Organize your Stuff: Week 28 (round 3): Card supplies (part 1)

Happy Tuesday! Sorry that we never got to a part 2 last week, but the plague had struck our household! That plus the final week of girl Scout Cookie Sales and we finally got called up for Jury Duty (no case yet, just lots of sitting) have kept us busy. For those 73 people (73! That is just unbelievable!!!) who left comments on the Operation Write Home Blog Hop, the winner is #42- randomly generated by asking Oldest Child to pick a number from 1-73 since there is nothing more random than a middle schooler’s mind. Congrats! We will be contacting you and sending you some paper roses and other goodies!

42~Jeri~ said...
LOL I love your personalities! i can relate to so many of them!! Love your card and those flowers are gorgeous.
Thanks to you and your family as well for your service. If you ever need a shoulder, I'm here!
~Jeri #130~

Here is our Design Team Card for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #58. In honor of font week, Creative Me replaced the blocks in the sketch with letters, and we got all 28 on there!

For card supplies, currently they live in this Little Yellow Bicycle bag…or cannibalize it from the scrapbooking stuff. OCD Me is not particularly thrilled with the current storage solution. However, since we are still on jury duty this week, and we are about to be invaded by babies on Friday (Fabulous Spouse’s brother is going to Iraq, so SIL, 3 mo baby, 20 mo baby, 2 cats and a dog are coming to stay here for a year), the POW is couching this week with a definite maybe. The POW may be in the veterinary ER with our 13 year old cat instead. The funny thing is that now the Inner Hoarder can look in our bedroom that now has 2 extra rooms of furniture and see what a true Hoarder’s place might look like. (OCD Me is hyperventilating in a bag, but Inner Hoarder seems relatively nonplussed).  Wish us luck!

Organize your Stuff: Week 27 (round 3): Fonts (part 1)

Wow what an inspirational weekend!!! We still have about 20 blogs left to go (sorry!) on the Operation Write Home Bunny Blog Hop (our entry here). However, with over 130 to visit, three kids to run around, and Fabulous Spouse is away with a Drill Weekend, that’s not too shabby! If you are a fellow OWH blog hop straggler, Welcome!!! If you are a new follower, Welcome back! Also, special thanks to Kate at OWH’s Stars & Stamps blog for the shout out today!

First, our Tuesday Trio Design Team card for this week (Sketch #57). This was actually a little challenging for Creative Me because we had to use our three favorite things. Only Three! That unleashed five way negotiations in the mind, and at one point OCD Me threatened to strafe the other personalities fearing an uprising! We calmed her down, promised not to demonstrate in the streets, keep out the swirlies and the butterflies (Creative Me-I heart me some butterflies!!!), and reminded her that we were having Chinese (ok.. fake Panda Express Chinese), but only if we could get our homework done.

With visions of soy sauce dancing in our heads, we settled on a relatively simple card. Our three things are (1) Stamping! Of course! We stamped the silhouette, sentiment, and used like seven different colors of inks with a piece of sink sponge to make the rainbow fade on the borders of the cardstock pieces.

(2)Punches! We punched the photo corners and the three layers of dictionary paper for the rosette! (BTW- dictionary paper is also in our top ten. This is a copyright 1939 German to English dictionary that the Inner Hoarder found at St. Vincent de Paul for $2.99) OCD Me cringes every time Creative Me ruins another page! LOL!

(3) Misting! Or more specifically glitter shimmer and shine! The above mentioned paper circles are glimmer misted and the brad holding it all together was stickled. Creative Me readily admits that mists are her current uber weekness… ok… they are our crack. But unlike Charlie Sheen, we do not have the Godesses and a personal trainer to help us kick the habit.

Next, we will tackle fonts. Fonts!?! Shut the front door! Seriously? The POW does admit to a coup last year by PA Me and the Inner Hoarder…and summer break… that kept us from finishing, but seriously? OK, to those of you who have enough fonts on your computer that it would take a week to organize them... we apologize. We thought that the ABC order that they arrived in our Microsoft Office Suite was good enough.

We have fonts, but they are in the form of stickers and stamps, and those weeks are already behind us (or ahead of us, as the Organization Challenge restarts in 3 Weeks!). Maybe we are finally those old people who have not embraced technology yet? (The POW officially apologizes to Rose the Secretary for whom she worked in college. We now understand that there is nothing senile about wanting to use a typewriter to hand type 200 form letters because the word processor program and mail merge are scary. )

 

We used fonts on the layouts below, but that is because the POW is making Fabulous Spouse do his own journaling. (PS- these are the layouts that would not load for Saturday because electronics do not like us and the scanner/printer would not play).

See you at the end of the week! Honestly though, are there any of you guys out there for whom fonts would be your Memorabilia Week? (That is NOT the pile of memorabilia you are looking for).

Organize your Stuff: Week 26 (round 3): New Items and Keeping it Neat part 2 &OWH Spring Blog Hop!

Apologizing in advance to our regular readers for two blog hops in a row! if you are looking for One Little Word (OLW) blog hop, click here for that entry.

Today’s blog hop is in support of Operation Write Home. This non-profit group sends homemade cards to our deployed forces so that they can write home. Since Fabulous Spouse’s brother will be headed to the sandbox in a few weeks to do his one year tour, and Fabulous Spouse, himself, will be gearing up for an Iraq deployment at the end of the year, this seemed like a perfect fit for us and our extra cards!

For any of you interested in using some of your stash to help support this cause, the Easter deadline is March 18th and the Mother's Day deadline is March 31st.

This is the spring card that Creative Me put together. It was our first attempt at the rolled paper roses, and OCD Me nearly threw in the towel (it is slightly harder than the internet makes it seem). It did not help that PA Me never bookmarked the site (or sites…we have seen it a couple times now) where we saw the tutorial, so we decided to make one for you…just in case you want to try. (The POW says that it was not that hard. We got it right on the third try, ODC Me is just impatient!)

To make this rose, just grab some scrap paper (this was leftover paper from an 8x8 album where Creative Me sacrificed a lot of 12 x 12 cardstock to get it done).

Cut at the one inch mark, then fold in thirds and tape close with double sided adhesive. We have a Martha Stewart Score Pad, so we scored at 3/8 inch and 6/8 inch and put the glue on the1/4 inch.

Then the tricky part, rolling the flower. We found that if you cut your base and put adhesive on it first (we used 1 1/8 circle and ATG tape) then set it aside, the assembly process was easier.

Lightly mist your paper with water (This will make it more pliable). Roll in a corkscrew the whole strip. Then form rose by rolling in a circle. When done, place it on your sticky circle so that it does not unravel.

Another trick that Creative me discovered is to lightly mist once adhered to the circle and press down. This makes sure that the paper fibers set this way and do not try to spring back and pop off the page like our first attempt. Ta Da!

As for the something new and keeping it neat, we have done neither. The POW and OCD Me are proud of the Inner Hoarder for not using this week as an excuse to shop, but to be honest, we have been so busy that she just has not has the chance. We have, however, survived three Girl Scout cookie sales (one rain, one hail SERIOUSLY!, and thankfully one indoors), two wrestling matches, cub scouts and boy scouts! Using what we’ve got, Creative me also got more of the Iraq 2007 book done. We will have to post them later as the scanner and my computer are not speaking. (*update: layouts posted here*)

Three weeks left until the Organization Challenge restarts! Can you believe that we will actually make it to Week 29 this time!

For those on the blog hop this is where you are (I did not post the whole list as there are 135 participants!) If you get too lost you can always go back to OWH and pick it back up:

Leave a comment and we will give some blog candy (and paper roses) to one person!  Since there are so many blogs, we will close this on March 12th!

60. Tammy, My Craft Central, you'll link to Amanda at http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/ *you are here*
61. Amanda, Scrappnbee the Scrapbooker, you'll link to Shelley at http://shelleyscreations.blogspot.com/
62. Shelley, Shelley's Paper & Ink, you'll link to Mari at http://marikocreations.blogspot.com/
63. Mari, Heartfelt and Handmade by Mari K., you'll link to holley at http://helloholley.blogspot.com/
64. holley, holley's hobbies, you'll link to Velda at http://oldstamper.blogspot.com/
65. Velda, Oldstamper Musings, you'll link to Cheryl at http://shestamps.blogspot.com/

Organize your Stuff: Week 26 (round 3): New Items and Keeping it Neat part 1 &OLW March Blog Hop!

Try and say that one 10 times fast! This is yet another jam packed (and probably a little too long) blog entry, so let’s get started! Post a comment for a chance at blog candy (and if you are posting as anonymous, please leave an e-mail address so that we can find you if you win- the witness protection program will never know that you shared).

First up, One Little Word! The first of every month, we will share our homework and thoughts from last month's class (and hop arpound with all our classmates who have done the same!)This is our first year with Ali Edwards’ OLW project, and so far, it has been amazing! My word for 2011 is Embrace, and it has truly become our mantra. There are many things that we cannot change, that we cannot control, and against which we cannot rage (sad but true!). In the (to quote Disney) Circle of Life kind of things, there are the glass is half empty people…and the glass is half full. For the most part, we have avoided the latter, considering them too perky and lacking the reality check and grounding that the rest of us had (and they were probably the ones who spiked the cool-aide too!).

However, now we begin to realize that one can Embrace life without going into Technicolor, and spiked cool-aide isn’t half bad! Look at Jessica Rabbit! She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way. In any event, we have begun to Embrace our world, and revel in it, and realize that the unexpected is possibly a chance for celebration and adventure. And if nothing else, it will make a great story to be retold with dry wit and a cold beverage later!

Above is one of my Embrace photos, as February's homework for the OLW class was all about the photos of your word. This is our front yard rose bushes. We are SEVERELY allergic to them, and the POW has the worst black thumb that OCD Me has ever seen. No matter. These roses positively thrive in our front yard. Two years ago, rather than uproot them altogether (since benign…or not so benign neglect did not do them in), the POW decided to take another track and Embrace them. When the flowers bloomed, we called our local church and the Church Lady Mafia came in when no one was looking and cut them down for use in the floral arrangements.

Every year these roses are hardier and more prolific, and every year they are whisked away when nobody is looking to serve a higher purpose than making us a stuffy nosed Benadryl addict. Last week it snowed on them as they were beginning to grow. It almost seemed like they Embraced the snow and cradled it, knowing how fleeting it would be here in the Pacific Northwest (unlike the East Coast with its feet and feet and feet!). None of the leaves have withered. It just Embraced a circumstance that it could not change!

OK! Now for the not so sappy and introspective Guy Smiley and Gosh Darn It People Like Me section. This is the Design Team card that Creative Me made for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #56. The POW is totally in love with the baby chick in the boot! We thought that this would be appropriate as the challenge was dots and…now that it is warming up…rain is in the forecast until July 4th! Again, something that we must Embrace. We chose to live in the Pacific Northwest and there are four seasons…Cold, dark, and wet; warmer, lighter, and wet; so dry nobody can keep a lawn alive even with in-ground sprinklers; and wet again. We must Embrace it, and forget that we ever had good hair days.

Finally, for the new stuff and keeping it neat…you know that whole organizing thing and whole reason for this blog! LOL! What do you do with your new stuff? Do you file it away so that nobody notices that there is any new stuff…Inner Hoarder favors that, as does OCD Me…but for different reasons. Do you put it on your desk for a certain period of time so that it imprints into your memory that you own it…Creative Me’s personal favorite (side note from the POW: all brains can only hold so much information. Trying to memorize your clear acrylics and patterned papers will drop other information like you great-aunt’s birthday and your phone number at that house you lived in during the first part of third grade). Do you leave it in its bag until you come home with something in another bag… the PA Me method.

Here are the other blog hoppers for today! You are currently at lucky #21! Please stop by and say to the rest of the list as well! These all go live at 8AM PST on March 1st!

1. Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/
2. Monica B http://scraplifters.blogspot.com/
3. Jill http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
4. Miranda http://mirandasscrapsite.blogspot.com/
5. Donna http://www.donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com/
6. Lynn http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
7. Stacey http://www.TheAcornGarden.com/blog
8. Lisa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog
9. Cassie http://craftycassiescorner.blogspot.com/
10. Abbey http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/
11. Nicky http://seejanebake.blogspot.com/
12. Holly http://lovingrobots.blogspot.com/
13. Karen http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/
14. Claudia http://creative-moms.com/
15. Rebekah http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
16. Kimberly http://foreverdaisies.blogspot.com/
17. Kat http://www.katswonderings.blogspot.com/
18. Kristina http://ciqis.blogspot.com/
19. Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/
20. Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/
21. Amanda http://www.scrappnbee.blogspot.com/
22. Lisa http://luluoz.typepad.com/
23. Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/
24. Maureen http://cookingmylife.blogspot.com/
25. Kristi http://theprojectofme.wordpress.com/
26. Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/
27. Karen http://womenontractors.blogspot.com/
28. Katrina http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com/
29. Monica Bergler http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
30. Mandy http://captureandcreate.wordpress.com/
31. Lisa http://makeyourownescape.blogspot.com/
32. Chrissy http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com/
33. Lee http://thelinarstudio.typepad.com/embracelife
34. Jen http://www.byjen.com/
35. Sylvia http://baxtersmom1.blogspot.com/
36. Christianne http://christiannemarra.blogspot.com/
37. Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
38. Joy http://www.undiscoveredjoy.blogspot.com/
39. Beth http://justbebeth.wordpress.com/
40. Jennifer L http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
41. Kathryn http://www.katlodesigns.com/
42. Heather http://www.scrappyhare.blogspot.com/
43. Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
44. Cynthiau http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/

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!