Organize your Stuff: Week 20 (round 3): Die Cuts Part 2

One of the things that Creative Me loves about this Organize your Stuff Challenge is creating a Layout that showcases what it is we are organizing. Sometimes it is easy, and sometimes it is more of a challenge. Using the Cricut is easy (see last post). However, using my meager stash of premade die cuts that now live in a half filled 12x12 Iris Clamshell (The POW is seriously thinking of buying stock in Iris as we seem to use these clamshells A LOT)...not so much.

So, back Creative Me went to the Wild Asparagus die cuts that are still languishing in die cut Limbo, and finally took them out of the darkness and walked them into the light. Really a little unsure what to do with them, we pulled up our 2 peas website and used our die cuts to complete the Calendar Girls January scraplift challenge for page 2 of the two page layout. The rest just sort of came together!

As for the Cricut Cartridges…OCD Me had grand plans for them. However, Girl Friday had grand plans for an Elephant Family mini album (she has many many stuffed elephants), and PA Me was more than happy to make sure that Girl Friday and Creative Me got quality time together, especially if meant no organizing. However, the POW was not going to let PA Me get this week too sidetracked and snuck OCD Me the label maker, so that OCD Me could feel like some progress was made… even if it was not much. Now all the Cricut Cartridges are labeled and restacked in their cabinet, a little more organized.

Just in case you were wondering… PA Me and the Inner Hoarder were laughing until they got stitches in their sides and totally unattractive snot bubbles came out their noses while watching the POW hold OCD Me back during Girl Friday’s creative time. While Creative Me was encouraging Girl Friday to use acrylic paint and glimmer mist, OCD Me was ready to go all Mommy Dearest with a coat hanger. LOL! It is amazing how used one gets to staying in the lines and matching papers so the edges match just right… this was much more…organic… yes, we will go with that…organic. Nobody got hurt, even when Girl Friday used the paper piercer to get xyron glue boogers out of her Cricut letters… (although the POW did have to practically sit on OCD Me when Girl Friday put the letters on the pages all catty wompus ) Here it is in all of its 6 year old creative glory. Now the POW has to unload the digital camera as Illusive Middle Child now wants a mini album too…(except his will be legos, not elephants). Wish us Luck! See you on Tuesday for Week 21: Pens and Pencils.

Organize your Stuff: Week 18 (round 3): Tools & Adhesives Intermission

We are so Excited!!! This year, Creative Me convinced our personalities that we could conquer Ali Edward’s twelve month One Little Word (OLW) class! (Due to our excitement the POW is warning that we may over exclamate this post). Tonight is our first quarterly live chat… and I don’t have to be somewhere else with kids!!!

Also, in an attempt to increase my productivity… because PA Me needs someone to make her accountable … I am also trying to join/ keep up with the Calendar Girls on 2 Peas in a Bucket! So, that will give me four projects in four weeks to accomplish…or try to at any rate.

So, a couple times a month… we hope… there should be a bonus intermission post! (YEAH!)…

My OLW for 2011: EMBRACE!

Here is a five page mini-album that Creative Me made for the Calendar Girls (one project down, three to go!!!). We had to show what we wanted to see in 2011, and here is what I have so far. OCD Me wants you to know that it isn’t finished yet, but the POW figured that if we waited for perfect, then it would be June before we had pictures. This is the insides...

Here is me and Fabulous Spouse.  I thing that it is always important to say "I love you" every night, and give hugs whenever possible!

Here is my tribe.  In the pocket are pictures of them individually with things that I need to remember... like there really is an angel inside Girl Friday.  It may take an excorsism or two to find it, but it is there... especially when you least expect it!

Creative Me thought that it would be "So Cool" to stamp and emboss the photo.  Note:  Embossing guns cause photos to bubble (at least the Costco kind).  Luckilly, it is just nature that was slightly distorted... not that we have anything against nature...except that it is dirty, usually wet (here in Washington State), and lumpy.  Oh, and nature eats stuff (including trash) when you turn your back on it.  Otherwise, totally LOVE it.

Ironically, there are no pictures of me being the Domestic Goddess that I should be.  That is why there is no Domestic Goddess on the sidebar, and I have been cleaning my scraproom for a year!  Need to find and embrace my inner Domestic Goddess!!!

Finally, as busy as our schedule gets, it is important not to let our Traditions go!  Whether it is remembering our Irish heritage by wearing green on St. Patrick's Day, or weekly traditions, like every Friday's Pizza and a Movie Night.  Those are the things that help make Family special!

Hope you liked it!This seems perfect for me for many reasons. I am a big hugger, and love to embrace my family! However, everyone has their quirks, and sometimes I need to embrace that too! There are things…like camping in tents… that my kids LOVE and I need to embrace more. *sigh* There are things that I avoid (I blame you PA Me!)… like cleaning bathrooms. Those I need to consciously embrace.

Organize your Stuff: Week 19- Chipboard

Happy Mother’s Day Week to all of you who use being a mom as your excuse to scrapbook (don’t worry that’s the reason I do it too *wink*). This week is chipboard, and to be honest, it is one of my newest most used tools. Last year I discovered the world of handmade mini-albums. They are the cool answer to that 400 photo long weekend… you know the ones. For this “layout” the POW has forced me to step it up and start the family Easter vacation to California (I started with a kit from http://www.scrapyardchicks.com/ using jillybean soup papers and enhanced it with We R Memory Keepers). Here is the cover with a chipboard tulip (itinerary on the flip side), chipboard letters wrapped with wire and beads on another chipboard page, and finally… the start of the photos on the inside.

Question of the Week: How do you decorate your chipboard?

Usually I adhere paper on top and either leave the edges naked or ink them. Girl Friday likes to play in paint to much. However, on occasion, I do break out the paint, and for the above pics, the edges are painted and the C and A are as well.

Here is the tiny stash of unused chipboard that I have. Chipboard also lives in my scrap class bag, and I have a request in with Fabulous Spouse for a case of chipboard from U-line for my birthday! OCD Me barely had to lift a finger…I think she actually yawned at this tiny stash, the Inner Hoarder laughed and PA Me did not even bother to play.

Die cuts/ cut outs for next week…only 9 weeks left!

Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 7 Ideas

Its OK PA me... You can do this..."Hello. My name is Scrappnbee. It has been one day since I last procrastinated." There, that wasn't so bad. I apologize for falling off the Procrastinators Anonymous waggon during my triple whammy of Valentines/ President's Weekend and the Olympics. Darned you handmade Valentines mini albums!! ...and taped delayed west coast feed of Olympics until Midnight!!! (sorry, my internal monologue is broken again). After last Monday came and went, I kept saying...I'll get to it... I'll get to it... But isn't that the PA Me way?

OK. Now to Idea week (a week late). I have several books of ideas...easy, put them on the shelf. Ta-dah! Cue Bon Jovi: Ohhh, I'm half way therrre...

Now to the magazines. This is where the PA me and the Inner Hoarder (who has been plotting a coup since Paper week...I swear!) finally overpowered the POW, tied her to a bed and started an audio book of Misery by Stephen King, by shamelessly bribing OCD Me. Confused? I blame the message board and double sided print in magazines. No, I blame myself for being sidetracked by shiny objects, ideas, and the Olympics, and really lacking the motivation to cut into magazines which I have hauled around, and I confess, yes, Hoarded, for 8 moves in 12 years.

For years, early in my scrapping career, when I had less kids, more free time and more income, I had the subscriptions, and bought the magazines off the rack, and I was inspired. As I have grown, I tend to use them less and less (they are still in their moving box from May '08 right now), and rely more on my own sense of style in scrapbooking. However, they still have a special spot in my heart and I love to look back at them...yes, I realize that this IS the classic definition of Hoarding. I am owning the fact that I just said in a box since '08 and love to look at in the next sentence. Just do not report me to Clean House with Niecy Nash. Promise?

I just couldn't do it. It is like looking at that band aid that has been on your (insert hairy body part here) and you can not do it... OK, if it is your kid you can, but if it is you... I could not do it. I know, I am weak. And the solution that would be least painful would be to scan my magazine ideas, but I am not a look at my laptop and review my scanned ideas kind of gal. I am more tactile than that. For goodness sake, I took my Becky Higgins Sketches and took it to Staples and had the covers laminated and then re-bound with a spiral spine.

And then, there was the fact that the magazine editors chose to print on both sides of the paper! I mean seriously! Shouldn't they know that at some point we would like to remove some of these ideas and keep them? Some of the ideas that I like the most were multi page events, especially on some of those earlier magazines like Simple Scrapbooks where they showed beginner, more advanced, and a scrap book store threw up on my layout. Ive' tried, but I will never be an "advanced" scrapbooker. It is just not my style. (But to those of you who are, I think your scrapbooks are works of art and I envy you).

Leighanne1941 from the http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/ site had the most awesome binder that she decorated and kept all of her ideas in page protectors. Thank you Leighanne1941!!! Ahhhh...clear page protectors....hmmmm. The POW was excited. She had a way to make this happen!

Coup. Seriously. Right then and there. Suddenly OCD me kicked in, egged on by the Inner Hoarder, and that other person nobody likes and with whom we almost never play...Budget Me. OCD Me wanted to figure out how we planned to sort these ideas, what do we do if side A is a keeper, and side B is a keeper, but they belong in different categories... My brain was beginning to shut down... and the budget... yeah. I have blown through that and left it in the dust. But, going la-la-la while looking at your checkbook will only last so long. She was the one who was most aggressive in tying down the POW and picking out the soundtrack for the POW once OCD me told her the cost of making this step in organizing happen. This year we have an actual Spring Break travel for a family of 5 is on the horizon, and so I needed to pace myself, especially since I paid cash for plane tickets two weeks ago.

So, I finished my 3 mini albums (from my LSS, but designed by Kerry, one of the founders of http://www.scrapyardchicks.com/ who are awesome!), never got to my layout, gave over my laptop to my Oldest Child for... whatever it was he wanted (Boy Scout Merit Badge stuff I think...but probably games too), ran around for swim lessons, scouts, grocery shopping, fixing a broken dryer door, stuff not scrap related, and assumed a vegetative state in front of the TV to watch all things Olympic. I did manage (yesterday) to get two 3-inch D ring binders to decorate while zoning over said all things Olympic. That's progress, right?

The only silver lining is that Fabulous Spouse is also in an Olympic induced catatonic trance, and he has not yet realized that I am a week behind. So for Nantini/ Nancy and all of the others who are still recovering from paper week, I FEEL your pain, you are not alone, and I pinky promise to do better for next week, as long as I can keep my personalities in line!

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

Ok. Here we are at Week 1: Space Audit.
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We were challenged to create a layout, any layout, and to do so with pen and paper to write down both what works and what does not work. So, back in December (before I knew that Crisann would revive the Challenge for 2010) I grabbed my box with my project, a handmade book about our trip to visit Ohio this summer, I grabbed my bag of "essential" tools, I grabbed the two boxes of punches I had accumulated, hauled them to the coffee table, where my husband was sitting and watching football... and 20 minutes started...

What doesn't work?

1. 20 minutes to bring down stairs the things I need to finsh 6 pages to complete my book.

Hmmm....that was it. I had my Epiphany! Yes, I needed to organize, but the real problem was that where I wanted to be and where my stuff lived was not the same space. It was like going back "into the closet"... that one thing I thought I'd gotten away from by expanding to a Scrapbook Room. I had just exchanged one closet for a bigger one.
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I did complete my book for my husband to take back to Ohio the day after Christmas, and took my first before pictures, which is actually Week 2: Brainstorming.

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Before-Original Scrapbook Room

w/desk that came with home

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And...

Before-Dining Room

Yes, its indeed messy,

messy, messy...

...but soon it will be transformed into my new functional Scrapbook Room. The desk will be moving out and some 12x12 jetmax cubes will be coming in!