I'LL START POSTING MORE OFTEN, I PROMISE!

I really must apologize to all of you for dropping my blogging for quite a while.  I've been in the process of totally re-doing my craft room - AGAIN, because I had "stuff" spread out all over the house, and some of it had just been laying there for years and months.  Stuff I had forgotten I even had, or else, knew I had it, but couldn't find it.  Soooo.... my sister spent most of the summer up here, and she's a true saint!  With her help, I have totally purged my craft room.  I took every thing out of it - including the contents of the drawers and shelves ( except for one set of shelves I haven't tackled yet), put it all over the living room floor.  Then we went through everything one at a time and decided whether it was a "keeper", "tosser", or "yard sale".  It literally took us 2 months to do this, but now, after 2 yard sales and three garbage bags-full of "tossers", I can actually see the floor in my craft room again!  My sweet husband had some shelving he wasn't using in his wood shop, and he put them up in my craft room, and I have almost everything stored away, and labeled, in Iris Craft containers from Michaels in these shelves.  Such a weight has been lifted from my shoulders!  I really should never have to buy another craft product for the rest of my life, but, of course, I will.

ON MY OWN FOR 5 DAYS, LOVE IT!

My husband is on a fishing trip in Florida, and I have been left to my own devices for the past 3 days.  I have 2 more days to go before he gets home.  I have been constantly organizing around the house, trying to get clutter back where it belongs, purging things in my craft room, and also continuing to get my scrapping stuff into my Scrap Rack.  Progress has been slow, because I had stuff scattered all over the place, and I need to pull it all together in one area.  I have found that I own almost 65 Cricut cartridges, and booklets that go with them.  And you know what?  Those things take up a lot of storage space!  I am getting rid of the boxes and just keeping the cartridges and the booklets with overlays. But I still haven't found the perfect container to organize even this many cartridges.  I tried divided fishing tackle boxes, but they wouldn't close.  Now I'm trying the ArtBin racks.  They hold the cartridges, but not all the books.  If anyone has any good ideas about storing these things, please leave a comment. 

PROGRESS - ONE STEP AT A TIME

I have cleaned out one section of the large chest in my scrap room (where my Cricut Imagine used to be), so I am going to start adding the pages to my new Scraprack, and then I have to tackle the shelves full of paper in the other picture. It has become obvious that I need to expand my single Scraprack. I may have to move my printer and use the whole top of that dresser. Time will tell, but, in the meantime, I'm going to tackle my stacks of paper and get them divided into colors, themes, and seasons. I know I won't get it all done before I go to Florida.

MY ORGAIZATIONAL BENEFITS

One of our Scraprack Challenges from last week is to  make a sign stating the BENEFITS  I hope to achieve from organizing my craft room.  I thought for a few days, and here's what I came up with (although I haven't made my sign yet):
1.  To be able to see my floor again, and to walk into my craft room and feel lifted up instead of depressed.
2.  To have my scrapbook supplies in permanent and easily accessible places.

I know those are pretty simple, but right now when I walk into my room, I just want to get out as soon as possible.  That's sad, isn't it?  I have also proceeded to get a "purge" box, and things are being put in it.  All scrapbooking supplies laying around the house have been put in one place and will find permanent homes as soon as I get the rest of my Scraprack system (I had to order some more pages and spindles).  I have bought some 50% off wicker baskets to put my finished albums in.  They going to go out in the living room in plain sight - hopefully to tempt people to look through them.  I've even gotten some smaller baskets to put my little mini-albums in.  Doing this has cleared up a numer of shelves in two of my bookcases.

Then I have made the momentous decision to store away my Cricut Imagine and the cartridges that go with it.  Frankly, it takes up a huge amount of counter space, and I really don't use it at all.  I suspect Cricut is going to quit making new cartridges for it anyway and probably will quit making the machine.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's very heavy and can't be transported to crops, so people just aren't buying them, or, like me, if they do, they aren't using them.  I'll probably end up selling mine.  Anyone want one for about $125.00?  I've got a lot of cartridges to go with it too.

So, I shall keep plugging away this week, but then I'm going back to Florida to take care of my daughter, who's having some surgery next week.  I'll be gone for two weeks, so my clean up project will have to go on hold for a while.  I'll still keep in touch though.

I'M TAKING THE 2013 ORGANIZATION CHALLENGE

This is the current state of my craft room after coming back from my five day scrapbooking crop. What a mess!! I can hardly see the floor!! Therefore, I have made the momentous decision to buy The Scrap Rack System and take their 2013 Organization Challenge to see if I can find my floor again. Right now it's treacherous for me to even try to walk to my computer. Thus I am doing most of my online correspondence on my older (and slower) laptop. As my daughter said when I posted this picture on Facebook: "For shame, Mother, for shame"  And I really am ashamed.   I haven't brought anything else that I haven't already used up, it's just that I've dragged a lot of "stuff" out and haven't put it back.   Also, it's time to PURGE again, which I started doing right after Christmas, but then I got sidetracked with the retreat. This week, my assignments are: 1. Make a poster stating what main benefit I will achieve by cleaning up my room. 2. Make a list of goals to achieve this week. Write them down and check them off as I finish them. 3. Gather all loose items pertaining to scrapping that are sitting around the house and put them in one place. 4. Here's the hard one - PREPARE TO PURGE. Have a purge box, and what goes in it, cannot come out again. So I will get with the program and let you know how I do.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

What a miserable day today has been!  It absolutely poured down rain all day!!  And now tonight they say it's supposed to turn to snow for a little while.  I sincerely doubt that, but we do live pretty close to the Great Smokey Mountains, and they often get lots of snow while we in the valley just get flurries.  My sister is up here visiting from West Palm Beach, Florida, so she's about to have apoplexy.  Ha!  Those Floridians have thinner blood, you know.  I went over to her house today (she has a vacation house up here), and we watched girlie flicks, baked cookies, and, in general, had good bonding time.  It was just one of those kind of days.  We have a tin roof on our house, and I lovee to hear the rain on it, especially when I'm inside all comfy and cozy. 

I was so excited to see that I have my very first Follower.  First Follower, thanks so much, and feel free to leave all the comments you want.  You all have seen the horrible pictures of my craft room, well, I want to announce that starting on Friday, my sister, Jan, and I are going to start the organizational process.  I dread it, but I know a lot of unused stuff is going to go.  I have to give up all those ex- hobby items that are sitting around on my shelves taking up valuable space, while my true hobby's treasured items lay about littering my floor.  I'll take pics as the process goes along.  Feel free to keep track of my progress.