... just Laura

what i need to scrap

i thought i would do something a little different for this post. i don't have any new projects to share right now, but i am working on lots of fun stuff. so i thought i would share the things that i need, to do my thing in the scraproom. i cannot scrap without the following items.

my external hard drives. i only keep the last month or two's worth of photos on my laptop. i keep tons of other stuff on the laptop, but not photos. those all go on my external hard drives. i have three of them right now. the silver one holds all my photos up thru 2008. then i moved to the red one, that holds everything starting with 2009. the black one holds all my digital scrap supplies, design team stuff, photography classes, and all my layouts. since pretty much all my photos are on these, i cannot scrap without them.

someone asked, so i thought i would add this here. i use western digital external hard drives. i get the smaller sized ones that fit in the palm of my hand, and are so easy to pull out and use whenever i need them. they've always been very inexpensive (usually under $90), and hold a lot. the silver one is much older, seeing as it's a bit bigger. but it holds about 6 years worth of photos. nowdays, you can get more bang for your buck, as far as storage. i would recommend something like:
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB
Western Digital My Passport 500 GB
Western Digital My Passport 750 GB

my trimmer. i have two of these trimmers from fiskars, and they have been my go-to trimmers for about a year now. i have lots of other trimmers laying around, but this is the one i usually pull out.

rulers. i have said this before, but i always have about half a dozen rulers nearby, when i scrap. this sits on the corner of my desk, and i do indeed have lots of rulers. i'm extremely notorious about measuring and double measuring everything i do.

i get on these big kicks where i love to incorporate circles into my layouts. these are my go-to tools for cutting circles. my super old circle cutter system from creative memories, and a few large circle punches from fiskars. i think they're 2.5 inches, and 3 inches.

border punches. i do love my border punches. although, to be honest, i usually use the same 2-3 punches over and over. i should show more love to the others.

very simple tools, but very important to me. my paper piercer and my tweezers. i know there are newer styles out there, and they're probably cuter and more colorful than these plain silver, metal ones. but these do the job, and that's good enough for me. i use the paper piercer for poking holes for brads, or when i want to mark where i'm threading buttons to a page. the tweezers are for adhering stickers. they're really helpful for getting letter stickers, especially the tiny ones, where i want them.

staplers. a regular old plain stapler. and my tiny attacher from tim holtz. love them both. i mainly use them for stapling on ribbons, but i also staple stickers, tags, or die cuts.

this is kind of a boring one. but all my layouts start with either white or kraft cardstock. i like to leave a white border around a lot of my layouts, so then i start with white cardstock, and build on top of it. if i know i'm covering my entire page with pattern paper, or colored cardstock, i will start with kraft and build on top of it. why kraft? because for some reason, i have TONS of kraft. and because i'm not actually a fan of using kraft cardstock on it's own. so i'm sort of recycling it ;)

adhesive. you cannot scrap without adhesive. and i have TONS of it. this bucket sits on my desk, and is filled with a huge assortment of adhesives. i use different kinds, for different things. it all depends on what i'm adhering. i have my favorites, but i also get a lot of different kinds to try out. so i try to put a good mix in here to pull from.

my go-to adhesive for paper is my duck adhesive. it's the tape runner type, and i have used it for years. i can get it pretty cheap. i get the 4 packs at joann's when they're on sale, and it's a great deall. it holds really well, and is just easy to use.

ahhhhhhhhh. my glue dots! i love, love, love my glue dots! zots, from therm-o-web, are my favorites. i buy all the sizes. mini (not shown here. must not have any in my backstock), medium, large, and 3D.

i'm also big on pop dots. love my pop dots. my favorites are from scrapbook adhesives. they come in two sizes. the ones shown here, with the small squares. and then there are mini little ones as well. i buy these in bulk.

i have a few different size xyron adhesive machines. but the "X" gets the most use from me. there are several things that i use these for, but the most often one, is my journaling strips. my tape runners are all too wide for adhering my thin journaling strips. so once i trim them all up, i just run them through my little red X or my sparkle pink X, and it makes for really easy adhering. i can fit 3 strips side by side, so it works really well.

and this might seem like a wierd one. but i cannot stand having dust, glitter, tiny pieces of paper, or anything on my desk as i work. so i have a swiffer nearby, and i'm always dusting off my desk ;)

organizing pattern paper

last weekend, i was organizing some pattern paper from a favorite manufacturer. then i had some other pattern paper to put away, and got to organizing that manufacturer as well. next thing you know, i ended up going through every single sheet of pattern paper that i own. my life could truely be one of those "if you give a mouse a cookie" books. lol!

 

as of tonight, my pattern paper is completely organized and cleaned out. every few months, i feel the need to weed through my stash. i'm still holding onto pattern paper that is over 5 years old. obviously, if i have kept it around that long, i really do like it. and i tend to have the mentality of "i can do something with this, right?". but every time i clean through my papers, i get a little bit better about letting go of what i havn't used in forever, or what i can't see myself getting around to using.

these 4 cubes on my ikea expedit shelf hold all of my pattern paper. last week, my stash took up 6 cubes on the shelf. yes, i seriously weeded out 2 full cubes of paper. and it felt good! this doesn't account for my cardstock. i keep my cardstock in the clear horizontal paper trays, in the 5 cubes below the pattern paper.

i use the cropper hopper vertical paper holders for my pattern paper. each one holds up to 400 sheets of pattern paper. i'm not going to do the math, as to how many sheets of paper i have in those cubes. lol! personally, i like to buy THIS SET, that comes with 1 paper holder, 4 paper pouches, and 12 dividers. the paper pouches hold up to 50 sheets of pattern paper. i love to use those for individual manufacturers, to seperate collections from a favorite manufacturer, or even to hold 12x12 sticker sheets and alphabet sheets. and the dividers come in handy for seperating papers within the paper holder or the paper pouches.

 

one thing that i never seem to do in my scraproom, is to label things. i have kept all those paper holders up there, without any labeling as to what is inside of each one. so when i go to look for a certain paper, i will pull out each paper holder, until i find what i need. since i am now freshly organized and have similiar manufacturers grouped together, i thought it was a good time to label things.

i do sort and organize my pattern paper by manufacturer. it's just how i work, and how i scrap. 94% of the time, i can tell you who made what paper, just by looking at it. a talent that will get me no where in regular life, but counts for something in my scrapping life. lol! most of the time, i just toss all the papers from each manufacturer in together in the paper holder. if i have a LOT of a manufacturer's papers, then i will seperate some of the collections within their spot in the paper holder.   

 

the paper holders have this small cut out circle on the front. so i figured i would adhere my labels, directly over that circle. i had a few different ideas i was tossing around. but i finally decided on a basic punched out circle. sometimes, if i want to get something done, i need to make it quick and easy.

i went with a 2.5 inch circle punch. so i created a bunch of 2.5 inch text boxes on a page, in a word processing program. i typed in the names of the manufacturers for each paper holder, centering them within the text box and resizing my font as needed. some paper holders have one or two manufacturers, and some have three or four manufacturers. after i printed them, i used my fiskars circle punch to punch out each set. i used 4 glue dots on each circle, to adhere it to the front of the paper holder.

 

how cute is this font? and you'll never guess what it's called. "too much paper". i thought it was highly appropiate for labeling my pattern paper. lol! you can download it for free from kevin and amanda, one of my favorite places to find fonts. you're very welcome :)

 

i'll show you my four cubes of paper. this will give you a good idea of what manufacturers i'm fond of. you know making memories is up there. after 4 years of designing for them, i have built up a very large stash of their papers. the two paper holders that are turned around, hold a lot of "backstock". extras of what is in the other two paper holders.

 

i also have a large supply of bella blvd, and even a lot of basic grey. not sure if you can tell, but in that first bella blvd paper holder, i have some of the paper pouches inside. i have one that holds their older alphabet sheets, and one that holds their newer alphabet sheets.

 

fancy pants, little yellow bicycle, echo park, pebbles, american crafts, dear lizzy, and jillibean soup.

 

the first paper holder here, holds assorted papers. these are really just manufacturers that i have a small amount of papers, but not a lot of papers. this holder, has a TON of different manufacturers inside. that second paper holder? that has all that paper that's 3-5 years old, that i can't seem to get rid of. lol! classic chatterbox papers and ki memories papers, that i never seem to use, but can't get rid of yet. the last two paper holders, have 4 manufacturers in each. more favorites of mine.

 

in the "assorted paper" holder, i use these 12x12 white file folders. they're pretty ancient, and i can't seem to find anything like them to link you too. they have the hanging file folders, but these are just regular folders. i probably have about 20 of them, in just this one paper holder.

 

in the rest of the paper holders, i use the clear dividers to seperate papers. i use them to seperate manufacturers from each other. or to seperate collections, within the same manufacturer. they have tabs on the top, so i guess i could really label those too. baby steps, people. baby steps ;)

so there you go. my entire pattern paper collection. totally organized and labeled. i feel like i made such a huge accomplishment, with this one little project. next up, maybe i'll even label all the baskets of embellishments on my shelves. maybe. we'll see.

what's in my storage cubes

since it's all about organization on the creating keepsakes blog this week, i thought i would do a post or two about it as well. i wish i was prepared enough to do a huge video tour of my scraproom, or type up a huge post on every nook and cranny. the fact is, i'm not that prepared. maybe someday ;)

 

excuse the mess that you see above. this is a rather neat version, of what my scraproom has looked like the last few weeks. there is a TON of creativeness going on in there, with CHA stuff :) anyways. a couple of months ago, i moved my desk over in my scraproom. it had been in the middle of the room, and i sat with my back to the window. it was a tight fit, moving around that desk. so i finally tried turning it to the side, so that it comes out from the window. i LOVE it.

edited to add: i've gotten a ton of emails in the last day about my desk. so i thought i would share where i got it. i ordered it online from target, and you can see the info HERE.

 

the bonus to moving the desk, is that it freed up a little bit of wall space. my two main walls are taken up with my ikea expedit shelves. one wall has a closet. and the other is mostly all window. so even just the tiniest amount of extra wall space was huge to me. i wanted something that wasn't too high, since the window is pretty low. these storage cubes ended up working perfectly. i picked up four of them, and spent forever putting them together. seriously. they took forever and a day to assemble.

i really don't have that many drawers in my scraproom. it's more baskets, bins, and jars. so the drawers were really appealing to me. my first thought was to make this sort of a "techniquey" area. a spot where i could keep all things technique related. all the messy stuff. i ended up working some other things in here too, since these drawers ended up holding much more than i thought they would.

i thought i would let you peek into my storage cubes, to see how i ended up organizing them. these are from left to right, from top to bottom.

 

what a great start. an empty drawer. lol! i still can't decide what i want to put in there. in the drawer on the right, i have blank cards and some envelopes.

 

on the left, i have more envelopes. and on the right, are all my finished cards. i have never had a good spot to store the cards i create, and they fit perfect in these drawers.

 

the drawer on the left holds all my misting sprays. i know what you're thinking. "we've never seen you mist anything". lol! i'm getting there people. trust me. in the right drawer, i have all my bottles of glitter and stickles. i have this huge adversion to glitter, and yet i own a huge amount of it. it's because it's so stinkin pretty!

 

the drawer on the left holds all my pop dots. i keep telling you all that i'm addicted to pop dots, and this proves it! the drawer on the right holds a portion of my adhesive. i actually have 2 large drawers in the closet that have adhesive too. you can never have enough. and yet, oddly enough, i'm always running out of glue dots. go figure. 

 

this drawer has some roller stamps from stampin up, magnetic stamps from making memories, and some other random stamps. honestly, i can't remember the last time i have used any of these.

 

i ended up with three drawers on ink pads. so i'm really not sure why i stuffed so much in this drawer, when the other two aren't that full. this holds my distressing inks, acrylic blocks, super old tiny bazzill inks, and some other random ink pads.

 

this drawer holds my embossing powders, versamark ink, and heat tools.

 

another drawer of ink pads.

 

this drawer holds all my chalk. some of this is really old chalk, and some is newer pebbles chalk. i have the little pompom things to apply chalk, some chalking templates, and some colored pencils.

 

this last drawer holds all my stampin up ink pads. on the left side of this drawer, is a little clear plastic divided tray. i found these at target, and have them in a few drawers. an easy way to keep the smaller things in the drawer from getting lost.

 

on top of the storage cubes, i have this wicker basket. i have been tossing newer embellishments and goodies in there, that i have received, and don't want to forget about. right now, i have a lot of studio calico, jenni bowlin, pink paislee, and october afternoon in there. the nice thing, is that i HAVE been using this stuff. way more often than if i had tucked it all away on my expedit shelves.

 

i also have one of the making memories carousel's. the one on my desk holds all my tools and some adhesives. this one is more for random embellishments that just don't have a home yet. or havn't made it to where they belong. or things i want to use, and not forget about. just a random mix of product.

and there you have it. most of the stuff in these drawers had been in my closet. so i didn't always think to use it all. i'm really liking having things out. even though they're still tucked in drawers, they come to mind a lot more now and i love that i'm using them again.

the organized & inspired scrapbooker - a CK giveaway

creating keepsakes has a new book out right now, called the organized & inspired scrapbooker. and let me tell you, it's a gorgeous book!

 

i'm a huge sucker for organization. and organizing scrapbooking supplies is one of my favorite things to organize. it's also a necessity. it's so easy to become overwhelmed and buried in pattern paper, stickers, and photos. and all the other goodies that we use to preserve our memories. which is why i feel it's so important to stay organized, and come up with a plan for what works for you and the scrap space that you're working with.

and this book is full of great ideas and tips. it originally came out a few years ago, and was a hardcover book. just in case a few of you think it might look a bit familiar ;) there are 176 pages, filled with ideas. everything from finding your organizing style, organizing your supplies and tools, finding a system for your photo storage, organizing memorabilia, and so much more. and lots of photos of all different kinds of scraproom and studios.

here's a peek into a few pages from the book.

 

 

 

if you're thinking about ordering a copy of this gorgeous book, i have a coupon code to share with you. it's the same one that i mentioned last week, for the digital book. just use coupon code DS25DT, to get free shipping on orders of $25 or more (expires 2/11/11).

and creating keepsakes has provided me with a copy of the organized and inspired scrapbooker to give away to one lucky blog reader. all you need to do, is leave me a comment, telling me one simple organizing tip. i'll leave comments open until thursday night, and will announce a winner on friday morning.

and to go along with this theme, i also wanted to share that it is organization week (click to see what they have planned for the week) over on the CK editors blog, as well as the CK club site. check back in each day to see what they have going on.

today, on the CK blog, you'll find all sorts of tips and ideas for storing scrapbooking tools. i think i even spotted a few storage tips from my own scraproom ;) i have a few storage and organization posts planned for this week too.

printers and papers

someone recently asked me where my printers and computer are, after seeing photos of my scraproom (where they were NOT located). and recently, i shared a great deal on my favorite photo paper on facebook, which started a conversation about photo paper. so i thought i would share about these on my blog today.

i have a desk upstairs in the loft, where i keep my printers and where i could work on my laptop. this was great when i had my scraproom upstairs. when i moved my scrap stuff into the downstairs bedroom, my desk stayed upstairs. mainly because i just don't have any room downstairs for it. i would still sit upstairs a lot and work on the computer, since the girls are up in the loft all the time. but, it's not the most ideal spot to have my printers, since i spend most of my time downstairs these days. 

 

i was racking my brain, trying to think of a spot where i could put my printers downstairs. then it dawned on me. this red cabinet. it was from my scraproom upstairs, and we moved it into the playroom downstairs. it's a great spot to put all the large, and bulky toys for the daycare kids. it's great to be able to close the doors, and not have to look at toys when the kids aren't here. it wasn't all that full. so i moved some things around, put some toys in another TV cabinet we have in the same room, and cleared out one side of the cabinet.

 

so, half the cabinet is for my printers, and supplies. i keep a lock around the knobs, when the little ones are here. i had my mom come and make some  holes in the back, so i could put the cords through the backside, to the outlet behind the cabinet. i love that i don't have to take my laptop upstairs to go print something. or send something to the wireless printer, and then go upstairs to see if it really did work. all my stuff is right here, and much more convenient.

 

on the bottom shelf, i have a plastic drawer unit that's about 13x13. i already had it, and it fit there. the black boxes are about 13 inches deep, and i had those already too. in the drawers, i have extra ink cartideges for the printers, my external hard drives, my external flash, card reader, video camera, camera batteries and memory cards. pretty much anything related to my printers and cameras. in the boxes, i have misc stuff. a box of folders, notebooks, envelopes, report covers. a box of office type stuff, like staples, paperclips, labels, tape. a box of tools and hardware, that i keep in the house for easy access. and a box that is filled with instruction manuals for just about everything in the house, and that i have never looked at, but feel i need to keep. lol!

 

on the sides of the printers, i have just enough room to store a few things. on that top shelf, i have printer paper, white cardstock for printing journaling, and photo paper. on the middle shelf, i have my binders that hold all my paperwork for making memories, creating keepsakes, and a third binder for all other design teams and scrap related work.

 

this is my regular printer. it's a kodak, and i actually wouldn't recommend it. lol! i really liked my old printer, but it wasn't compatible with my new laptop when i got it. and no drivers or anything available, to make it compatible. this printer came free with my laptop, so it's what i'm using. i DO like that it's wireless. even though it doesn't always work. i take a chance, any time i print. it also does NOT want to scan. i have never found a printer/copier/scanner that actually did scan. no idea why. and this thing seems to suck up ink. not big on that fact.

 

this is my photo printer. which i would recommend to anyone and everyone. LOVE IT! but. it's an older printer, and not easy to find. it's an HP photosmart D7300. which is basically the same as THIS ONE. and THIS ONE is an even newer version. i bought this printer about four years ago, when i first started doing my own collages and wanted to be able to print at home. i have never, ever had a problem with this printer. excuse me, i'm going to knock on a bunch of wood now. ok. i'm back. lol! i do have to plug in my laptop, in order to print. but i keep the cord right there on top of the printer. so i can just set my laptop on top of the cabinet, plug it in, and print. this prints exactly what i see on my computer. what i edit my photos too, in photoshop. i still order lots of prints from costco, and they look good. even great sometimes. but this printer prints my photos wonderfully.

 

and THIS. this, my friends, is the most awesome photo paper out there. HP premium plus photo paper, in soft gloss. it's just like a matte finish. but nicer. it's thick, and just has the nicest look to it. it's usually about $35, for a 50 sheet pack. i used to wait and wait, until i could find it on sale. you could often find it buy one, get one free. last year, i found a great deal on amazon, and stocked up. but the deal i found about two weeks ago, was the best one yet. they have it for $7.99, for a 50 sheet pack. AWESOME! i bought a ton of it. i had a few friends that took my word for it, ordered it, and said they loved it too. and they went back and ordered more. and i know for sure, that one of them wasn't printing on an HP printer, but an epson. so, if you're looking for a good photo paper, you have to trust me on this one. i would not steer you wrong. and this is the newer packaging that you will see, if you order it. but it's the exact same paper that you see below. i promise :)

bella blvd guest artista: scrapspace share

you want to know what my favorite thing about the weekend is? or maybe i should say my favorite thing about the weekends when we DON'T have soccer going on? being able to sleep in until 10:00am, if i want too. lol! which is what i did today. granted, i stayed up until 2:30am last night. or would that be 2:30am this morning?!?! anyways, my sleeping in, is why i'm getting a late start posting today :)

 

i know i get asked quite a bit to share my scraproom. today, you can get a look into my room over on the bella blvd blog. if you're a long time reader of my blog, the photos might look familiar to you. they're actually the photos that i took over a year ago, when i first moved my room. everything pretty much looked the same when i wrote up my room for the bella blvd blog, so i just used the same photos. but right after that, i got this itch to change things around a bit. so things are looking a tad bit different, and some things have been re-organized to work better for me. so, i will be sharing those things, once i'm done with it all. but it's still a good overall look at my space.

edited to add: i think i'll add any Q&A's right here for now, in case it might answer someone else's question :)

where is my computer and printers? my laptop goes wherever i go, and my printers are now out in a cabinet in the playroom. i'll show pics on that one day next week.

where did i get my desk? it's from target, and you can find it HERE. except i got it for a crazy good deal, with free shipping ;)

what's going on here

we spent our entire weekend on the soccer field, for the end-of-season tournament. more on that later. but it's the reason that i'm getting a slow start this week. and that means on the blog too. i'm sure i have things to share, but i'm not organized enough right now to know what those things are. in the meantime, here's a few things that are going on right now around this place.

 

i moved my desk, in my scraproom. it was previously in the center of the room, directly in front of the window. i've been debating moving it for quite a while now. i even discussed my options with the girls. when i debating the pros and cons of each possible desk location with alyssa, she said to me "can you talk about this with your OTHER daughter?". lol!

i liked facing the door, which is why i had it in the middle of the room. but the room is so small, that it was a tight fit, and i was constantly catching the corners of the desk. i thought about putting it directly under the window. but i didn't want my back to the door. and while that would free up some space in the room, that space would be in the middle of the room and virtually useless. then i came up with this idea. i turned it 90 degrees to the side, and butted it right up against the wall, under the window. and oddly enough, it opened up the entire room. i LOVE it. this photo is mid-cleaning, so ignore the odds and ends that won't be there when i'm done.

 

by moving the desk just a tad, i was able to free up a small wall area that i could use for extra storage. my scraproom is tiny, and the wall space is so limited. so to free up a small 30 inch wide section, was huge in my book. at first, i was thinking of getting a little bookshelf, since this is right under the window and i didn't want anything too tall. but then i remembered these storage cubes from michaels, and knew they'd be perfect. i don't have any drawers in my scraproom (except some old ones in the closet), and i LOVE these! i'll share more about these later, and what i'm storing in them. it's a ton of techniquey stuff ;)

 

this is a new addition to my desk. yep, i got a silhouette SD, and i am super excited to start using it on my projects. i've been watching some of my favorite designers, do amazing things with the designs, for ages. and now i get to try out some of those ideas. once i figure out how to use it ;)

 

and i can't believe i'm showing you this. but it shows i'm not always the neat freak that i pretend to be. i have messy areas in my life too. lol! this is my "shipping center" in the garage. we jokingly call it that, since i always have a stash of boxes and packing materials. since i do ship off layouts and projects, and sometimes goodies, i like to have an assortment of boxes to choose from at any given moment. but obviously, my "shipping center" has gotten a little out of control. our garage is detached from our house. so i usually just run out there, toss the box in the pile, and run back to the house. next weekend is recycling week for the garbage trucks, so we will be cutting up a lot of these boxes to get collected.

 

and then i have something that makes me smile. krista lund is an amazing photographer, that is pretty local to me. we're from the same hometown, and i met her a few years ago. she also is a scrapper, but has really gotten into digital scrapping lately, to get more layouts done quicker. she emailed me yesterday, to share a digital lift of one of my layouts. you can check out her take on my layout HERE, and even download the digital template that she designed for it. i thought it was really cool of her to do, and i might even love her layout more than my own :)

a random organizing tip

i have every intention of sharing all about my scraproom during the next few weeks. i moved my scrap stuff from the upstairs loft to the downstairs bedroom, exactly one year ago. and over the last year, it's been an on-going process to get certain things set up to my liking. and i think i'm just about there. i did some major, major cleaning and sorting over the weekend. and i thought i would share one of the things i did that felt really good.

i'm really big on taking things out of their original packaging. it can save you a ton of space. not everything, but a lot of things. one of those things is my chipboard alphabets and shapes. it's usually easier to get rid of the original packaging, which usually consists of a cardboard backing and a plastic piece holding them in. some of the packages, once you open them, you can't close them up again. so i put them into baggies. there are a few sizes that i use, and i get them at michaels or any craft store. if it's a larger group of items, i will use a ziplock bag of some sort.  

but you know how chipboard alphabets usually come with the letter within the negative piece? sure, you can use both the actual letter, and the negative piece, on your projects. in fact, those negative pieces can look really cute when you cover them with paint or pattern paper, and then tie little ribbons around the side. i've done it. on cards and layouts. BUT. you knew there would be a "but", right?

truth be told, i havn't used a negative piece in years. so, why am i keeping them all? they just take up space, and clutter up my scraproom. so i decided to punch out all my alphas from the negative pieces, and then toss them. does that sound crazy? maybe it was. there were even quite a few moments where i questioned what i was doing. "i could maybe use these on a layout". "these are still good pieces, someone can do something with them". "i could use them as masks, and use my misting sprays with them". "they could be used as stencils to make more alphas". laura, laura! face it, if you havn't used them in years and years, the chances of you using them are slim to none. so i kept going, ignoring that voice in my head. this pile here was huge. it may not look like a ton here, but it was. this was about 3 feet wide, by 4 feet. and it was piled high. 

hard to believe all of those extra pieces, came out of this basket. but they did. and this is what i have left. just the letters and numbers. actually, i do see a few negative pieces there. the colorful circles. that's only because those pieces were colored and patterned, and i do firmly believe that i'll do something with those. lol! this basket isn't jam packed anymore, and it feels clutter-free. which is good, since this is only a small part of my chipboard alphabet collection. lol! i also did this with all my chipboard shapes this weekend. i'll show more of all this over the next few weeks. but just wanted to share this one little idea for now. this idea may not be for everyone. but i know it felt really good to get rid of the pieces that i knew i wasn't likely to use. and if i ever change my mind, and decide that i want to do something with a negative piece??? then i'll just go buy more chipboard alphas ;)

little light studio - storage tip

i have another post up over on the little light studio blog today. this time, it's a creative storage tip. i'll show you a peek here, but you have to go HERE to see the rest of the pics and read more about it ;)

 

tour of my desktop carousel

yesterday, i was working on some projects out in another room. and after i was done, i was putting my tools and adhesives back in my scraproom. and as i put them in their spots in my making memories carousel, i thought about how much i love that thing. 

so i thought it might be fun to show you what i keep in mine and how i use it. i've heard from some people, that they think it takes up so much space on the desktop. but i have a pretty small desk now. and i have two of these up there. i measured this, and it requires about 13 inches of space to spin around without knocking anything. i love having my most used stuff within arms reach. i just spin until i get what i need. shall we take a spin and see what's in there ;)

glitter glue, diamond glaze, glue lines, ki gloo. basically, my wet adhesives that i use all the time. not sure about that blue tube of adhesive. i'm thinking that might be dried out by now.

three of these top compartments, actually have 2 seperate spots in them. which is nice, since things don't get lost as easily or mixed together. these are my main scissors. the blue ones are creative memories ones, that i've had forever. then a scalloped scissor. some staples, and more adhesive.

glue dots, glue dots, and more glue dots. i'm completely addicted to glue dots and i fully admit that :)

some more scissors and a few exacto knives. sandpaper and paintbrushes. my most  used pens for journaling and a pencil for tracing. i hate writing in pencil and only do it when needed.

more adhesives. i'm a serious adhesive junkie, and am always using about 13 different ones at a time. i actually have a bowl on my table that also holds more.

my favorite side. the tools. all kinds of them. my most often used from this area, are my paper piercers (for brads), my tweezers (for stickers), kraft knife (for opening things, not really for cutting), and the emery board (for sanding).

the middle of the carousel is deep, and can hold larger items. i keep my tag maker in there, and my tag curler. and a few of my rulers. i have a lot of rulers. just can't scrap without a few by my side.

onto the drawers. they're small, but make for nice little compartments. you can pull each one all the way out and move them around if you want. there's a little magnet on the back of each drawer, that helps hold it in place when it's all the way in. this one holds my needles, and some white thread. it's one color that i use a lot, so i have some close by for threading buttons. also a few extra trimmer blades. i have an older one that is marked with an "C", that i use for cutting chipboard, so that i don't wear down my good blade.

some tiny pencils. these are some that alyssa brought home from her grandma's house. they were from a beauty supply store that she works at. i like them because they have a very small, sharp tip. great for tracing templates or shapes, that i'm going to cut out. check out my high class eraser. i even taped it together at one point, because i loved it that much. it is awesome for removing pencil marks.

i use my creative memories circle cutter ALL the time. constantly. my three blades fit perfectly in this drawer. and i already have the caps off and popped onto the back. so they're ready to go, instead of fiddling with them all the time.

this drawer holds all the tips for my eyelet setters, my notch tool, and instant setter. and also my edge distresser. i have another one of those too, the MM one. i've been using those constantly lately.

binder clips. i do use these quite often. maybe not enough to have their own drawer. now that i have my embellishment shelf up (which i'll share next week), i might put those in a little jar. and find something else to go in here.

a drawer of safety pins. regular metal ones, and lots of cute colored ones. just like the clips, i'm not sure i use these enough to keep them in a drawer. those might get put in a jar too.

that's all of it. and this is going to sound totally crazy, but i'm going to say it anyways. when i scrap in the other room, i grab a few things at a time from the carousel and take them to where i'm working. i always forget a tool, or realize i need another adhesive. this happens about 9 times on every project i'm working on. then when i'm done, i go and carry everything back in and put it back in it's appropiate spot. i honestly never thought about this before, until i started typing this post. but i could just pick up the entire carousel and carry it out to where i'm working. and i'd have everything i could possibly need. hello laura! think a little, would you ;)

and just a quick peek at the carousel at the other end of my desk. i'm not walking you through this one though. it's mainly just random embellishments that i don't want to forget to use. or that i havn't put away yet. it also holds my tags, gems, mini rubons, etc. 

scraproom cleaning and reorganizing

i've been doing a little reorganizing and cleaning in the scraproom these last few weeks. just a little here and there, very randomly. figured i'd share a few peeks today.

it started about 2 weeks ago, when i randomly started cleaning out my cardstock one night. i had 5 full rows of cardstock. and it was in a random order. it's almost all bazzill cardstock, but i had a lot of it seperated out by the textures and manufacturers that it was made to match. that's from years ago, when that mattered to me. and i also had a ton of all the colors, sometimes more than 10 sheets of the same shade. this is all pretty much older cardstock too. i probably don't even own all the latest and greatest shades out there. anyways. i purged it all out, and organized it by color. so all my reds are together, all my greens, etc. my giveaway stack of cardstock was 10 inches high. i'm not even lying. love that it's down to just 3 rows.

which then gave me two rows to use for some pattern paper. i keep my pattern paper in the vertical paper holders, on the shelves above the paper trays. and i like it in the vertical holders. but i did decide to put a lot of my making memories pattern papers in the trays. these are mainly just the newest collections. it's nice, because it's easy to get too and i just lay all my scraps right in there too. those used to get lost in the vertical holders. 

this little nightstand is really old, and used to be white. it was in alyssa's room, and when we redid her room a while back, my mom painted it black. then it came out of her room, and just got set out in the loft upstairs. it really served no purpose, other than another spot for the girls to dump stuff. i had this thought yesterday, that it would fit in my scraproom. i have this small area in between my two ikea shelves that wasn't being used, right under a window. and it fit perfectly.

i'm sure this will change later. but for now, i set some of my larger jars of buttons, brads, and flowers on there. a few of these jars were actually on top of my ikea shelf, which wasn't the safest thing to be grabbing those all the time from up high. i also set my cuttlebug on there. it's been on the floor for months now, since i just didn't have a spot for it. in the top drawer, i put all my cuttlebug stuff. the embossing folders, extra plates, and dies. not sure what i'll put in the bottom drawer yet.

i love these storage boxes, and have a bunch of them stacked on top of one of my ikea shelves. i've finally been cleaning out some of them. i had mentioned 2 of these containers in THIS POST from a full 2 years ago. the one that held all my supplies for my "thankful" mini album, and one that held all my supplies for my "journal my christmas" album from 2007. i was still holding out hope that i would finish working on those albums, even two years after blogging about my lack of finishing them. ridiculous. last night, i pulled out all the product and worked it back into my normal stash. cardstock with the cardstock, pattern paper with the pattern paper, ribbon with the ribbon. if i want it, it's still there. but those 2 boxes? they're now empty, which makes me feel good. there were other boxes i cleaned out too. but those 2 were the ones that were a bigger deal to me. lol!

i have 3 of these magnetic boards from making memories, but one of them had been hanging there with nothing on it at all. i found these round storage containers a while back at michaels, and i got 2 in the package for less than $3 (on sale). my thinking is to put some of the miscellaneous buttons and brads i have in them. i like to know (and actually have to know for pubbing purposes) what manufacturer made what. but i still want to have them unpackaged and where i can see them. but you can see i only filled up 3 of them. that's because i'm testing them. i'm not totally convinced on the seal on these containers, and how well they'll stay closed. the lid seems to stay on pretty well, but i'm still worried that one day, the lid will come off and the buttons will be all over the place. and mixed up. lol! i know, i'm being paranoid. but it's a much better excuse, then if i told you i've just been too lazy to finish filling them up ;) and yes, that's a copenhagen advertisement in the basket. there's a reason i have it. we'll see how long it takes me to get around to that.

and my paint shelf is making a comeback. i hadn't hung it back up, after moving my scrap stuff downstairs last september. and when i moved the nightstand in yesterday, i found the paint shelf tucked back in the corner of the room. it really does fit this little angled wall perfectly. this is right when you walk in the door to the room, and the closet is right off the side (where the stool is). although i'm not very good at hanging anything that requires anchors in the wall. so i need my mom to come and hang this properly for me (please?). and make it so that it is flush against the wall too. it's sticking out at the bottom, and it's annoying me to no end. however, this is NOT going to be paint shelf this time around. all my paints are tucked in a drawer in the closet. and they were mainly on the shelf for decorative reasons anyway. i realized the small storage jars from making memores will fit on the shelves perfectly. so i'm going to fill those up with some of my little embellishments. i used to have this huge embellishment shelf in the loft studio. so now this will be my miniature embellishment shelf in the new scraproom :)

the new scrap space

first up. wishing my girl a very, very happy 13th birthday! today is alyssa's birthday! i should be blogging about her right now. but her and her friends are in the middle of her slumber party right now. no idea why they call it a "slumber party", since there is no slumbering going on yet here. lol! so i figured i might as well do all this photo editing and typing for this post, while i listen to them be all silly and crazy. more on the birthday girl later :)

finally took some photos of my new scrap space. it's all been moved for a week now. but i'm still playing with it a little bit. finding what works for me and how i scrap. moving some things here and there. but i'll share it as it is right now.

this is the view walking into the room. it's a fairly small downstairs bedroom. it was originally my scrap room, for the first 5 years that we lived here (you can see a peek at it HERE). then i moved upstairs for 3 years. now, i'm back downstairs. my reasons are simple. i'm just not as productive as i could be when i don't have my stuff near me. my scrapping has changed so much in the last few years. 3 years ago, it was whatever i wanted to scrap or work on. and nowdays, i'm working on assignments and deadlines. sort of like having a part-time job. which i'm loving more than anything. but i also have a full time job. i work at home. but i work downstairs. i'm downstairs at least 10 hours a day with the daycare kids. i would drag things down each morning that i thought i would work on in my free moments or during naptime. then i would run upstairs at least 10 times a day, getting things that i forgot. then i would accomplish nothing, because it's hard to do that much, if the majority of your stuff is upstairs. so i would drag it all back up each night. then the girls would be sleeping, and i still wouldn't get anything done because i didn't want to wake them up. it was just making things more work and wasting a ton of energy dragging things all around the house. it was exhausting.

so i decided to move. now my stuff is all downstairs and near me. i can run in the bedroom at any given moment. no running up and down the stairs, trying not to wake a napping kid or a sleeping joe (who works nights). the only thing i would have to go upstairs for is my printers, or my finished albums. after just one week of having my stuff moved, i can already tell you how much more i'm accomlishing and how much more less stressed i am while doing everything. i love it!

so, on with the change. this is walking into the bedroom. i have 2 of the ikea expedit shelves, just like i did upstairs. i already had one of them in here, with finished albums, cd's, dvd's, and all the girls electronic game stuff. so i basically was able to swap everything from one shelf to the other. then we decided that rather than trying to take apart the other shelf to bring downstairs, that it would be easier to just buy another expedit shelf (they're huge and can be buggers to put together). i had a small scrap sale a few weekends ago, and made enough cash to buy a new shelf. so now we still have the 2 shelves upstairs, and then 2 in here. other than those shelves, i basically have room for a desk. not the huge island that i had before. but a decent sized desk. and i really wanted it away from the wall, so that i could have my back to the window and face the door. i have this weird thing about having my back to the door, always worrying about someone sneaking up on me. i think i watch too many lifetime movies. lol! i'm trying it out, but i may move the desk under the window if i don't like it enough.

this shelf was the shelf that was already there. it's to the right of the desk, if you were sitting at the desk. with your back to the window. lol! i moved all my pattern paper and cardstock down first, so this is where it ended up. the idea books came next, so those ended up on the top row. i have 2 rows of baskets on the bottom shelves. holding more paper, paper scraps, and a few bins of alterable items and odds and ends. i had the 2 black magnetic boards from before, and added the silver magnetic board that i've had tucked away for years.

i stole a chair from the kitchen. too bad it's not black. and too bad it doesn't have a cushion. i've been standing scrapping for 3 years. so i'm really not a big sitter. but at the same time, it's SO nice to be able to sit if i want too. i've missed having that option from time to time.

the other shelf is directly in front of the desk. so if i was sitting at the desk, i would be looking there. in the corner, i have a pack-n-play tucked away. guess i could stick that in the garage for now.

this shelf holds most of my embellishments and stuff. the top row is some jars. i used to have that entire shelf of jars, but that shelf wasn't going to fit anywhere in this room. so i really cleaned them out, and condensed stuff down. i have some larger jars on the other expedit shelf. and somehow my large ribbon jars ended up in the playroom. but they look good out there, so i might keep them there. this top row holds the rest of the jars i have. i stuck a storage box in the back of each shelf, with photos and things i don't use much. that way, i could place a few jars higher up where i could see them. works for now. then i have rows of baskets. holding embellishments, chipboard, alphabet stickers, etc.

if i was sitting at the desk and looking to the left, i would be looking out the door. the door that i want to be facing, so that no one ever sneaks up on me. i will see them coming. lol! if you look out the door, you can see a little bit of the scrap island. and my wall of photos. 

the other wall has a closet. i havn't had a closet in 3 years. so i'm actually loving that i can tuck stuff away in there that i don't necessarily use all the time. 

i havn't actually cleaned out most of the closet. but i did have 4 of these stacked drawer towers in there, 2 on each side of the doors. i went through and cleaned some stuff out, and condensed it down to just 2 stacked towers. so i had 2 whole ones to fill up with stuff. i have paints (which could go back on my paint shelf, if i decide to hang it back up), extra adhesives, die cut tools (all my slice stuff and cuttlebug stuff, along with my quickutz stuff that i never use), punches, stamps, inks, embossing stuff, etc. i can just turn to the left of the desk, open up the closet, and all this stuff is right there. but it's stuff that doesn't get used enough to require it to be out all the time.

what scraproom would be complete, without a few pairs of stinky soccer cleats?!?! like i said, i havn't actually cleaned out the rest of the closet yet. so these are sitting right next to my cuttlebug. my poor cuttlebug doesn't deserve such torture. and oddly enough, i'm about 97% sure these cleats don't even fit the girls anymore. so i'm not sure why they're important enough to be taking up closet space.

and when you walk out, here's the scrap island. which now resides in the playroom. which is really the dining room area in any other normal house. i wasn't sure what i would do with the island. and then my friend, deneen, said i should put it in the playroom. and i said "you're crazy". but then i thought about it, and it wasn't a bad idea. there used to be a couch here, and a super old coffee table. this island doesn't even come out as far as those 2 items did. although it is taller, so it does actually take up more space in some way. but there is still a ton of room for the kids to play. i'm not putting my scrap stuff on it, mind you. the little ones would get into that stuff. i figured i could put the toy baskets along the one side. the ends are empty right now. and the backside is perfect for storing the girls school backpacks, soccer bags, and instruments. although i do see a backpack sticking out in this picture, usually they're tucked in.

then we took out the 3 oak shelves we had against that wall with the enlarged photos of the girls. they held all the toys and toy baskets. and in it's place, we brought down the red cabinet that was upstairs. it's actually a really good sized cabinet. on top, you can see my huge ribbon jars. they were too big to put anywhere in my room, so i stuck them up here. and i think they look cute. sort of decorative. and inside, we have all the toys. not the ones that all fit nicely in baskets. but the toys. like the larger cars, the little people stuff, the toy computers, the baby dolls, the little tikes toys, the little dollhouses, stuff like that. then i can just open up the doors, and the kids can grab what they want. sure, the doors stick out while open. but it's not a big deal. what we're really liking about this, is that we're not constantly looking at toys. it was different when the girls were little and played with these same toys. but they don't anymore. so it's super nice to have things a bit more hidden when the daycare kids aren't here. and so far, the little ones are digging the change. it's good for them. i'm sure they're tired of the same old setup after all these years too.

i figured that this would make for some great, new storage. but i also figured it would be a great spot for the girls to spread out and work on homework or projects. and when my desk in the scrap room isn't big enough, i can easily come out here to the island. and i'm finding that i'm doing a lot of my work out here. the kids can't reach up there to begin with. so if i spread out some stuff, there's no rush to pick it up. and at naptime, this is a perfect spot to work. i don't have to cram myself into the kitchen, and move the stuff that is already there. i can just spread out here. it's close enough, that i can see nikolas sleeping in the family room from where i stand. and i can hear haley upstairs where she naps. and it's right next to the scrap room. so it's just a few steps away for getting things here and there. i'm finding that i do most of my paper and photos parts of layouts out here. but then i go in the bedroom to embellish and stuff. it's working out so well.

so, there you have it. this is what we spent 2 weeks working on. and it's finally all coming together. we have a big, empty space up in the loft. we have stuff up there, but it does seem bare without the big island. seemed really weird at first. but now the empty space, and the roominess of it is really growing on us. we figure we'll take our time figuring out what we're doing up there.

inside the scrap island

yesterday, we moved the scrap island from the upstairs loft to the downstairs. since we were taking it apart, i figured i would take a few photos to give you all a peek inside it. i get asked about the island all the time, and how it was made. i have a post all about it HERE. excuse the cruddy photos, i was too lazy to go get my external flash.

it's basically 4 shelves that fit together end to end. this photo above shows 3 of the shelves in place, i had already pulled out the tiny end shelf. and then the counter top is placed right over the shelves, holding them all together. so that center part is actually empty space. we joke that we could store stuff inside there. stuff we wouldn't need to get too for years. lol!

these were buggers to get downstairs. that longest shelf is 8 feet long, and the other large one is about 7 feet long. our stairs are a pain, because we have this 180 degree turn at the landing. and not a lot of room to groove. but we did it. joe and i took the island apart, took all the pieces downstairs, and set it all back up. and we did it in under an hour. and only a few nicks on the walls in the process. lol! the girls were watching tv on the other side of this island, and didn't even realize what we were doing. didn't even phase them that we were doing all this work. it's not like they were that far away from us. you can see the tv in one of the photos, and you can see sarah in the other photo. amazing how they can tune stuff out. when we were done, they turned around and said "what the heck?!?!". lol!

more to come later :)

more about my creative space

remember this that i shared a while back?

 

i was so excited when i was contacted by creating keepsakes magazine, asking if i wanted to have my studio featured in the creative spaces article for the august issue. of course i would! i didn't actually change anything in my studio for this article. i did clean it though. meaning, i dusted every nook and cranny. even though i doubt it would have shown in the photos. lol! i was taking my own photos for this, and i think that was the hardest part. i have terrible lighting up in the loft and i was having a hard time getting good photos. i'll be honest. i think i took over 500 shots, just to get the ones you see here. lol! then i did all the writing. i'm proud to say this article is all me :) figured it's about time to share more details with you. remember, click on any photo and you should be able to see it larger.

 

so this is my studio. this is our upstairs loft area. i actually took this photo from the top of the stairs. so when you walk up, this is what you see. i have the master bedroom and alyssa's bedroom behind me. and sarah's bedroom and the girls bathroom to my left. in the right corner, is a television and computer desk for the girls, and a big comfy chair.

 

my island. the piece of furniture i get asked about the most. sorry, you can't buy this anywhere. it was custom built by my talented mom. yes, my mom! i did a whole post about it HERE, so you can check that out if you want all the details. the side of the island you see is actually the girls side. so i did stage that side for the photos. a lot of that stuff is from my side, the side that didn't really show in the pics.

 

my paper storage. my paper goes about 2/3 the length of the island, on the back side. i have my cardstock stored in the horizontal paper trays. most of it is organized by color. i store all my pattern paper in the vertical paper holders. i sort everything by manufacturer. it's the easiest way for me. i could never sort by color or pattern type. but that's just me. i know my paper by who makes it. and that is how i find what i want, just by knowing who makes what.

 

on the far end of my island, i have these metal mesh baskets that i got at target. they're a size that would hold cd's. these hold mostly making memories embellishments, for design team work. and personal work, of course. i keep the most current collections seperated by basket. so if i want halloween embellishments, i can just pull out one basket and i have everything in there. if i want the travel collection, there it all is. i also keep extra ribbons, and some chipboard here.

  

this shows my ikea shelves and embellishment shelf. i love my ikea expedit shelves. i have 2 of the large ones side by side. so i have 50 cubes of storage. the embellishment shelf was also built by my mom. i drew up the dimensions according to what jars i was planning on using. it's only 6 inches deep, just enough to line up a ton of jars.

 

this is how i store the majority of my embellishments. i use what i see. so the glass jars made perfect sense for me. i take things out of the original containers or packaging to save on space. some things are stored by themselves, some things are grouped together. but everything is sorted by manufacturer. i don't have to worry about keeping the packaging to know who made what. i just know. it's a talent, i know ;)

 

on the ikea shelves, i have a few different types of baskets. the wicker ones are just from michaels. and i have metal mesh baskets, and black metal mesh baskets. both styles are from target. this is where i get a little random. some things here i store by manufacturer. i guess you could say the main manufactures. i just know their product, so i keep it all together. but there are also things i store by product type. like i keep most rubons together in one basket. but i also have rubons within the manufacturer baskets. so there is no set pattern for me here. i just have a way of knowing what is where.

 

i keep most of my chipboard together. although i do have making memories chipboard elsewhere. and american crafts chipboard letters elsewhere. but the rest of it it pretty much kept in one spot. or should i say 4 spots? lol! once again, i'm big on taking things out of their original packaging. just takes up less space, and makes it easier to dig through.

 

i love this shot. my making memories carousel's. this is where i keep my most used tools and adhesives. i have one that is entirely for new products, things i don't want to forget to use. and the girls keep some stuff in one too.

 

my computer area. i keep my laptop downstairs during the day, since i'm with the daycare kids all day. but my mom built me this simple desk to work at, and keep my printers. i use the dell printer for all my regular printing. and my awesome photo printer is strickly for photos. i also keep my slice die cut machine here, and my cuttlebug. down on the floor, i have some boxes that store extra printer paper, photo paper, inks, etc.

 

my paint shelf, also built by my mom. see a theme going here? she built most everything in here, with the exception of the ikea shelves. i had her make me this years ago. mainly because i had some empty space on the wall, and thought it would be cool to have the paints all lined up. it's more of a decorative storage piece. i could easily toss all these bottles in a box or basket. but i had the wall space, so why not ;)

 

this is above my red cabinet. which my mom also built. it has doors on it, so this is the only area that i have to hide things in and close up. lol! there's no closet up here. so in this cabinet, is where i put things i don't want seen or don't need often. i have a sewing machine in there, extra albums, loads of page protectors, alterable things that i might use for projects down the road, etc. then on top of the cabinet, i have these huge glass jars. also from target. i have other jars on the embellishment shelf with ribbons. but these are my big collections. two of those jars are making memories ribbons, and one is american crafts ribbon. then i have a few other things up there. a jar of thread, a small shelf with ink pads. the stamp shelf was a fairly recent addition to the room, i think eariler this year. it was another one of those "i have some wall space to fill up" kind of ideas. the stamps used to be in baskets. but the space was there, so why not display them in a decorative way.

 

and here is what the other side of the room looked like during the process of me writing this article and taking all the photos. lol! that's our big comfy chair, which got moved about 15 feet back and in front of the stairs. the extra dresser came out of alyssa's room a year ago, and has just never found a new home. it got pushed to the side, and covered in stuff from the girls side of the island. you can see alyssa's room back there. i had to actually stand IN her room to get a shot of my entire space. using my kit lens, which was the only way to get it all in the shot.

 

and the television is inside that corner cabinet. not built by my mom, but stained by her about 10 years ago. lol! and here is more of the girls stuff that i took off their side of the island for the photos. they're side isn't quite as pretty as my side. no offense to them. lol!

so i hope that gives you a good idea of what i have going on up here in my studio. now here's the shocker for you. wait for it, wait for it. i'm moving my space back downstairs. i'm ducking as you all throw stuff at me, wondering how i could give up this gorgeous space. lol! it's purely for practical reasons, and i'm so excited about it. it's going to make better use of our space and my time by moving. so it's all good. and i'm already working hard at the move. will share my "new" space when it's all ready :)