Ethnic Scrapbooking

National Craft Month

Although I'd like to celebrate each and every day in March by doing a "craft", life goes on.  As soon as I heard that our local Borders books store was closing I immediately signed up to purchase some of their furniture.  I wasn't sure what I wanted, I have tons of books so shelving seemed like the logical choice, but the ones in the store are so heavy.  I looked at the tables, and anyone who's been to my house knows that another table is NOT needed in this house. (as a Clutter-Free person, I have to be careful of table top surfaces in my house, because the messies think it's a clean spot for THEIR JUNK)

After three visits to the store I decided I wanted one of their "Bargain Table Cubes"  it measures about 4' x 4'  and is made of solid wood with shelving on all four sides.  What I loved about it was the large work surface and the fact that it was on wheels.  Once my fantastic, ultra-terriffic husband heaved it into the car by himself and got it home (thanks Carlton for being a good neighbor and helping get this beast into the house), we realized that it would take 3-4 men to actually get it down the basement steps to the studio...so plan B was in full force.

 

How do I still use this table for it's intended purpose in another room on the first floor.  In comes our very under utilized sun/morning room.  Right off the kitchen and is flooded with afternoon light.  So instead of the studio, it resides in the heart of our home and is a perfect spot for homework, a place to doodle, a place to run through flashcards, great spot for board games or a thousand piece puzzle with Pap-Pap.  I moved all of the various first floor art baskets to the cube, and we have plenty of room to grow. In my mind I call this Tavi's Table.  The grandson needs a spot to do his art (and stay out of trouble).  We'll try it out here for a while and see how it goes.

  Oh, the cost for this little repurposed gem...$125.  Couldn't make this piece for that price.  I've seen some celebrity scrapbookers have similar things made in the $4,000 range.  I'm quite happy with my repurposed item.

Organize Your Photos!

I'm the guest blogger over at Scraps of Color Espire...come check it out!  Don't forget to leave questions or comments.

 

 

 

St. Croix Vacation Album

Although our family has taken week long vacations before, I've never scrapbooked the whole week, amazing I know.  I've scrapbooked whole albums on just one day events, but never a week long event for my personal scrapbook collection.

Here's my game plan:  (I'm making this public so you can hold me accountable)

1. download and tag all photos - DONE!
2. dowload and tag all of my sister's photos  - DONE!
3. delete bad shots and duplicates SCRATCH, too time consuming, not going to do
4. Revisit Stacy Julian's ideas in Photo Freedom (I highly recommend purchasing this great reference book)  - DONE 7/16/09
5. organize photos by day - select 8-10 to print/use DONE 7/17/09
6. order two sets, use 2nd set for Kids,Parent's & Hostess album -  revised plan 7/17/09, create a 9 image collage for each day, print at home one 8x10 for each day
7. Create photo album or traditional album - hard choice for me, uploading to a photo album seems very appealing and quick, but I love to customize using my own stash. - Created one mini-album in an hour by purchasing a pre-decorated album at silent auction for $25!
8. Kids Pages - let them do their own two-page spread or mini-albums?
9. Parents Keepsake - give them the prints in photo sleeve album or what?
10. Cousin Tina (our hostess) - Create Thank You gift - traditional mini-album or loose print...decided, have Lisa Renee Young create a blank beach-themed mini-album
11. Deadline - Complete by September 1, 2009

Leave a note or additional ideas in the comments section on what you think about my plan.

Family Historian at work.

Scrapbook Yard Sale

I don't know the host, but I know CTMH (Close to My Hear) products, I used a number of them in my book, Ethnic Scrapbooking so I'm sure you will find some bargains.  It's a short sale so get there early.

 

CHARGE...Come one, come all - bring your friends for this awesome stamper/scrapbooker yardsale event!!!!

 

Due to having a baby, I lost my big room for crafting and had to move into a MUCH SMALLER room!!!  I can't fit it all and need to find homes for lots of different stuff.  What's there to sell?????

 

**Thousands of wood stamps (not kidding) marked all 75-90% off - CTMH, Stampin Up, Hero Arts, Magenta, and more!!!!

**Retired Acrlix Stamp sets from CTMH - marked 50-75% off)

**Craft tools from different companies (like Memory Maker, Cricut) - various pricing

**Retired scrapbooking paper packs - 50-75% off

**Beads and other crafting things....75-80% off.........

 

Time:  9:00 am to 11:00 am

Place: 15003 Newcomb Lane, Bowie 20716

No early birds, please

 

This will happen, weather permitting.....If it's raining, we can't do it.

Linda Caler
Close to My Heart Consultant

New Offices

Today my husband started a new job with the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and he e-mailed me a photo of the view from his office window, which overlooks the Baltimore Inner Harbor. So I thought I'd share my new home office.

This room is technically the "study" but it has had many lives in the past eight years.  It was Talisa's study hall for a number of years, then her graphic studio, we even converted it to a guest room for a few months, of course it was a scrapbook room at once and for the past year it has been unused, as I took away the internet from the desktop to keep control over what the kids were doing.

New life has been breathed into this room, and I'm happy that I have a new space, a new work life deserves a new office.

Here's where I was working before in the family room, which served me very well as three of my kids were raised in this room while I worked from home.

Here's the study, before I embarked on this recent transformation.  It was becoming Jerry's golf corner and was on it's way to becoming one of those rooms you see on TLC's CLEAN HOUSE.

Redesigning the room was quite simple...the gigantic desk can only fit in the room two ways, the bookshelf is only a year old and is super heavy so it wasn't about to be moved.  I really didn't want to face the wall...already been there, done that for 7 years.  So I just pivoted the desk around so I would be facing the door and have a view of my yard.  Next, I got rid of the clunky printer/scanner that doesn't work and replaced it with a laser printer, gave Jerin the desktop computer and cleaned out the corners in the room.  So without spending a ton of money, we've got a brand new space for momma, complete with textiles, favorite colors, fabulous scent and lush greenery.

For more details on the desk organization and how the book shelf is organized, see this previous post from last August.

The new configuration does attract haouse visitors, but I'm hoping that after the novelty wears off...the family will stop visiting me in here!

A case for BALANCE

Organize Magazine, one of my new loves really cheered me up with this article, so much so I'll share my organized drawer that I created back in April and it still looks the same today.

more organizing=Sanity Check

okay, now that Tavi and Talisa have their own place...I can finally THINK!  Or so I thought...really it's my to do list and 2 piles near my desk that have stiffled me severely.  I feel overwhelmed with book related business and paralyzed into ineffeciency.  All that has changed.

I was introduced to a "tickler" system by Vernestine over at www.absoluteorg.com and I told her I'd give it a try.  That night I stumbled upon www.zenhabits.net.  So armed with new organized and creative juices I pondered over how to organize my book related business to do items.  Vernestin'e solution was having daily to do lists, and Zen Habit recommended the same, but I struggle with everyday...I'm flexible...I don't necessarily do anything but wake up, breathe and brush my teeth, so I knew a daily system wasn't really going to work. 

Over the weekend I came up with this system that I think will work for me, so here goes:

Fig. 1 Here is the mess.  The right side of my desk collects all that stuff I need to read through and deal with.  I thought the book shelf would help, but it wasn't working either.  The bottom shelf holds books for shipping and supplies...definitely need at my fingertips.

Middle Shelf was to hold files I've set-it, but they end up in piles...way too much stuff in each folder.  Top shelf holds magazines I haven't read, empty organizers and small books I like to have close by.

Fig.2     The Tools – very simple really, sharpie pens (love’em), cardboard file holders in moc crock, that look very real, tri-color file folders, and Organize Magazine, with a family member gracing the cover. All inexpensive items that can be found at your local office supply store.

Fig. 3     Here’s the type of stuff I needed to organize.  I pick up free publications around town and see if there’s a way I can contribute scrapbook related articles and program books/advertisements about different cultural events.  My process is to quickly read through them and see what their target market is and then contact the editor.  Unfortunately, I collect them faster than I quickly read through them, hence the piles.  So for the ones I haven’t read I file the whole publication and after I’ve gone through it I rip out the publisher info, table of contents and cover, thinning out the paper in my files.  Once I’ve sent them an e-mail, I just bookmark the site and wait for an answer. 

Now here’s my unique filing system…I cataloged in an excel spreadsheet each item filed by alphabet…for instance “Freelance Opportunities” go under "F" that way I don’t have to remember the publication name.  Some of my papers get whole files to themselves, like “Kwanzaa”, “Latino”, “Ubuntu” & “Jewish Holy Days”.  I cataloged the items in excel so that I could add a comments field so I can sort the information according to my plan of attack (to be defined later).  This keeps me from using “stickies”…which become unstuck!

Fig.4    My goal was to use only one file holder (even though two came in the package), but I ended up using two, so that one wouldn’t be so stuffed.  A third one came in handy to become my new “in box” for my fulltime work which I do mostly from home.

Fig.5     Wa-La…my new organized shelves with a happy color curtain so I don’t have to look at it and it keeps my family room from looking like an office.

Fig. 6     I blogged about these before, but here they are again and still working, mail bins for those family members who stay so mobile, their mail gets delivered to my house!

Major Organizing

Last weekend was a rare weekend.  There was absolutely nothing on our calendar...nothing!  No meets, no parties, practices, book promos...nothing.

So you'd think I'd scrapbook all weekend, well...almost.  My studio was a wreck from packing and unpacking from book promos and black history month events.

I decided to "straighten up".  Which I intially intended to just put things away...I still have Kwanzaa display stuff to put away!

I was feeling energized from meeting Stacy Julian and reading her new book, Photo Freedom, although the topic is not new to me, for some reason, meeting her and taking her fast paced Finish Line album class, I returned to her photo sorting philosophy with a fresh perspective.

Here's the deal, last year I took her on-line class called a Library of Memories, which is closed this session, but watch for it in the future, if on-line classes are your thing. I tried to keep up with the reading material from the class last year, but just don't do well with routine events.  Plus I wasn't really feeling her whole sorting philosophy because I've scrapbooked our family & children's albums through 2004.

Well, last weekend I came across a BUNCH of photos that one, hadn't been scrapbooked, nor really sorted.  So I set out to give her system a try which is basically about sorting in categories/person instead of chronological (which I do).  Because I couldn't put my finger on ALL of Grandma Bryant's photos when she died last month I decided to re-sort a few years worth of photos using her category method.  What I ended up with (besides a bunch of new projects to work on) was an entire box of Talisa's photos (which I am thinking of sending off to be scanned so she can have them electronically...watch for these details in my next newsletter, sign up in the box in the right side bar) and a box of "Family Branches"  photos of family members that can go into those "Branch" albums my Dad has started, that we carry to family reunions, weddings and funerals. Family loves to look through the albums looking for themselves.

I'll be demonstrating this method detailed in Photo Freedom on March 22nd at the crop in Bowie, MD...if you are interested in attending and participating in this photo sort at 2:00 pm, contact me and I'll give you the prep details.

Here's a few before and after shots of my organizing frenzy.

Starting with top left...my super cluttered work table, My messy embellishment counter, my untidy photo boxes.

middle row:  the boys helping with the tags used to label some of my drawers and cabinets, my clean embellishment area (look Jerry the laptop playing itunes songs instead of Mary J Blige's Growing Pains cd over and over), the cute tags the boys stamped.

bottom row:My idea list of pages to do after seeing these themes in Jerin's photos while sorting, neatly stacked photo boxes (about 1/3 of what I have), A DIY basket of mini-projects I plan to grab and take with me to crops and work on.

The Photo Freedom, I experienced was that while I was sorting photos and recalling memories, I actually did the journaling for  three pages I want to complete and clipped them to the photos...why, because the memories where fresh and I'm not afraid of my handwriting and it felt good to get those memories down on paper and out of my head!  I did mark the backs of some photos with the year and who the children were...Jonanthan and Joseph look so similar and the clothes are passed down...I didn't want to make the mistakes my Dad did in putting the wrong kid in the wrong album!

Did I mention I did all of cleaning and sorting with my Dad?  Now how many of you do that with your Dad?  It was fun, we chatted about his childhood, projects we want to do together, research we want to accomplish this summer and how we can fine tune our family history presentations...GOOD, GOOD Times.  Just the dose of BALANCE I needed in my life at this time...being creative and organized makes me feel good, free to move on.

Don't have another free weekend until April 26th.

Ways to Inspire - Tenisha's Planner

My spirit has been very pressed to focus on ways to inspire others into action this year...kinda like the Obama camp!  No really, I don't just want to introduce people to the scrapbooking industry and all of it's mega pieces of papers...I want to inspire people to take another look at creativity...their own creativity...tap into their hidden talents...whatever they may be.

In my last newsletter I featured one of my scrappin sistahs Renee Hagler's planner.  If you'd like to receive my next newsletter, coming out in the next few days, sign up in the box to the right, just below the Buy Book button. I'll post a link to the archives soon. One of my neighbors...Tenisha... who claims she doesn't have time for creativity (yet, she's always doing crafts for her Sunday School) decided to use a journal she recently purchased as the base of her planner.  I think she did an excellent job and I saw a glimpse of pride in her eye, that she had made a stylish/creative planner that she can rest on her desk and look at all day.

Tenisha, didn't realize that the image on the cover was a rooster until I was photographing it.  I showed her how a few well placed embellishments could convert that rooster into a heart.

What is something creative that you've made with your hands that is in your line of sight everyday?

Hoarding

Did you see Oprah's show today...I missed part of it, but it was about hoarding.

I am fascinated by this topic (just as I am about dwarfism).  I am a purger, mostly because my mother is a hoarder and I do everything in my power to not do the same.  Plus with six kids in the house, I can NOT set an example of "saving" things...If someone wants to save something tangible I convince them to take a photograph, write a story about it and SCRAPBOOK IT!

Although it was hard to see how the Maryland couple could live in such conditions, we all need to look at ourselves and see what we hoard.  I have one pair of closed toed shoes, so it's hard for me to understand why someone has more than 5 pairs of shoes, whereas someone with 25 shoes wouldn't think that's hoarding.

I love how the two experts (althought briefly) discussed the root of hoarding...the emotional reasoning for hoarding...they actually discussed it in more detail on Peter Walsh's Oprah and Friends XM 156 radio show.

What I do hoard is cardstock and pens.  So there's my confession, what's yours?

I'm off to sort through my scrapbook papers and pens!