Sunday, March 23, 2008

The BIG clean up

It's spring and time to get our place clean and organized. A few posts ago, I said I was going to work on cleaning my scrap area. Well I finally got around to doing it.

My husband and I live in a pretty large one bedroom apartment. Our apartment has an area connected to the living room called a solarium. It's basically the space where a balcony would be. Since we hardly ever used are balcony at our old place we opted to have more usable living space. So half of the solarium is my "scrapbook studio". This is where I make the magic happen. My little corner is my favorite place to be. My space is not my idea of the perfect space, but it suits my needs and works for our current situation.

First, I took some before photos. I have to say that I am almost embarassed to post these pictures. I will admit it - I am a messy scrapper. Most of the time my supplies will go everywhere. It is so disappointing too - since I have so many orginazational tools. In these pictures you will even see that I have claimed a folding table as my scrap space because I just couldn't bear the task of clearing my desk:



Here is my scrap area after cleaning. What a BIG difference!!!! It only took me 2 hours and one trash bag. I had to stop myself from dragging out another project before I took my after pics.


So my space is now clean and has remained clean for a few hours. Hopefully I can keep my area clear for at least one week.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

What I am working on...

I my previous posts I have talked about some of the projects I am working on. I thought I'd take this opportunity to give you some updates.

The BIG project I am working on right now is a scrapbook for my mom for Mother's Day. Here's one of the layouts I completed. This is one of my favorite baby photos. This is me with my mom. I really like how this paisley SEI paper kind of matches the time frame when the portraits were done.

Something new I tried with this album is using divided page protectors. I have lots of pictures that I am trying to include in this book and I have found that these pages work great. I am using pages that have 6 - 4x6 pockets. I can mount my photos on 4x6 pieces of patterned paper and just slide them into the pockets. They look really cool and add something a little different to the scrapbook.


This year, I have tried to set a few goals for my scrapbooking & papercrafting. One of my goals this year is to use the supplies I have on hand to make small "gifts" for my co-workers to celebrate their birthday. My thought is, no one likes to come to work on their b-day, so having a little something waiting for them when they come in makes them feel special. March is a busy month for birthdays in my office so I need to get on the ball! Here is a small altered paint can I made for a birthday this week. Coseree likes to chew gum while she's working so we filled the can with different kinds of gum. I left this on her desk so it would be a surprise for her when she came in. She was surprised and love her little gift. It makes me feel so good to put a smile on someone else's face.

One other update: I posted earlier this month that I was challenging myself to not buy any scrapbook supplies other than adhesive. I am proud to report that I am still on the wagon. I had to go to Michael's this past weekend to buy adhesive and I think my husband was shocked that we were out of the store so quickly. I only have like two more weeks to go. Right now I am trying to convince myself that an ATG gun would fall under the "adhesive" category.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I will be posting again soon.




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Thanks

I just wanted to thank those of you who had posted comments. I really appreciate it!

Friday, March 7, 2008

My current project

I am currently working on a project for my mom for Mother's Day. I have all of our family photos and I am putting them into a scrapbook for her. I carefully removed all of the photos from those yucky adhesive albums. Luckily all of the photos are in pretty good shape (Even the polariods). It feels weird to me to now scrapbook my own baby pictures. But I love the fact that now these pictures are going to be safe.

One problem I am having is with pictures of my brother. My brother is 6 years younger than me and there are hardly any pictures of him when he was a baby. I am actually having to leave pictures of me out so I can make sure the book is somewhat balanced. I don't know what to do because I really don't want to offend him. I think that his lack of photos may hurt his feelings. I think I may try to get a lot a recent photos of him and see I can bulk up his section that way.

Other than that the album looks great. I am really hoping that my mom will like it.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Etsy

Don't know if you know about etsy but it is great. People from all over sell things that they have made like jewelry, purses, panintings, and even scrapbooks. I have a store set up on Etsy so please stop by and take a look:

scrapasaurus.etsy.com

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

March challenge

I have decided to try to complete a challenge this month. This month's challenge is going to be to spend $0 on scrapbook supplies this month. The only exception is going to be adhesive. (I go through adhesives like water)

Wish me luck!!!!