Home sick with the Flu

Well, Kevin had it to start with and was nice enough to share. Now I am home sick with the flu. Can only lay in bed for so long when my asthma kicks up and have to sit up again for a while.

This makes for guilt free scrapping time, though. I finished 4 pages in between fits of coughing.

Now it's time to head to the Doctor's office to see if there is anything else I can take to help my breathing.

I am so tired of being sick this year. Enough Already!! I am healthy and happy, I am healthy and happy. I love my life. Now to repeat that about 100 times.

3 weeks to complete but I'm happy

Well, I finally finished the whole re-organizing of my scrap room. These are the photos I took just a few minutes ago. I am so happy to be able to scrap now and get at everything I need - when I need it. Before I was always getting up and walking around the room to find what I needed. The only thing I have to get up for now is the Cricut. I did have this right next to my scrapping corner, but it just took up too much space so I moved it to the opposite corner. Let me know how you like it.


This is the desk I sit at when doing non-scrapping stuff, paying bills, reading emails,etc. And as you can see, it is the only place in the room that is still messy but I will get to it.



My darling husband built me these recessed shelves on this wall here when he first built this room for me. They used to be strictly for wooden stamps sets but now I have so many acrylic sets that these have found new use for my paint, pens, punches and so on, along with some wooden stamp sets.



This is my main Scrapping space. Everything I go to is within arms reach. I am loving it and wish I had set this up this way years ago. If you are wondering why there is a window...
This room was built for me when my kids were 5 and 6. The other side of the window was a part of the basement that wasn't finished. It was a playroom for the kids and their friends so I could scrap and keep an eye on them at the same time. My son is now 16 and this has become the Man Cave/ Bedroom and if I am scrapping late at night or early in the morning I hang my black "Stampin Up!" banner over the window so my lights don't bother him.



This corner is for my current Stampin Up! cardstock on the racks. Underneath I store my Clip-It spinners for all my stickers. The drawers are from IKEA and I store tools in them (heat gun, acrylic blocks, etc)



This in my work bench. Sometimes I get tired of sitting and like to stand while I work. This is also where I tend to do any stamping, embossing, etc. The cabinets above and racks below all hold cardstock and background paper. One of the reasons I can't even think of getting into digital scrapping. I have way to much paper!!



This last photo is another piece from IKEA. It fit in this corner perfect and is now holding my cricut along with the many cartridges, booklets, mats, vinyl and what ever. I also store my acrylic stamps and photo printer here.

I didn't take any photos of the hallway. I didn't really do any re-organizing out there. My die cut center, Mini Store, and lots of storage shelves are out in the hallway.

Two more layout completed

Its after midnight and way past my bedtime, but I just wanted to post the pages I completed tonight.


This layout is about a Weekend Scrapping Retreat I attended with my sister in January.



These photos are older. This is a layout about my daughter snorkling while we were on a Disney Cruise a few years ago.

I would have been in bed hours ago, but darling hubby has what I am guessing is the flu. He is all aches and pains and is running a fever. At 10:30 he asked if I would be willing to run out and get him some orange juice. So he got his juice and some flu medicine and I decided to try to finish the pages I started earlier today.

We had plans for the day tomorrow, but I am thinking we will be housebound tomorrow. If that is the case I hope to get more scrapping done. I am up to 81 pages for my Page A Day Challenge for 2011.

I thought I was done

It is Monday afternoon. I was so excited yesterday morning. I actually thought I was done with my scraproom. I purged tons of stuff to good causes or the trash. I went through every sheets of paper, every sticker, every embellishment...

Everything in tucked away in its own proper place. I can actually sit back relax and maybe even scrapbook a little...

Until...

I must have set off the cleaning bug, because my darling husband decided to clean out the back corner of the basement. You know the one I am talking about. Everyone has one. That far off side of the basement that turns into a No Man's Land. Once things get stored there you never expect to see them again?

Well, that was the part my husband decided to attack yesterday. My nice clean scraproom turned into the dumping ground for all kinds of boxes and containers I had forgotten about that were full to the top with either scrapping supplies or craft supplies from my many years of being a Daisy / Brownie / Junior / Girl Scout troop Leader.

I thought I was done sorting. Now where am I going to put all this stuff?!! I started sorting, AGAIN, last night. And should be down there now doing more sorting. Luckily the pre-school I work at will benefit from all the craft stuff I am finding, paint brushes, fun foam, glue, crayons, construction paper, etc.

My sister always jokes that I should sign up for Scrap Shopping anonmys. Now after spending all this time sorting and trying to organize, I think she may be right.


I did get some really good news today. For months now I have been trying to find a location to run a monthly scrapbook group. Today I have comfirmed space. A local church is renting their hall to me the first Saturday of every month. Yes!!! I am so excited about this. The space is beautiful, spacious, has bathrooms close by, a kitchen we can use, plenty of parking. Now I just need to start getting the word out and start building up a group of scrappers.

Time to Re-Organize

This week we are off for school vacation week. I was planning on spending the whole week on re-organizing my workshop but due to stomach bugs and colds working their way through the whole family, the week is half over and today was the first day i really put any effort into it.

If you were to look at my room now you would say it looks terrible. That is because it does. I did manage to clear off two work counters, a whole storage shelf and a bunch of storage boxes I had not opened in years. But the contents of what I cleared out are spread all over the rest of my room right now.

I did fill a 30 gallon trash barrel, I also donated a rubbermaid storage container filled with supplies to a local high school scrapbooking group, and I put away some still useful things I could use for classes in the future.

Now I have to come up with storage ideas for the things I do want to keep. Plus I still have another quarter of my room to go through. It feels totally overwhelming, but I know I will love it when I am through.

The toughest part is when I find something I had forgotten I even had. Ideas start going though my head and I want to sit down and create. Which if I keep doing this, I will never get through this project. I am hoping to get one more full day of pulling stuff out, purging, donating, and boxing up. Then, over the weekend, I hope to re-organize my whole system of storage and being able to start playing.

The big goal I am aiming for is to have everything that I use most often within the reachable areas from where I sit. Then the things I use less frequently can get stored on the other side of my workshop. I am amazed at how much stuff I still have from when I first starting scrapping over 10 years ago. Boy, have styles and products changed.

I tried to add a video but it did not work. Sorry.

Over the past 3 weeks I have been buying Jetmax storage cubes from Michaels Craft store, I grabbed a narrow desk from the close out section at IKEA and a new counter top from IKEA, as well. The rest of the furniture in the room I already had. It is all from IKEA.

I will take some photos when it is complete.

Today I adopted a Soldier

Hi to anyone that may be reading this.

I am proud to say I adopted a soldier today. It may sound odd but I actually found out about this program from a Holiday Movie, "The Christmas Card". This was a wonderful story about a girl writing a letter to an unknown soldier serving our country overseas.
The soldier who recieved her letter carried it with him always. When the soldier got leave, he traveled to the town where the letter came from. Long story short...they fall in love and live happily ever after. That was the movie, but in the special features they talked about how much soldiers love to hear from home. Even if it is just a card or letter, once in a while, and the movie talked about Adopting a Soldier.

Recently I talked to my children about how hard it would be to be so far away from your family so we decided we would do this.

I am starting with one contact and hope to add more over time. I also hope my children learn something from this effort, as well.

Any one interested...
I did a google search and typed in "Adopt a Soldier' and was surprised how many organizations there are out there so I will not say one is better than another but the one I joined is called "Adopt a US Soldier".

I signed up on Saturday and was giving my soldier's name and contact information today, Monday. So there is a quick response time. I hope this does not mean that there are a lot more soldiers looking for supporter then there are supporter signing up for this program.

Any way I highly recommend everyone doing this!

Quick Update

My New Year's Resolutions are underway.
I joined weight Watchers to get their program books (then I quit, but I wanted the books to learn about the new point system) I plan on staying on the program on my own and I am journaling my food.

I have been searching for a location to offer monthly crops without any luck but I am not giving up. I will be hosting my first crop at my house.

I have been scrapping!! I have done 55 pages since Jan 1. So I am ahead of my goal of a page a day.

I am feeling better later, so plan to slowly start excersicing again.