Ribbon organization

Last summer I participated in a craft fair with my mom. Before I went to the fair, I wandered around Home Depot for a while, trying to figure out a good way to display my cards. A very nice and helpful employee took interest and helped me make a card display unit from two shelving brackets and a few dowels. I ended up using it a little differently than we made it in the store (see it here), but it worked to display some of my favorite cards. It's been sitting in my craft closet since then, just taking up space. About a month and a half ago, I put it back together, using the dowels to connect the two shelf brackets. I then stapled all of my ribbon that was longer than 12 inches around the dowel. I hung it on my wall, but some of the ribbon was so long it pooled at the floor, even though the display was hanging at about 5 feet 10 inches or so off the ground. So on the really long ribbon pieces, I folded them around my fingers and then held the resulting "ball" to the ribbon trailing from the dowel with a clothes pin. I think it looks very pretty hanging on my wall, and now that I can see my ribbon, instead of it being hidden away in baggies in a basket on my bookshelf, I'm actually using it more often. I still have a few bits and pieces of ribbon in the baggies, so it'll be hard to remember to use them. As I type this, I just thought that maybe I should hang the baggie rings on the dowels also, so that I have all of my ribbon and fibers in one place.

As I look at this pictures, I realize I need to maybe get a shelf to go on top of the brackets. It'll provide some more storage space in my room, and will make it look a little more finished. I also need to paint the brackets and maybe the dowels. But that would mean taking it all apart, so it'll probably not happen for a while.

Danielle

Organizing again

I was working on cards the other night and realized as I kept getting up to get stuff from shelves, that what I'd really like is something that allowed me to put my most frequently used stuff right next to my desk, but wasn't so big that I felt it would loom over me. The book shelf in my room would feel that way if it was right next to my desk. I basically wanted to create an L shape around my chair. I was at Costco yesterday picking up groceries (and two new scrapbooks) and found a cart like this one. The only difference is that my cart only has 12 drawers instead of 20, and it was $26.99 (I had debated whether to get it, but after looking at costco.com, it looks like I got a good deal). It's just the perfect height for what I was looking for. I started organizing it last night and so far I love it. I use the cropper hopper vertical paper organizers and they were sitting on my desk taking up a lot of space. I moved them to the top shelf and they look good. I moved the tools I use most to one of the top drawers, and now my desk isn't littered with the tools. Last time I scrapped, I barely had room on top of my desk for 2 papers side by side. Yesterday I moved most of the stuff on my desk into this cart, and my desk looks so clean.

I put all of my eyelets and brads in one of the drawers. I put all my adhesive in another draw. I organized my paper scraps into page protectors by color and put all those in one drawer. Patterned paper scraps are in another drawer. I originally had them in a crop-in-style Paper Taker that just lived on the floor by my desk, so this makes my room visually cleaner also. I put all my embossing powders, my embossing gun, my acrylic blocks, and my little tray to keep the embossing powder from leaking over everything into another draw. Looking at the picture I'll post later when blogger is working, it looks like so far I've filled 6 drawers.

So far I love this little cart. We'll just have to see if it actually keeps me organized and if it helps when I'm actually scrapbooking.

Danielle

This is my cart. Imagine all the stuff on the top on my desk. Yeah, it made the desk kind of crowded. Not to mention a bunch of other little stuff that is now in the drawers. I love that the cart is exactly the right height for what I wanted it to do. I know that scrapbook companies sell stuff like this, but it usually costs a lot more. Point of fact, on the costco.com website, they have a cart by this same company that has 10 drawers (here). And they have one by Cropper Hopper, exactly the same, except all the drawers are black (here). It costs $7 more for the Cropper Hopper one. Drives me nuts that you put the word scrapbook on something and it automatically increases the price.

My desk (well, really a table from Ikea). It used to be, before I bought the cart, that the only area without stuff on it is where the two white pieces of paper are. Not a whole lot of room to create with. I had so much stuff on it because I hate having to get up to get everything. Hopefully the cart will allow me to keep it clean like this.

Why haven't I been scrapbooking?

I've been thinking a lot about why I haven't been scrapbooking much, or paper crafting in general either. A few years ago I was averaging several hundred pages a year. Then life got really, really busy - selling our condo, moving into my sister's basement while we built our new house, working on the new house, moving into the new house, unpacking, having a friend live in my craft room for a few months, babysitting my nephew last year. The list goes on, even leaving off just the normal day to day stuff of homeschooling our boys and running a household. Yet, I used to scrapbook all the time. I like it enough that we set aside a whole room in our new house for me, painting it the color I wanted, setting up the closet so it was more usable for storage and everything. So why am I usually lucky if I get in there once a week to work on anything? For crying out loud, I have stamps I bought a month ago that I haven't even done anything with, not even adding the picture to my stamp index. Let's be really realistic here. I don't know that I've done anything in my scrapbook room since I finished the layout a day challenge at the end of January. I did a few pages the beginning of February, but that was in the living room at the birthday crop I threw myself.

As I read over an organizing article on Two Peas in a bucket (this one), it gave me an idea of why I'm not scrapbooking. The first reason is really, truly simple. I haven't printed pictures since around June 2006, except the pictures of us building our house. The pictures I have left are the ones that I wasn't really inspired to scrapbook in the first place, ones that are left over from when I was scrapping the other groups I got printed at the same time and I picked the other groups first because I didn't know what to do with these ones. I've decided I'm going to pick a sketch for each group and just follow the sketch, using ribbon or buttons or some generic embellishment instead of trying to perfectly match the theme of the pictures with the embellishments. And I set aside $50 to get new pictures printed. It'll probably just barely put a dent in what I have to print, but it'll get me new pictures, up-to-date pictures, and hopefully that will help me be motivated to scrap also.

The second reason, the main reason, is that I haven't found a way to organize my stuff that makes sense to how I scrapbook now. That's the insight I got from reading the Two Peas article. I have 3 paper sticker binders that I have a bunch of stuff in. I used to love them, I used them all the time and they were so great. Now though, I don't even remember to look in them half the time. I was really drawn to the rooms in the article that had stuff organized in bins and boxes, jars and baskets. I don't know why that is so appealing to me, but I think, over the years, my style has changed and with it, my organizing needs have evolved too. I think I'm beginning to be more visually oriented than I used to be. I'm also moving more from stickers and diecuts to stamps and textiles. I think I need to do another purge of my scrapbook stuff, and find new ways to organize what I have left. I think doing that will draw me to my scrapbook room more often. And it'll make it so my desk is hopefully cleaner : ). My desk, right now, has so much stuff piled all over it that it's hard to get motivated to even start because I have to move stuff to even make room for two pieces of paper.

Anyway, just my thoughts for today. I'm going to go exercise and then play around in my scrapbook room, seeing if I can organize it a bit better, get things to the point I can play a little today.

Danielle

Card Organizer

For my husband's uncle's Christmas present, I decided to give him a card organizer full of homemade cards. He gives cards on birthdays, so I figured this would save him some money through the year. I had made most of the pages last year, so I just had to sew them to the pages listing the month and days and then thread the ribbon through the eyelets. I stamped the month names and the dates earlier today. Now I just have to make cards to fill it.

This is the front cover. I stamped the word Cards with foam stamps by Plaid that I bought at Micheal's.

Each month has a white page like this with the month name at the top and the days of the month listed. I will draw lines next to the day so he can write the birthday person next to their birthday.

January's pocket page. I stamped snowflakes on it with my versamark pad.

February's pocket page. This is a clear stamp from Provo Craft.

I traced shamrocks from a template I had to make March's pocket page.

April's pocket page. I tore green paper and layered the strips to look kind of like grass. I tucked Easter eggs in the grass and then mog podged the whole thing so that the eggs wouldn't catch on stuff.

May's pocket page has flowers on it to celebrate Mother's Day.

June's pocket page. I tore tan paper and layered it to look like sand and then tucked shells cut with my sizzlets dies into the sand. Again I mog podge it so the shells wouldn't fall out.

July's pocket page is made with more sizzlets dies. I mod podged this one also so the firework parts wouldn't catch on stuff being taken out of the pocket.

In August I stamped books and pencils to try to convey a back to school theme.

In September I stamped a Provo Craft clear leaf stamp with versamark.

I stamped a trick or treat bag with ghosts coming out of it for the October pocket page and then colored the bags and ghosts.

You can't really see it in the picture, but there is Thank You stamped all over the November pocket page with versamark ink.

For the December page I stamped a Christmas ornament and then colored it.