Scraps-R-Fun

No Time Like the Present...

It's that time of year again... a time during which we as sentient beings pause, consider, and reflect on the last 12 months. What joys have we felt? What trials have we endured? How could we have done better? But why do we do this? 

I don't really know the answer, nor do I expect one from anyone who reads this. But I do know that I take this natural transition in life to consider how life is going, and of course, how life will go for the next 12 months. 

In doing so, I'm reviewing my Project Life Albums. For my non-scrapbooking friends and family, for 2013, rather than simply create pages that highlight big events or feelings, I chose to do a Weekly documentation of my year as it happened - capturing the more day to day experiences of my year. I learned I have a pretty boring life! Nonetheless, rather than baring my soul and deepest reflections of my near past and uncertain future, I'll highlight my year through some of my favorite moments captured. 

This year I experienced my first snow day - work/school closed because of the snow. It was my first winter in 19 years, and living in Flagstaff allowed me to relish in its beauty rather than feel miserable (which is how I felt in Illinois). I also fell in love with my first foster puppy. Hugh was such a card. So smart, but such a stinker. It was a bittersweet day when he found his forever home!

Early in the year we moved my dad into his own apartment. It was hard. He was sad. But he tried to make the best of things. After MANY months, he finally felt at home in his new place. But the week I moved him, I made sure I spent time with the friends I missed so much since moving to Flagstaff. That made it a highlight. 

Ahhh, summer... I wish it could have lasted forever. Although we had record amounts of rainfall this year, I was able to get outside just barely enough to feed my spirit. But learning and playing with my fellow doc students, and then having Val arrive with the horses. That made the sunny moments even more enjoyable. This is such a beautiful place to live. Some days I feel very lucky.

One of my favorite moments of summer though was our stakeout. We had naively been storing extra bags of dog food on our front porch. After a while, we started noticing holes in the bags, then dog food all over the porch (whoever it was, didn't like the dried carrots and peas amidst the food). Then after coming home from a late dinner one night, we witnessed THREE racoons scurrying around on the porch. I failed to get a good photo though. So, I decided to wait up that night knowing they'd be back. Sure enough, I captured the moment perfectly. I almost didn't want to move the dog food into the house because these guys made me giggle so much! 

Then, before I knew it, it was fall. With cooler temps, but warmer colors. As free and breezy as I felt in summer, the fall warmed me. I felt grounded with the start of the season, the start of school, the start of my very last academic year of coursework. I had much to look forward. 

It will come as no surprise to those who know me well that the best highlights of the year had to do with animals and wildlife. So, the final moment I'll share here is the morning I headed to work and a small group of elk decided to cross my path. These are majestic animals. They take my breath away every time I get a glimpse, and I will never tire of it. 

Here's to 2014 everyone! 

My Small Space Solutions: Part III - Paper, Kits, and Scraps

Welcome to Part III!

First, an update as to how my reorganization is working. I am pleased to announce that it's working GREAT! I didn't expect that I would need both table tops, but I've been working on playing catch up with my weekly review (aka Life Documented) album and what I've done is used the table behind me to lay out all of my various kits and supplies in little piles. So, as I work and design on one table, I sift through and have access to all my kits spread out on the other table. This has worked brilliantly and I've used a large variety of new and old supplies! Gotta love a system that helps you use what you have. Here's an example using Simple Stories lines, Smarty Pants and 24/7. I even used a vintage 7 Gypsies roller stamp on this layout proving my point that if I can SEE it, I will USE it. 

Today, I'm going to tackle kits and paper in general... I started subscribing and/or purchasing scrapbook kits since 2007. To say that I may have a large pile of kits would be an understatement. Though, I can proudly say that I don't have any older than 2 years.  How do I know? Because one rule I've always held is that I give myself limited space to accumalate kits. In my old studio it looked like this:

And this goes with Small Space Solution #6: Limit Your Collections

 My system was this... as a new kit arrived, I took the supplies and transferred them to a Cropper Hopper Page Planner. These are no longer available. If I were to buy them now, I'd either use the Page Arranger or the Envelope. If I had multiples of kits, I'd use the latter since it provides more depth. 

Once I put the kit contents into the envelope, they would go into the wire basket shown above on the left (I'll talk about the one on the right in a moment). If the basket was full, and no more kits could fit, then I went through the basket and emptied one or more of the envelopes. This way, I never had more kits than what fit in the basket. This was a great system until I moved to my smaller space and I had nowhere to store the basket. Yet, I still like the system itself. I discovered the Cropper Hopper pockets fit perfectly in my Expedit. So, I devoted one full shelf to kits.

The shelf in the bottom right hand corner of the photo holds all my kits. Once the shelf is full, I empty a kit (some into my stash, but mostly to a donation). The photo above also shows how I store all my letter stickers and...

Small Space Solution #7: Sort General Supplies by Color

This I realize is not a new idea. But I can tell you that for supplies like my letter stickers, sorting by color is the only way to go. I can easily get my hand on any form of sticker from Thickers to my old KI Memories. Each color has a Cropper Hopper envelope (or in this case the Paper File). Then they are stored in the top right shelf shown above in "Rainbow Order." 

Also stored in rainbow order is my cardstock. Remember I said we'd return to the right basket. Well, in that basket I store my 12x12 cardstock.

scraps worth saving are also stored here. They are slid into more page planner pockets and sit behind the coordinating color cardstock.

In a previous solution post I explained that I purged all my 8.5x11 paper. I went from having paper here (cardstock on the bottom, patterned paper on the top):

AND in the basket to just the cardstock above and here:

Which brings me to Small Space Solution #8: Keep Only What You Will USE, not what you love:

When I went through to purge my paper, I thought only about what kind of scrapping have I been doing lately? What colors, patterns, and themes are most likely to support my photos? I also considered age of the paper and if the company was still in business. But my number one question when downsizing was still, "will I use it?" Then I sort the patterned paper by manufacturer in the Cropper Hopper vertical storage. I did have to cut the storage containers so they would fit inside the Expedit. I recommend cutting first and then assembling if you are buying new. I also recommend using tin snips or some other heavy duty cutter as it was difficult with scissors. 

Well, that's where we stand on paper and kits today... more details coming soon. Have a great Sunday as we eek out the last few days/weeks of summer.

 

Life Documented

I'm so excited to be sharing the news from the Simple Stories family... we're expanding! Check out the behind the scenes details here... and be sure to check back TOMORROW, June 2nd, to see the announcement of the full Life Documented team! You are going to be blown away by the amazingly talented women who have all come together to show how quick, easy, and meaningful you can make scrapping with a Life Documented philosophy and Simple Stories' supplies. In the meantime, I've added our new logo and a sneak peek of my pocket page layout going up on the blog next week. And don't worry, the current scrapbook team isn't going anywhere, so you can continue to check out their amazing work as well! I hope you'll join us all month for the fun and inspiration!