while we still crave the New England style with which we grew up, we realize that we will never be found to be Martha Stewart’s long lost niece.

 However, white cabinets and fluted molding is still a must! An island, rather than the old kitchen table for a work space would be nice, and it should be big enough for a couple of friends to come over and crop. A Rosie the Robot from the Jetson’s (or any maid as long as she was free) is the only essential. That is probably why we are still here organizing our space! Time to Embrace that mess and make it clean… and keep it that way! A girl can dream can’t she?!

Before pictures at the end of the Week!

Organize your Stuff: Week 1 (round 4): OLW Blog Hop & Space Audit (part 2)

No, this is no April Fools! It is the first of the month and time for another One Little Word (OLW) Blog Hop!

For those unfamiliar with OLW, it is a class by (and a mantra of) Ali Edwards at Big Picture Scrapbooking. We pick a word to encapsulate our year, and try to find it or live it in our everyday life. It is kind of like a New Year’s resolution without the guilt of being invited to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner where even the salads are over 1000 calories!

Our word is Embrace! This month we were prompted to find on small way to actively capture our word in our lives, and the POW laughed so hard, because for us, this was going to be easy! For us, pardon the tired cliché, March really did roar in like a Lion! And the biggest thing that we needed to Embrace was Change!

This week we Embraced Family, and for us, that was a big change. As of March 18th, Awesome Auntie and her tribe and menagerie came to live with us for a year! We gave up two rooms and official custody of the play room to make her and her young family feel at home for when Fabulous Spouse’s brother leaves for Iraq. This means a lot, because while this is still our home, it definitely does not resemble our house!

There were lots of other smaller, but by no means less significant things to Embrace this month as well. This month, our Cub Scout Den Leader resigned due to family issues, and suddenly Creative Me and the POW were promoted from crafty good idea fairy assistant to a full-fledged Den Leader and needed to Embrace Duty. This is interesting, as OCD Me does not participate. She has learned long ago that OCD tendencies and room full of Illusive Middle Child’s friends do not mix!

We also Embraced our Religion. Ash Wednesday and Lent began this month. We are giving up our home for Lent…and our sleep. But that is OK. See above. Also, we do not eat meat on Friday…until Easter, so it becomes an interesting challenge as we are allergic to seafood- translate cheese pizza for Friday pizza and a movie night.

We Embraced Civics- Jury Duty, enough said (actually we did not really embrace it, we kind of grumbled and thought bad thoughts about the legal system, but still showed up). Finally, we totally Embraced Me Time, and had a blast at CKC Portland. Thanks Fabulous Spouse for the Christmas Present…and the sleep!

As for the space audit, definitely need to clean the pile of ???? that came out of the old scrap room. It seems to be spreading like the blob (or as a more contemporary reference, B.O.B. from Monsters vs. Aliens). Also, we lost our little clear ruler at CKC, and need another.

For those who love cards, here are the two that Creative Me made during our Copics I class.

Have fun! Here is the rest of the hop!

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog
Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/ (<--you are here!!!)
Donna http://donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com/
Joy http://www.undiscoveredjoy.blogspot.com/
Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/
Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/
Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/
Monica B2 http://www.questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
Stacey http://www.TheAcornGarden.com/blog
Katrina http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com/
Rebekah http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Monica http://scraplifters.blogspot.com/
Chrissy http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com/
Jill http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
Lisa http://makeyourownescape.blogspot.com/
Kathryn http://www.katlodesigns.com/
Jennifer http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
Jen http://www.byjen.com/
Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/
Miranda http://mirandasscrapsite.blogspot.com/
Lynn http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
Cynthia http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/
Cheri A http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
Deb http://blakleyhomeplace.blogspot.com/
Nicky http://www.seejanebake.blogspot.com/
Karen D http://womenontractors.blogspot.com/
Tina http://ryzmomplus2.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Kimberly http://foreverdaisies.blogspot.com/
Abbey http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/
Julie Anne http://julieannshahin2.blogspot.com/
Lisa A. http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog

Go and see these gals if you want some other OLW inspiration...This goes live at 8AM PST! Enjoy!