Purging.

(the kids' craft shelf)

The fall puts me into organizing/cleaning/fluffing the nest mode. For most people, it's spring cleaning... but for me, it's fall organizing. Ha! 

I'm purging a lot of extra stuff from my scrap room...I've joined a couple of facebook groups that you can sell & buy scrapbooking stuff on. I love it! It's so streamlined and simple. If you're interested in joining one, the two I recommend are "The Scrap Yard" and "Scrapbooking Deals." 

Anyways, I'm sure y'all will shortly get sick of my before & after photos around here soon, but don't say I didn't warn ya... because it's fall organizing time for me! :) 

My new scrap area

So, I told you guys yesterday about our "fluffing the nest" project. Another aspect of it is that for quite some time now, I've not had a dedicated crafting area. I've had storage for all my supplies, but I long ago gave up my desk and had just kind of been scrapping where ever most evenings happened to find me (a lot of times in front of the computer).

In an effort to going back to being true to who I am, who I have been created to be, I knew I needed to carve out a place for myself again.

So here's my little area, tonight, after I got to the art of being messy with paints and such.

 The current craft table in the playroom mostly served these days as a "pile stuff on it" table and less of a craft table. The kids use the dining room table for projects, so it just made sense to move their art supplies to a shelf in there, and take over that part of the playroom for myself.

Muwahhaha.

Ahem.

Anyways, it (so far) serves this purpose very, very well. And now the kids play along side me and I can work or just hang out with them.

I quite love it.

Tonight, it was so easy to settle down and get to work on a little project I made as a birthday gift. 

Ain't she cute? ;) (She's a Silhouette mermaid, by the way. I just snipped off the birthday hat that normally comes on her.) 

So all this rambling to say... if you can carve out a small space if your home that helps you to be able to pursue the gifts God has given you to enjoy, do it. It's good for the soul.

Making Project Life Work for Me!

So I've done it. I've jumped on the bandwagon and decided to do Project Life. 

After being on Instagram for a while, several of my scrapbooking friends on there would be posting little updates to their Project Life albums. I was intrigued and I loved the artsy look to theirs... I had originally discounted the idea of doing Project Life because the main examples that I had seen looked really rigid and not really up my alley. Plus the whole idea of documenting every week of our life for a year?! That sounded OVER.WHELMING. 

A discussion was started on the NM message boards about it, and in no time at all, I found myself saying that I was going to jump in with it this year! 

This is how I'm making it work for me. 

1. No fancy boxes of product for me... in other words, I'm not buying the pre-set Project Life products, other than some of the page protectors. I'm pulling from my stash of stuff. I have a drawer system for my PL, and one of my drawers is just for stuff that I'm going to use. So far I have the Lily Bee Memento line and Elle's Studios products in there, along with some Authentique die cuts. My main plan is to use my NoelMignon kits each month. The Cabin Fever kit is the perfect start to my album. Noel's kits are always seasonally appropriate, so I can make each month stand out in my album... I know how I am, and I will want a large variety of product in my album or I will get disinterested quickly. 

2. I'm keeping organized via social media...a large portion of my life is simply documented through twitter, facebook, and instagram. They are all, unfortunately, not very easy to search for. EnterMemento, a journaling app. You can write daily entries, add photos, and most awesomely, import feeds from all your social networks. 

Then you can go to your calendar, click on a day with a blue dot underneath....

And see your entries for that day. It has become a lifesaver for me, with scrapbooking in general, with my December Daily, and now with Project Life. I can very easily track what we did each day, photos snapped, and things we're interested in with this little app. 

3. I'm not going to make this more complicated than it needs to be. 

 Last night I made my cover page for the album. I printed off several shots that we used for our Christmas card. 

Culled a pile of goodies from the Cabin Fever kit. 

Cut and laid out the photos/paper. 

Starting adding some embellishments. 

And slid everything into it's spot. I actually added some items on top of the 

page protector for a little dimension. 

 And here's the final product. Simple, easy, and definitely my style! 

Are you doing Project Life? Let's do this together and keep each other encouraged!

 Please join me on  the message board and we'll keep each other going! 

Scrapbooking storage, part two

(part one is here!)

I started showing you guys my scrapping storage in my dining room the other day. This is the second part to it. It's not very glamorous, and in the intent to be real, I didn't stage it for these photos. It is what it is, and mostly I'm messy when it comes to playing 'round!

This is a baker's rack full of my other stuff. This was my first piece of furniture I ever bought, way back in college. I actually bought it from the family that I nannied for, and it's served me well over the years!

This picture cuts off the bottom shelf level; I'll show that a few pics down.

My collection of Bic Mark-It pens stored in a cardboard mailbox from Hobby Lobby. The tin cup to the right holds glue sticks for my hot glue gun. Below are some old books I use for text paper on my canvasses and altered art, and a jar of embroidery thread and needles.

I found this little wire basket at a yard sale and it hangs on the top of the baker's rack. I love stuffing it with fun odds and ends to use. Also, you can see my collection of spray inks. I think I might have 4 different turquoises. I have a problem.

The second shelf holds some of my most used items. This basket pictured keeps some new little items, my proof of life album, a jar of paintbrushes, and my atg gun. And also, whatever I end up throwing into it when I'm trying to clean up quickly. Ha!

I love this fun little metal basket. I bought it for .39 at the thrift store one day. It's great for storing twine. To the left are a few of my sketch & idea books that I paste stuff into. The photo box shockingly stores photos, and the plastic box stores embellishments.

The third shelf holds these great Itso storage bins from Target. They are a little pricey (to me), BUT they are the perfect scrapping storage because they are way big and hold 12x12 papers perfectly. They are very sturdy, too. I was lucky to find 3 of them on clearance for 4.50 a piece, and I've always got an eye out for more!

(This one holds Lily Bee's and Girls' Paperie's latest releases.)

The other one on this shelf has the older releases in it.

Now, those of you who are super organized, shield your eyes, because I'm a bit ashamed of the bottom shelf. It needs some serious tlc (tender loving care, not the learning channel) soon! It's mix up of Ari's baby albums, a storage box of layouts that need to be put in albums, old NoelMignon kits, and all my other assorted pattered paper (in the itso bin). Oh, and the bag leftover from a class I taught last week. Need to unpack that soon. Ahem.

However, I have a plan for those kits- this storage unit below! The drawers and cabinet are completely empty, so I plan to store those in there soon. Above that is a shelf with some other mini albums, a bin of adhesive products, a bin of paints, and a basket of punches.

And here's where the magic happens... my dining room table. Crumbs and all. :)

Oh, I almost forgot! In the playroom, we have two cubes stacked on each other on either side of a loveseat. In the bottom cubes I have old idea books stored, along with seasonal products for Halloween and Christmas.

And that's it! I hope that maybe some of my storage ideas maybe spark an idea in you on how to store something of your own. :) Thanks for taking a peek into my world!

Minimalist Scraproom

($5 says my husband snickers at me calling it "minimalist.") ;)

I really try to keep my scrap stuff pared down to what I actually use- I have a few reasons to why I purge my stuff down every couple of months:

• My scrap stuff is mostly stored in my dining room.
• I tend to get overwhelmed with too much stuff, and it gets me paralyzed as to what I should use.
• I've got my style pretty nailed down, and I know what I like to use.

I'll share with you bits and pieces of my storage over the next few days; if you have any questions, just leave me el commento and I'll reply in the next post! :)

This unit is over on the left side of the room. It's just a cheapo bookshelf with a storage cubby hole thingamajig from Target on top. I love that thing. The hubs bought it for me as a Christmas gift 5 years ago- one of my favorite gifts ever! The little row of tins are from the $1 spot at Target from a few years ago, but I saw some again recently. They usually have them around spring time with their "gardening" stuff.

The shelf has a 3 drawer organizer that holds my most recent Noel Mignon kit, some of my favorite alphabets, and most recent purchases. It's my go-to spot for scrapping.

Here's a close up shot of the cubby hole organizer. Each column has similar type things in them.

From L-R: Chipboard embellishments, Journaling, Attachments, Inks/Stamps/Paints/Masks, Glitter + Stickles + Random stuff on the very bottom right cubby.

Below is an example of inside of one of the tins.... specifically the attachments. The foam circle holds brads on both sides.

Here's the row of glitter stuff. I have two tins inside of the middle cubby to hold all my stickles.

This is how I have them stored inside of the tin- upside down, nestled inside of a bed of beans.

Next to the drawers is a little metal bucket I have sticker labels and rub-ons and bigger journaling things. (I also keep the kids' scissors hidden in the back of it for their crafts- but I don't like for them to know where they are for obvious reasons. Hehe)

On the very top of the cubby unit are two baskets- one bigger one to hold completed mini albums, and this smaller basket for my ribbon stash. I keep the ribbons *mostly* organized by color in baggies. You can cram a whole lot of ribbons inside of ziploc bags!

I'll be sharing more tomorrow! :)