Organize your Stuff: Week 5 (round 5): scraps

In preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday at our house we have actually been cleaning! Do not get too excited, we have not cleaned that much. PA Me would never allow that!

Well, here is our scrap table! OCD Me just could not take it anymore.

We squared up the rough and wonky edges and put them in piles. The POW has warned OCD Me that this is temporary. Creative Me is already itching to play in them, and Girl Friday has been eying them too!

We have another 2007 Iraq layout under our belt too.

The patterned paper is from October Afternoon that Fabulous Spouse helped pick out at CKC, and the title and school table were cut from scraps on the Cricut. The picture mat was a scrap too! Maybe there is something to be said for this organizing thing that OCD keeps trying to make us do!

We have been busy this weekend too. Here is Illusive Middle Child at his first ever wrestling meet. He lost all three matches (it is matches right?). But he got experience, and that is what counts! Especially since football took so long with the playoffs, that he only had 2 practices (or 3 hours) worth of wrestling training ever before we got there. Hopefully he will get better as the weeks progress… or at least continues to have fun!

Happy Early Thanksgiving!!! …or happy Monday to those outside the U.S.!

Organize your Stuff: Week 5 (round 5): WOYWW #128

Well, it is that wonderful time of the week where we wander the world and whip up some WOYWW (What’s on your work desk Wednesday) love for our fellow crafters!

This is our work desk today…

Our scraps are still not organized (*Sad face*). However, they are getting better… (I'm not dead yet...) The POW even made OCD Me put the dreaded scrap pile on the left into the picture.

For other savvy WOYWW'ers, hop over to Julia's Stamping Ground!

This week we have been working on finishing up Fabulous Spouse’s Iraq album as we only have about six weeks until he leaves for Afghanistan. Six weeks! Aaagggghhhhh!

We also put together our Design Team card for Tuesday Trio Sketch# 93: Autumn. Creative Me was in a truly zen place when she got to work on this sketch. This card is made from our scrap pile with a white scrap inked up for our moon.

The copper leaves arrived just that morning (along with the words and the acorn) from our monthly Heartstring Designs kit. They were inked up with Copic markers (which have alcohol inks inside)!

PA Me totally blames Creative Me for our not cleaning. Inner Hoarder did not help either. We think she opposite of helped by locking OCD Me and the POW in the closet and then batting her eyelashes lovingly at Fabulous Spouse to take her to the CKC Scrapbooking vendor faire.

With a hypnotized Fabulous Spouse in tow, we increased rather than decreased our stash of scrappy goodness. Most of our buys were Afghanistan related. However, there are no photographs…so in true Mission Impossible fashion, that he can disavow this at a later date.

Also, Illusive Middle Child got his second place trophy from the football season that would never end (we have been playing since August 1st!). This Sunday will wrap up cheerleading as well with the league indoor cheer championships! Woo Hoo! Wish us luck!!!

Organize your Stuff: Week 5 (round 5): Scraps

Hope that all of you had a great Veterans’ Day weekend!

This week we are tackling scraps. How are yours organized? Do you even keep scraps? Is there a minimum size?

Here is another Iraq training layout where Creative Me raided our scrap stash for the accents.

To be honest, OCD Me has tried to corral our scraps, but between Girl Friday and Creative Me they are always escaping, being fruitful, and multiplying. It does not help that Inner Hoarder refuses to throw them away.

Here is where our scraps are today. They are definitely in need of some OCD Me love.

This is the accordian folder where our scraps are supposed to live.  When Girl Friday wants to create something the POW just directs her to the folder and tells her how many scraps she can use.  This is probably the only thing that keeps the scraps from rising up and taking over the house.

This is the little side table that has runneth over with hedonistic scraps that multiply when we turn our backs on them.

Finally, here are the scraps that get shoved to the side (and that never seems to make it into our WOYWW frames).  OCD Me is totally embarassed now.

As for our family, Illusive Middle Child and Girl Friday went to the Championships in football. It was cold, it was rainy, and alas, there was no joy to be had… as we lost. However, as we told our boy, there is no shame in losing to an undefeated team… especially if you tried your hardest.

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 5 (round 3): Scraps Part 2

For a moment, PA thought about pitching the scraps, because it just isn’t worth the time to straighten up! However, the Inner Hoarder perked up at this thought, and she personally saw to it that she and OCD Me straightened the few pieces that were out of place because when PA Me scraps, she never puts things in color order (ROY G BIV).

As for my Glee Club challenge at Dixie Pieces this week, it was Children’s Music- Raffi. Ironically, I struggled more with this layout than with alternative. I guess some part of me is anti-establishment, or maybe the POW was put in charge of babysitting too often in her teenage years. Confession: As a parent, I have never owned a Raffi tape, or any kid specific tape/ CD. I don’t think that I could handle it over and over again. As it was, I had Blues Clues narcolepsy! I swear, that green striped shirt showed up on the TV (and they played the same one episode Monday through Friday, so the kids could “learn”) and I was asleep on the couch before the first paw print. Nope, the car radio was mine. I worked hard to survive to adulthood, and I was not going to give that power up to someone whose diaper I had to change. I know, take away my Greatest Mom Ever mug now.

So, here is my layout. I just love this BoBunny Learning Curve line!

Here are my scraps- a library pocket tag.

Here is one of those pom poms I told you about… smaller than tumble weeds, but worse than dust bunnies!

Organize your Stuff: Week 5 (round 3): Scraps Part 1

Question of the Week:  What do you consider a scrap?  Anything that has been cut from it's original 12x12 or 8.5x 11.  Girl Friday has worked her Jedi mind tricks on me, and convinced me of this.

Here is my card for Tuesday Trio Design Team Tryouts this week sketch #36. No girly colors allowed for this challenge (pink, red, orange). Creative Me rose to the challenge and this is the result:

As a side note, the POW talked Creative Me out of Need to get Lucky? and into Good Luck.  Hopefully, it was a wise choice.  Next she has to do a Raffi themed layout for the Dixie Chicks Glee Club Challenge. She’ll be busy for a while.

As for scrap week, OCD pretty much keeps this one under wraps. Due to the voracious appetite… er… helpful hands of our always creative Girl Friday, scraps are a pretty endangered species around here. I have it on good authority from a Organizer (LoveRibbons-shout out to you!), some day the black hole of creativity that hovers at the edge of my crafting universe will someday disperse, and then I will be stuck fighting with the Inner Hoarder to let go of MOUNTAINS of scraps.

Last week I showed you where some of these scraps live, organized on top of the paper. Here is my working accordion folder that needs a little love from OCD Me, and not too much love from girl Friday, while the POW keeps PA Me occupied with other things, and threatening to make her clean!

Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 5 Scraps

For me, scraps is a pretty easy week. Sorry. To answer this week's challenge question:Do you use your scraps? Yes, I do use scraps, but so does my little girl. Girl Friday eyes them like a lioness waiting for that one stray beast to slip from the herd... then *BAM* ...before you know it, it is gone from the stash forever. Needless to say, I have zero pink scraps, and surprisingly fewer 12x12 pink pages than I recall purchasing. A moment of silence, for those poor scraps who have given their lives so that the rest may live on.

Creative me was inspired by my stash of 3 and 4 inch strips for this week's LO. Most of my scraps fit into this category. I think that is mostly because I "cheat" and make 8x8 albums for the year in review that send out for Mother's Day. (BTW...in addition to getting organized, my goal this year, Mom, is that you will get your Mother's Day album before August...take that PA Me).

This is my before pile. No, don't hate me for having so little to organize. As I said before, you, at least, have the color pink as an option on scrapbook day. The green folder has all of my strips and patterned, black, and white scraps, the pile of smaller squares came with kits that have since been absorbed into my 12x12 misc. papers, and the iris case has paper waiting to be sacrificed to Girl Friday... I can only give her a little at a time. It is like having a starving termite. One sheet or 50, the paper is consumed in minutes, and she is back for another.

PA Me got to take charge, again, for a while this week, while the POW was worried about other things. I kept looking at how little the pile was, and getting distracted by bigger things. This week was Pinewood Derby week for my middle child...and for those of you who have had boys in Scouts... it is an operation more tricky than herding cats, with both boys' and mens' egos at stake. It matters not that the boy wanted to anything but work on his car, on race day, magically he had better win! (Not to brag, but...Mine came in 2nd in his den and 7th in the Pack Finals!...)

Thank goodness for easy weeks though, as the POW put her foot down. PA Me finally had a choice, clean bathrooms or sort the scraps. Scraps won (go figure). So, I emptied my accordion... and found a marble (no money this month, darn!) I sorted my strips ROYGBIV and put them back. Girl Friday got 2 of them. I just was not fast enough!. The other scraps were sorted by size then color and put in two $1 WalMart CD cubes. Ta-Da! Done. Scraps-After.

I think that I have achieved my yellow belt in Organization. Next week will be a doosy (photos, agghhh!)!