I LOVE teaching

If it were a perfect world I would be teaching classes full-time and being creative every chance I had.

 Unfortunately, reality says I need to have a job that covers health insurance for my family so my dream is not exactly coming true, but I did teach 2 classes last night and I was in my glory.  I truly love teaching!

I had three students in 2 different Martha Stewart classes and I could have stayed there all night working on the projects, sharing tips, and just talking to these wonderful ladies. 

I get so pumped up when I teach that  I go home and start thinking of what other classes I can offer.

 So, to my students that were there last night, I thank you. I hope you enjoyed the classes.

Sharon

My Homemade Scraprack

The saga continues...

If you are just started here, hold on a moment.  This is part two of a long post.  Go back and read the earlier post from today then come back here.

Once I got my own Scraprack system, I started filing all my "like" items together into the system as described on www.TheScraprack.com webinars.

Here is a photo of my scraprack set up and filled with some of my more popular themes.

Low and behold I am scrapping again!!!

This system really does work.  Not only can I find things, but seeing everything together makes me think of new layouts to put together.  I feel like I have a whole scrapping store at my convenience now because I can actually see what I have instead of trying to find things in closed up drawers and boxes.

I was so excited that this past summer I started a Summer Scrap your Stash Challenge on my blog.  Everyday I posted a new prompt or idea to scrapbook about. I did not feel a need to go scrap shopping even once this summer because i could find everything I needed now.  The best part, I got scrapping again.  And not just once in a while but every single day this summer.  I could actually find what I needed and got tons of cards and layouts completed.  I even got around to finishing up  some class projects from years ago that got filed away and forgotten.  I even filled up two albums with all the pages I did this summer thanks to this new system of organizing.  It really does work.

I love my original Scraprack.  It is thin metal and folds up so I can take it with me to classes, or crops. (I teach scrapbooking) So I am absolutely loving the portability of this system.  Once you get home you can set this unit back up and scrap again.  I was getting tired of breaking it down and setting it back up, though.  So back in June I figured I would build a more permanent unit to keep in my scrap room and keep my original for my Crop crate.

 Here is a photo of my original Scrapbrack set up on top of my Crop Crate.  I can have this sitting next to me at a class, crop or even out by my pool so I can get a few pages done while enjoying the weather.   When it is time to leave or just put things away, everything fits inside the tote. the photos below shows my scraprack and the spinders fitting nicely inside the crate and I close up the cover and roll away with it.

So now that I decided I wanted to keep this one for my travel bag, the dilemma of how to build a permanent unit came.  I knew I wanted it made from nice wood.  Something sturdy enough to hold lots of weight.  But I am not great at cutting angles from wood, so I asked my hubby if he would cut the wood for me and I could build my own Scraprack. Like I said this was back in June.  I would remind him every once in a while.

Just 2 days ago, he not only cut the wood but assembled this for me.  It is 45 inches wide by 14 inches high and sits at a 30 degree angle. 

 I filled the nail holes with wood putty. My dog had to inspect it for quality control.

 Here is a photo of the back side of it.

 This is where I planned to put it once it was finished.  this counter top had just been waiting for a new Scraprack to be placed on it.

 I added two (2) coats of white paint and strips of industrial strength Velcro.  I was concerned the Velcro would not be strong enough but believe me it is!  I got a little edge stuck to my counter top and really had to pull and tug to get it off.  So now it was ready to get loaded.

 Here is a photo from the side to show the angle is sits at.

 Ta-da!  This is all my Themes from "Animals" to "Travel".  I didn't realize it would take up almost the whole unit.  I still have my Alpha and Calendar sections to go.

This is all the space left.  Maybe enough room for 4 more Spinders.  But, I am thrilled with my permanent Scraprack.

Now to start up the fall session of the Webinars and to keep working on getting organized.

Sharon


For those reading this post.  I am cleaning up my scrap room and have lots of retired Stampin Up products on sale.  If you are looking for some bargains Click Here for Shopping

Organization of Scrapping supplies

For those of you that may not be familiar, there is a company called The Scraprack.  Tiffany Spaulding is the owner / inventor / organizer extraordinaire. She came up with an organizational system for your scrapbook supplies that not only stores your items, but her system promises you can find anything you are looking for in less than 5 minutes.  Now how cool is that! 

Of course I did not buy into her system for years.  I would see her at scrapbook expos and walk on by.  I have a great system going.  Why would I spend all the money and time to start over!!!

Boy, was I wrong.  Her system really does work.  I have seen the light and am now a True Believer!!!

First let me share how my things were organized.

Mind you these photos are a little old.  I think they were taken in 2011. But doesn't this look great?  See all those drawers to the left?  I have tools, chipboard pieces, alphabets, some card making supplies, different inks and embossing powders, etc... stored in these drawers.  Doesn't it look all neat and tidy?  Now in the center, below the counter, is paper.  The rack on the left is all Close To My Heart and on the right is all Stampin' Up!. I not only have cardstock, but also background paper or DSP as Stampin Up calls it, , page kits, etc...  Look up and see the wall to wall cabinets.  ALL PAPER!  Different Brands, tons of page kits, paper pads, solid cardstock.  These cabinets are filled left to right with just paper.


Then this is the part of the room I spent most of my time,  I sit in the corner area and had everything in arm's reach.  The photo is a little small but I will try to explain how I stored things.  See over the tissue box in the bottom left? I have tons of the Iris clam boxes.  I stored page kits, class projects, half finished layouts, seasonal items that only got used once a year, along with just random paper in these.  To the right on the floor I had some themed paper in Cropper Hopper Paper holders.   I think these had all Disney stuff in them.  Next is my box of scrap paper.  Keep going toward the right and you see the plastic drawers.  These are color coded with all types of embellishments, brads, buttons, fibers, bling, etc...   Up on the top shelves are shoe boxes with just ribbon/fabric/fiber scraps.  Again stored by color.



 



This is just showing one of the corners in my room.  The spinner on the floor is by Clip-It-Up. I adjusted it to be able to add three layers and this had tons of stickers and other embellishments.  There is another spinner on the counter with Close To My Heart acylic stamp sets.  And then the paper racks on the walls were from a store going out of business.  These stored the current line of Stampin Up card stock.









So this was how everything was stored in my scrap room.  All was and actually still is neat and tidy and many things tucked away so you didn't have to see them.

The problem was, if I sat down and wanted to work on some football photos of my son.  I would have to go through 15 feet of paper to find football themed paper.  Sift through tons of embellishments to find football stuff, open drawer after drawer to find the right brads, fibers, chipboard, etc to put one layout together.  It was exhausting just thinking about starting a layout so, instead, I would just sit in my room and soak in how much I loved this room.  But did not get any projects done.

Then, I started subscribing to Tiffany's free organization webinars.  These would be weekly and broke down different items to work on for that week.  it might be paper one week, next week embellishments, etc...  You can learn about these on her website www.thescraprack.com   this would be a good time bcause I new series of the webinars just started up this week.  Anyway, the first time I signed on, I would watch and listen to her weekly webinar show and I just was not "getting it".  Why on earth would I want to pull out EVERYTHING and re-organize it. 

I listened to the whole series. But didn't really give it a try. That was last fall's series.  Then I signed up again for last Winter's series and it started to make sense to me.  So I started with paper.  I only did about 5 - 7 inches of paper at a time, but I would pull out paper and look at it.  Do I still like it?  Will I use it?  If not, is it worth trying sell? Donate? or just Toss? I even did this to the pads of paper.  There are some papers I LOVE and others I knew I would never use so I started tearing out the paper I knew I would never even think of using.  (There was more than I thought)

By the time the Spring session started I had purged about 32 inches of paper.  And I had sorted the  paper that I liked into her method of Themes.  Now if I wanted to find a piece of football paper it only took me a minute or two, as opposed to hours.  Hey, She may have something here!!!

By the time the Spring Session started I was hooked!  And to top it all off, I was one of tghe few chosen to work at The Scraprack Booth at Creating Keepsakes Convention in Manchester.  I had the option of working for pay or work for products.  Of course I was working towards getting my own Scraprack System that Tiffany designed. Plus I got to meet this amazing woman in person.  She is so warm-hearted.  Just the nicest person.  So, I placed my order and could not wait for my new system to arrive.

I know this is turning into a novel so I will end it for now... but check out my next post to see how things continued.

Sharon


Etsy Shop
Stampin Up

Time to Clean my Scrapping Supplies

Yesterday while walking around the Goodwill store I saw the cutest little set of drawers being rolled out of the back room.  The guy didn't even get it off the 2-wheeler when I saw the price and asked if if that was just for the glass top or the whole thing. He said it was the whole thing.

Another gentleman came right over while I was looking at this and asked if I would mind if he looked at it as well.  I said yes but I let him know I was strongly considering on getting it. 

Long story short...He was an antique dealer and showed me all the little details that made this a quality piece of furniture.  He valued it at $250 - $300. I got it for $11.99.

I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it but knew my DH would not be happy about me bringing it home so I knew I had to find a pace for it and get it all set up before he got home.  I spent the next 4 hours cleaning, purging, running up and down my cellar stairs.  I totally revamped my storage area in the hallway just outside my scrap room.  In order to get this piece to fit I had to move both bookshelves down about 10 inches.  Of course both book shelves were loaded with books, supplies, albums, photos, etc.. Everything had to be taking out because the shelves were just too heavy to move with the supplies on them.

Time to do a major purge.  I cannot believe how many books I still had from 10 years ago that I actually thought I would still use.  I filled a trash barrel with them.  And made lots of space o my shelves.

I cleared away enough space to move all the school supplies I had tucked away if different boxes and drawers. They now sit on the shelves to the kids can see what we have and shop from there rather telling me what they want me to go buy for them.

I I did not do anything different to this area other than remove any school supplies I had stored here and then dusted and polished.

 This was in my post for yesterday.  Again I didn't do anything different other than remove school supplies I had stored here.  the pile on the top shelf are the magazines I decided to keep.  I am going to go through this today.

 This is a front view of my die cut center.  Nothing new other than cleaning and polishing

 Here is where the majority of yesterday's work took place.  I had to slide the two bookshelves down 10 inches to make room for the set of drawers in the front.  So I took everything off and went through it all to decide do I Keep It? Toss It? Donate It?  I am thrilled that I actually have some empty shelf space now.  It won't take long to fill it up with something, but it is clean for now.

 Here is my new School Supply Storage.  There are enough notebooks, filler paper, pens, index cards, erasers, glue sticks, etc.. for a whole classroom of kids.

 And here is the new piece I got yesterday.  It is valued at between $250 - $300 and I bought of for $11.99 leaving with $2 for now but I am happy with my new purchase.

Oh, and I was concerned with what my DH would say.  He actually likes the piece, it reminds him of a piece of furniture his mother had in her bedroom so he likes it and says it looks way better than the plastic storage drawers I did have sitting there. And he is thrilled I did NOT pay $300 for it.

To get everything cleaned up and moved I walked 10,0034 steps, walked up 14 flights of stairs, burned over 3,000 calories. And felt better after having an upsetting Doctor's appointment .

 These two photos are all that is left to organize, This is a pile of 12 x12 paper that was in different kits and boxes, I tossed the boxes and will sort this into my paper supplies.

And these are the magazines and idea books I decided not to throw away.  I am going to go through these and cut out the photos and ideas I like and store them.  Which brings me up to today's SSS Challenge.

Go on to the next blog post for today's challenge...

Sharon



SSS August 15 Story Time

Wednesday is time to work on journaling.  Time to tell a story.  We already did a page on our earliest memories, we did one on school memories, what about a story about one of your parents or grandparents.  Think about someone that is no longer with you.  And journal a story about them.

My sample is a funny story involving my mother.  She been gone nearly 10 years now but the silly things I remember will stay with me forever!

The journaling talks about a Road Trip we took with my mother, sister, a friend and myself.  We stopped at the little country store for a few minutes and got back in the car to continue on our way.  We drove a good distance before anyone noticed the booklets our mom was looking at.  My sister asked her where she got all the little books?  "Oh, they were sitting on the counter at that shop, aren't they wonderful?  You bought those?  No, they were out there for people to take. I don't think so" 

Sure enough they all had price tags on the back.  My mother so innocently thought they were for free.  We were too far out of the way to return now, but we told our Mom her picture was on the wall of that store and she would never be allowed to return.

Happy Scrapping and scrap with what you have.

Sharon

SSS August 2 Tool Time

I am falling behind.  I have all my photos from our little "Girls Night" but I have not printed them, yet.

Busy day today. So I will try to get caught up myself, if possible.

Today Is Tool Time. Dust off you Die cutting machine, if you have one.  Make a project using your die cutting machine.  Any machine will work for today's prompt: Cricut, Wishblade, Sizzix, Vagabond, Silhouette Cameo, whatever you have. 

for any that may not have a machine for die cutting, how about using your punches today.

a Card, layout, 3D project.  Anything will do.

My sample is of an older layout I made using the Cricut and Superman cartridge.  I cut out the title, the superman image with all the layers and the stars, but I think the starts were from a different cartridge.

 See the little circle on the photo to the far right?  That was my son and his 1st time on the superman ride at Six Flags.

Here is a close up of Superman. It was cut out of 5 different colors of cardstock, then layers and the photo doesn't show it but i added some shading and skin tones with Copic markers.

Have fun and be creative today.

Sharon

Flower Arrangements

I have never been one to be able to put colors together.  At least not without the help of a color wheel so one thing I gave up on a long time ago was trying to put together my own flower arrangements. 

My son has been bringing home these beautiful arrangements lately from weddings he has worked (he works for a catering company) Usually they are the center pieces that have been left behind after the guest all left. So they are the perfect size to put on tables around the house.  I have been getting spoiled with having fresh flowers.

Well, last night he went a little overboard.  He brought home the main wedding table arrangement.  This thing was Ginormous!  I would have loved to have seen my husband's face when he was picking my son up from work last night and saw him coming out carrying this huge bouquet.  The nice thing was what he said when he got home.  He pulled two flowers out and handed then to me and said he loved me.  Then he turned to his sister and said the rest were for her since she was not feeling well.  How sweet is that!!!  Sweetness between the siblings is a seldom occurrence in this household (they are 17 and 16). Scrapping moment!

This photos does not even come close to showing just how beautiful this was.  It covered my whole coffee table that is about 3 feet wide and 4 feet long.  There must have been around 3 dozen roses and everything was so well done.  

But this is a little too big to sit in my living room so this morning I had another go at Flower Arranging.  The hard work was already done since a professional florist already put the colors together.  I broke this down to 6 arrangements to put around my house.

 These are 2 vases I have on my coffee table now.

 This is sitting on my kitchen floor in the photo but this went into my daughter's room.

 Some to pretty up the bathroom.

 This is my favorite one.

 And 2 for my scraproom. One by my TV and the other sitting on my desk.

 This photo is blurry but this was another quick one with the leftover roses.  There were so many in the huge arrangement.

And pink is my favorite color so I was thrilled to spread these around the house.