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...

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 6 Photos

Wow! What a week! This week was photos week (as the title implies). I am feeling just slightly bi-polar this week, and I guess that is a good way to describe my photo storage. I am beginning to feel like Zen Master Wookiemouse's Challenge weeks are like Star Trek movies...where every other one leaves you just a little disgruntled, but you keep coming back for more (sorry non Trekkies). Here is my layout. It took me a while...and yes, I confess, I went to my local scrapbook store and bought new paper for it (but come on...it has Legos!!!). Ok, I know, My name is Scrappnbee, and I have a problem...

Paper was ROUGH. Scraps was easy. Photos made me want to find Inner Hoarder's corner and rock. Now, you may be a one camera family, but I have been blessed... or cursed... with a gadget guy for a dad (Love you, Daddy!). So, back in the pre-digital day, I had:

1. ...a fabulous 35mm Cannon, which had been an eighth grade graduation gift... but was too expensive to go to college...

2. ...the college, one step up from disposable, camera...

3. ...Fabulous Spouse's college camera

4. ...Advantix Camera, wedding present by gadget guy Dad ...since you could now take 3x5, 4x6, and panorama in same shot...

The problem with this, I have one roll of film that has both honeymoon pics and my first child's delivery room pics. OCD me refuses to separate these photos until they can be converted to digital, and practical POW me really cannot argue...after all, the Advantix rolls are .59-.79 a frame to convert to digital. With over 30 rolls of Advantix film alone... you can see where I began to shut down. Even Fabulous Spouse, looking over photos with me on Friday, was willing to give me a bye... (I think that he is in denial about football season being over).

This morning, I was still in the same place I was on Friday night, but it was Monday, I had a blog to do, and a layout to complete (yes, PA Me was doing a bizarre happy dance and using the mountains of photos in lieu of shiny objects). So, thank you dear readers, as I have hopefully inspired you, you arm twisted PA Me, and we got to work. I realize, just as Zen Master Wookiemouse said, that this was a multi week program, which allowed OCD to breathe a little easier (she really, really wants organization...and this quandary was not helping her). My husband treated me to lunch at our local Brewery (they have the best Beer and Cheddar soup), to give me a little liquid courage... and off I went to do the best that I could with what I had.

Did you know that the photo boxes that Michaels and JoAnn's sell are strictly for 4x6? I don't know why that did not cross my mind... or that my father would print all of my wedding photos in 5x7? (I love you Daddy!...again) I bought 12 of these in January! I can do this.

OK, OCD Me, where to start? I decided that starting with our wedding year (I just laid those flat in the photo box), I would color code each year with a 4.25 x 7 card (yes, the photo box will hold 4.25 x 7...just not 5 x 7). Then I went to town on any photos that were not Advantix or larger than 4 x 6.

Surprisingly, once I got started, it went along pretty well...and golly, I took a lot of pictures of my first born child! (Sorry Middle Child and Girl Friday). By the time my kids got home from school, I was almost done, and by dinner time, I had 3 boxes sorted, 4 boxes of need to scan then sort, a Cropper Hopper file for my big pictures (you know, school, soccer, T-ball, etc...). and a box with those danged panoramas I thought was so cool when my Advantix was new. Ta-da! My inner procrastinator was pouting...a little. She and OCD me were deep in thought...and the POW was trying to work out a budget with the Inner Hoarder who was not sure she wanted to let the negatives out of the house. Maybe that is why negatives week is so far away... Here is my After...or as after as it is going to get for now. Not to bad, eh?

Ok. Easy part- digital. (It is like good Ash, bad Ash...or digital is the up to my hard copy photo down... -I told you I was feeling bi-polar!). I have a 1TB (yes, a Tera-byte...I am my father's daughter, after all) external back-up drive thanks to Black Friday 2008. Once a month, I upload pics to an online photosite (more frequently during special events so that I can photoshare), and I keep a copy on my desktop computer, filed by year. Inside the year file, I keep the photos stored by datestamp and an identifier (like I said before...mommy braincell atrophy...should have had more fun in college)...example-02-14-10a Kids dressed for Valentines, 02-14-10b Valentine dinner at Local Bistro ...because 2 years from now, I won't remember where we went, only that the tapanade was fabulous but the service ho-hum.

I still have my 35 mm, and I do give my kids the throw away cameras, but I have learned my lesson from the Zen Master, develop both of these with a digital copy, and then upload it with the rest to the computer, so that I never have to worry about this again ...and can print it out when I am ready to scrap.

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!)!