WOYWW #868

 Good morning, crafty friends!

Thank you, everyone, who left condolences for HoneyB. We're gradually accepting not having to get up at 5 a.m. to put him out or having him want out every time he thinks there's a squirrel out there to chase off. 

On the upside, we no longer have to block him from the litter box or worry if we're leaving him kenneled too long if we want/ need to go somewhere. Most anywhere we go is a 2-hour round trip plus the things we need to do in between. Makes for a long day for a dog when it's too cold to leave him out in the run. Just life adjustments after eleven years.

Bob has already pulled the fence & posts that enclosed the run. When weather warms up, we'll set it up as a patio.

I have three pictures to show you today.

First, my desk with leftovers from yesterday's tag creation. You can see just the tag on yesterday's post HERE. To the left you can see a spool of ribbon.. a very pretty net ribbon from Stampin' Up! holiday catalog as well as a couple packages of their new heart doilies from the same catalog I need to put in the scrap rack

... which is easy to get to because after the deep clean over the weekend, I am now able to pull scrap rack spinders off the shelf and onto a single base to my left to work:

The base will hold up to 7 3-ring spinders. I still have room to move the red, pink, and white color spinders onto the base. No more getting up and down to go around the back side of the shelf to get what I need while I'm crafting. When I'm done with all the Valentine, I'll put them back on the shelf and bring in St. Patrick's/ Green as well as Easter/ Spring.

And finally, the worst spot of all from a couple of weeks ago:

There are two carts of punches. The black one in the front holds all non-seasonal punches except for my two big heart punches. The narrower white cart behind that holds all of my seasonal punches but for now, I have the box of Valentine stamps and papers sitting there.

I'm gradually getting back into the swing of things and organizing more in the office. I can get to my Kanban board with my work schedule posted and all of the stamps/ dies going back to Halloween are filed back in their boxes. One day at a time.

That's it for my desk (and story) this week. Who's Miss Sarah and why am I here?  When you are done visiting me in the Ozarks, please hop on over to Sarah’sCraft Shed for all the details. Miss Sarah has a long list of other studios you can peek into. No standing on an up-turned milk pail to look in the window. We open the doors wide and welcome you.  Please leave your number and you'll be among the first on my list.

 Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

FRIDAY FREEBIE - Junk Journal Organization

Good morning, crafty friends!

Thank you for your patience while I spent time with Kassie and Matt. I've enjoyed getting to know the man she has chosen to have her children with, as well as his three from a previous marriage. As you read/ watch this today I am on my way back home. I'm stopping tonight to totally unwind and hopefully work on my writing. I stayed an extra day at Kassie's but I still want to be home by Sunday so that Bob and I can celebrate Thanksgiving before he heads back out on the boat Tuesday.

Today's video is all about how I have decided to organize the supplies for each current junk journal project. I'm using the ScrapRack tote that I bought over 15 years ago when I first met Tiffany Spalding and fell in love with The ScrapRack system.

Bob filmed the flip-through for me so that we could get the camera up high enough for you to see everything. I hope you enjoy and are inspired.

 

Creative Blessings!

~ Kelly

SCRAPRACK - Almost complete

I spent a busy weekend working on the Scrap Rack project. That seems to be a never-ending task.. though I am finally beginning to see the end. I THINK I have sorted everything into ABC/ Themes/ Rainbow/ Calendar year that I own. Though, if the 'clown car' effect is still going strong, I will not be surprised if something else shows up as I move on to other organization areas of the studio.

For now... Here are 2 of the categories, completely sorted:

This is the rainbow section. Though I've since gone back and removed all of the pages with Fibers. Those will get carded and added to the fiber drawers. Having them stored in the SR for me does 2 things: 1) adds more bulk which means I'd need more spinders and more bases. I do not have room for more than 3 bases. 2) carding the fibers and putting them in the drawer will keep ALL of the fibers together (keep together what you'll use together) with the exception of the holiday themed fibers. Those will stay in the Calendar section of the SR.  I have 6 spinders for the Rainbow section

This is all of the Themes section... well, as much as you can see down the length of my table. There are 8 Spinders full for themes... that's an entire base with a squeak of an extra.

So the problem became that the space the SR was to go is only long enough for 2 bases. And that was with an extension piece Bob created to go over the 2 (2-drawer) filing cabinets that were to be the location for the SR. I can not get away with less than 3 bases. 

yeah, I'm a Got A Lot A Girl LOL  Though I did not realize how much until I began sorting.

I've shown you these pictures before but they will help you to see where I'm going.

This is suppose to be the 'cutting station' in the new studio. In the picture below, if you look on the left side, you'll see the end of the cutting station. 2 (2-drawer) filing cabinets are placed side by side (opening out into the room) to hold the SR

This is where I am now:

I cleared everything off the Cutting Station. I put the SR into place and realized that I have 2 complete bases and an expansion base. I can still use the base from the 2nd unit but I need the piece of velcro used to connect the basis (and providing room for that 8th spinder).  I ordered the piece yesterday and I suspect Karen will have it to me by Friday. So hopefully, next weekend I can put the SR in place and FINALLY be done with the SR organization. 

Next project will be the $1 stamps. 

THE ORGANIZING CONTINUES!

I am making progress.  These 6 spinders represent every colored embellishment I own... that I've found so far. Bob and I have dubbed the room the 'Clown Car' so there is potential for more items to become unearthed that need to go in these page categories.

I'm now working on the sorted THEMES items.

While these pages are empty in this picture, trust me, they were covered with all kinds of paper-style embellishments, stickers, etc. in categories from Animals - Travel and everything in between. Themes does NOT include holidays. Those fall under the Calendar Year. 

I am beginning to rethink how important my 'cutting station' position is. I may need to move the ScrapRack to allow room for at least one more extension base. I'm going to hold off putting things on the base until EVERYTHING is sorted, in pages and on spinders (the 3-ring strip). 

With Bob gone, I am determined to make serious progress on this room before he gets home. When will that be? We have no clue. One of the pilots has ridden the boat for 7 weeks. I don't think I can have Bob gone that long :-D

As soon as I get a couple of blog posts up, I'm back to getting all these items into pages and onto spinders. 

I'm anxious to get back to actually MAKING art instead of sorting the supplies :-)

GET ORGANIZED - Week #3 - Embellishments!

This is the upcycled entertainment center I am always referring to. To help brighten up the 'dungeon' as hubby calls my basement studio, I covered the entire surface with white contact paper. The depth of the drawers were each designed for what I planned to store in them. The dimensions are approx. 15"x15" and slide in and out on shelf pegs. My Embellishment drawers are 3,4,5 down from the top on the left side. Each drawer looks like this on the inside:

Okay.. here is where this whole Get Organized and Scrap Rack thing and I class. In the Scap Rack, these items would store in 2x2 zip bags in THIS page configuration. The page is called the Embellishments Page. When I first met Tiffany and learned about the 4-Section System I was totally excited. How cool to store EVERYTHING in ONE PLACE. The only problem I had was I did not like having to get the small items like brads and eyelets out of the zip bags. So when I designed the layout for the cabinet, I decided to make little boxes from white card stock. I'm still grouping all of my embellishments in the RAINBOW section... just not in the ScrapRack. Here is a close-up of a COLOR section:

So if I'm looking for a PINK embellishment, I pull out this drawer and I can see EVERY pink embellishment I have to choose from. 

Take note: Although the little things in zippies drove me nuts, I am going to store the Calendar themed embellishments - witch hat brads, tree shaped buttons, etc - in the pockes of the SR under their category. Those items are bigger and easier to get a hold of. 

During Embellishments this week we also talked about FIBER. You've seen this pic before:

These store in the bottom 4 drawers ( currently have tools in the very bottom but need to relocate for Christmas) by RAINBOW. So I'll have drawers 9 & 10 on the right for RAINBOW, #11 for CALENDAR coordinated (Easter, Halloween, etc) and the bottom drawer for Christmas.

Lastly, we needed to organize Die Cuts, Punches, etc. The concept, keep a REFERENCE sheet in the Scraprack to coordinate with your theme but you can store the actual Cartridge, Punch, etc elsewhere with your supplies. HOWEVER - Spellbinder type dies can store directly in the SR if you choose. So how do you store a REFERENCE sheet?

The Cricut cartridges are great examples. For instance, I have the Home Improvement cartridge. I scanned the back of the box and put the picture in a pocket under my HOME IMPROVEMENTS Theme section:

For punches, I punched one of each shape and will store them in the Sweet Sixteen Pocket under SHAPES in Alpha/ Numeric. -  

I really went through my stickers. I had a bulging Cropper Hopper Sticker binder full of every sticker I've collected over the years. Not all of them related to scrapbooking. Some dated back to Encouragement stickers for my down-line when I sold Undercover Wear. Others related to the days of Homeschooling my daughter and 2 preschoolers. I'll keep a few for those pages, but a majority of this binder went in the box to the Kindess Club. 

Here's an example of what I kept:

When I get my SR pages, the alphabet will go in the Baking/ Cooking - NOT in Alpha/numeric like you might think. Why? Because this is NOT a plain alphabet. The letters are all made up of baking/ cooking components and were purchased to go with the other things in this pocket, like the mixer stickers. 

The KEY to filing ANYTHING in the ScrapRack is to put an item where I am most likely to look - as long as it is in the 4-Section System.  So when I go to work on either baking pages for Adrian's book or to scrap pictures from my days competing in county fair's, all of my paper and embellishments are in the Baking/ Cooking section of the SR. One-Stop Shopping!

My reward for this week is 2 Spinders for the Travel Tote I bought years ago. I used the tote for going to crops when I worked at Michaels but the tote did not come with spinders. Since I do not go to crops, I plan to use the tote as a HOLDING Album for each of the girls' books. I'll have one spinder for Abby and one for Adrian.

Next week is my biggest challenge - and where I've fallen off the wagon in the past - PHOTOS. I've promised myself a BIG reward for doing this one because I know it is my most time consuming/ hardest challenge but I am DETERMINED!

GET ORGANIZED CHALLENGE - The Rainbow!

Can you see the rainbow? Trust me, this rainbow was easier for me to grasp then how I could incorporate the RAINBOW in the Scrap Rack 4-Section System. But after the third time of watching the video, something finally clicked.  BLING!

After meeting Tiffany several years ago I am happy with how my Embellishments are stored. I found getting little things out of the 2x2 zip bags irritating for me. So the boxes I showed yesterday in their custom-made drawer works the best for me.

But then Tiffany showed me things like this:

This type of bling is carded - usually on an acetate sheet. Removing this from a pocket on the ScrapRack would be so simple compared to how I store them now:

The bottom box is all peals and vintage embellishments like the metal flowers or the brads shown in the picture above. The Pooh container was a gift from a Secret Sister - Maggie and holds all the other bling. The little box in front holds pre-carded SEWING themed ribbon I got from the $1 tower baskets at Michaels. Guess what? These go in my THEME section under 'sewing' with the DP and clear stamps! 3 more boxes off my desk! Of course I'll have to find other things in the house to use these cute boxes for. 

So what is our RAINBOW Section?

RED

ORANGE

YELLOW

GREEN

BLUE

INDIGO

VIOLET

WHITE/ BLACK

NEUTRALS

Anything solid in color or with a predominant color that does NOT fit a theme category goes here. You know, like that aqua paisley print or the Monet inspired 12x12. I have almost no 'color' DP except for what goes under GIRLS - Abby or Adrian because those papers were purchased for their albums specifically.

But the BLING... yep. Now I have to add some pocket pages to my order to cover the Rainbow.

What's in your rainbow?

Creative Blessings!

GET ORGANIZED CHALLENGE Week #2 - Paper

I spent the weekend sorting all of my loose sheets of 12x12 paper. I do not have near the amount of paper some scrapbookers have. I only by DP when I have a specific project in mind and the paper is on sale - a combination of the two, not one or the other. I do not buy paper just because there is a sale. There must be a project in mind.

The concept behind The Scrap Rack is that all of the supplies are broken down and stored in one of four sections.. aka The 4-Section System. Everything fits into one of four categories: Alpha/ Numeric, Themes, Calendar, Rainbow (which I will talk about in a separate post).

The Alpha/Numeric is the easiest category. If it is a letter/ number (be it sticker, chip board, stamp, etc) then  you file the item under this tab. I am also including WOW - Words of Wisdom and Shapes under this category. Because unless they fall into a specific theme, which I'll talk about next, they really don't fit anywhere else. The other thing is to file items where YOU are most likely to find them. For me, having these items up front works best.

The next category, THEME, is a bit longer. This is where you list individually all the different things you would scrapbook (or make a card for) by theme in alphabetical order. Here is a short list of my categories:
ANIMALS (subcategories - Cats, Dogs, Wildlife, Zoo)
ARTS/ CRAFTS/ FAIRS (because I have pics to scrap for these items)
BAKING/ COOKING
CELEBRATE
   I included everything I would make a card for in this category as well as things to 'celebrate' so my sub-        categories include: Anniversary, Baby, BD, Get Well, Grad, Sympathy, Thank You, Thinking of You,      
    Wedding
COWBOY/ WESTERN
DISNEY/ PIXAR/ LICENSE
ENTERTAINMENT (subcategories - Artists/ Concerts/ Music/ Shows)
FAMILY & MILESTONES
GARDENING

And the list continues.

Because Tiffany has broken this down and does not want us to become overwhelmed in the process and give up, she breaks things down into manageable bites. Because she knows most scrapbookers have mounds of papers, she suggested we only sort an 8" stack this week. Over the remaining weeks of the course we will sort an additional 4" each week.

Mine is done - Totally 6" of paper.

The stack on the left is all of my themes. The stack on the right is the CALENDER stack.
The Calendar is the THIRD category in the ScrapRack where we break the paper down according to the Calendar year either by month, season or a combination thereof. I have broken mine down into combined months with subcategories.
JAN/ FEB - New Year, Winter/Snow/ Valentine's Day
MARCH/ APRIL - St. Patty's/ Easter
MAY/ JUNE - May Day/ Mother's Day/ Father's Day
JULY/ AUG - 4th of July/ Summer
SEPT/ OCT - Fall/ Halloween
NOV/ DEC - Thanksgiving/ Christmas

Christmas is my biggest section over-all. LOL I see LOTS of the SR single pocket pages in my future.

I do have MORE PAPER then what I'm showing here. All of my other DP falls into 2 categories - SU, which I keep in 12x12 hanging file tote next to the SU cabinet and the DCWV slabs. I keep these on a shelf on the Entertainment Center. The good news is - in transferring the loose paper to the SR, I'll have more room on that shelf for slabs and there are still a couple from DCWV I want to buy.

In this process I purged a lot of DP from my days at Michaels. That is all going in the box to the Kindness Club in MN.

The only thing I have left is my scrap drawer. I need to determine my smallest size - I'm thinking 3x4 - then pitch the rest.

I have met my GOAL for Week 2. My REWARD: - The Spring Mini order from SU. I did not see anything in the SAB to warrant spending a party's worth of ca$h so am just ordering the items I want from the Spring while I still can.

Tomorrow begins Week 3 - Embellishments!
Oh FUN!

TEAPOT TUESDAY - On Delay

Happy Tuesday!

Until this back issues settles down and I've completed the Get Organized Challenge, I will not be showcasing any of the Teapot Tuesday cards. I am keeping track of them and plan to still make the cards but this will take a few weeks yet. So hang around.

I pinched a nerve in my back a week ago and although the 'pain' is gone, the muscles are still sore and enjoying heating pad time  - a lot. :-) Of course, this is slowing my progress on the Get Organized Challenge. Thankfully Week 1 was all about Defining our Benefits of an organized space, making our themes list and gathering everything to be sorted in one location.

Week 2 begins today and is all about sorting paper. I don't have a lot that needs to be sorted and will talk about that next week. What I do need to sort, I'm going to have Bob set up the 4x8 table downstairs so I can sort on that. I KNEW there was a reason I cleaned the adjoining utility room - hehehe

Thanks to everyone who stopped in and viewed my slideshow. Showing off my room in it's present condition was scary but a necessity to showing how far I will have traveled on this 8-week journey.

Maybe tomorrow my desk won't look so scary for WOYWW. I hope you'll come back to see.
Creative Blessings!

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Get Organized Challenge Week 1

Today marks the final day to do the assignment for Week 1 of the Get Organized Challenge with Tiffany Spaulding over at TheScrapRack.  Although Tiffany sells The Scrap Rack, she doesn't say you HAVE to use her product. She is all about EDUCATION. She truly wants everyone to be organized and ENJOY their CREATIVE JOURNEY.

I met Tiffany over ten years ago when her system was still just breaking the market.  I used her 4-system concept to organize my tools and supplies when we made the move from IL to MO. And I've taken her class three times. But something is different this time...

I am DOING the assignments. I am DOING the steps to finally put my studio back to the way things were before I began sharing the space with my daughter when she moved back home with my first grandchild. Something about 'sharing' that space kind of sucked the creative energy right out of the space. I'm looking forward to putting things back to rights and doing a thorough sage cleansing to restore balance and positive energy again.

So why do I need this Get Organized Challenge? Because my ACTUAL creative space measures approx. 75 square feet. That is the space that includes the work table, SU area and the upcycled entertainment center. I am expanding that work area a bit by relocating my Die Cutting area as you'll see in the following slide show. I'm shuddering as I share this but this is part of the journey I have embarked on:

Week 1 - slideshow

So with these pictures out for all the world to see, let's move on to Week 2. We're going to be talking PAPER.  Thankfully, mine is pretty much where it goes. There will be some minor changes at the end of the course when I add my very own SCRAP RACK!