I hate to wake up early but for this...I will be an early bird! Oh yes I will! LOL Early Bird Great Paper Purge 2008 Task: Here's an early bird assignment for those of you ready to start the new Great Paper Purge challenge for 2008. (And you don't even have to get up early if you don't want to.) We know we'll be reducing our paper supply this year. But what tasks do you do first??? 1) GATHER -Have your papers all together in a convenient location. That means find a box, bucket, or basket (probably a large one) and use it to gather ALL your loose scrapping paper in one location. Dig the papers out of the old tote scrap bag, empty out the bags of papers you bought on those shopping trips, and gather any papers that might be hiding in different rooms. 2) SEPERATE : FOR JANUARY MONTH: You can either mentally tally --or actually separate out-- all the targeted papers for the Jan. month long use-it-up focus. Thi s would include any papers that have sparkles, glitter, gloss...

Here I am with our dear little cousin in her baptismal gown...Yeah us! Take a look at her gown... Just wanted to share photos of a baptismal gown I sewed last month for a little baby cousin of ours. The family wanted an heirloom quality gown blending two ready-made patterns and using a certain style trim. I love to sew and can do this specialty kind of garment sewing. It was a joy to create this for little Sasha. I told her mom that every stitch help a prayer for Sasha's happy future. I love sewing almost as much as I love scrapbooking, so you KNOW I love it! :) Rockester

Do you need to get organized on your time-- but you are just not sure HOW? Here is how I set up my schedule: (roughly) and got myself set using it! The key is to use your schedule daily and not give up after 3-4 days. Your schedule will look very different from mine. Especially if you work outside the home or have smaller kids, your tasks will certainly vary. But you can still use this guide to help you get started on HOW to schedule your own personal goals in --as well as the daily grind tasks. KEEP IT HANDY: LIST MAKING 101 The key to any schedule for yourself is to physically keep the list making 'stuff' handy. Keep your list/schedule located where you will sit down and look at it daily--or many times a day. For some this is the refridge, others a dining table or the office or kitchen desk, but for me it is the laptop. :) If it is a hard copy paper list, keep paper and pen in that same area all the time for updates. You can even computer print out your base listing for the...

I think the following issues have sucked up wayyyyyyyyyyy too much of my time in 2007. I resolve to not let that happen so much in 2008! Time Wasters: 1. Unclear goals : my goals have not being clear --and set --in a couple aspects of life. So I go in circles more than I need to. 2. Lack of Scheduling : my genealogy project goals are not scheduled so I am allowing long term interruptions. 3. A Drop and Go Mentallity : my drop and go tendancies in my craft workspace are a bother later on. Good thing I use clear storage! I will try to make my "Drop and go" tendancy into a "Drop into storage" tendancy! LOL 4. Biting off too Much : I have been attempting too much in too short a time. No, you cannot completely reorganize a jam-packed 1000 square foot space in 4 hours. Small steps, Kathy small steps. 5. Getting Sidetracked : this is especially true online-- I need to FOCUS not continually browse online. :) Ideas are NOT actions. 6. Lack of Delegation/lists : Ineffectiv...

Hurray for Dawn H. She was brave enough to send her pics for review last month ...and I am sorry it took me a bit to get this one out. She actually has a lovely space and here are the shots she sent in and my comments on each. Bravo Dawn! I hope I can offer a few helpful tips. I love, love, love the fact that you have family member portraits in your work area. I hope they are your inspiration pieces and motivators for all your albums and projects. :) The ceiling border is a nice touch and the live plant is a terrific touch. You do have a natural wood furnishings style so it is nice that you have put the white plastic boxes inside a wooden case at far right of the above photo. I tend to say that if you have plastics, keep them all one color. Most drawer and storage boxes are sold either as white or black. Because the entire rest of your plastics in this room are black, consider switching these 8 white boxes to black. Terrific that the pretty green photo boxes are labeled. You are off ...

Click on any photo to enlarge it. Finally, my cd case calendar gift is done. I meant to get to it last month but a few more urgent craft projects got bumped up in my schedule. :) This little twelve month 2008 calendar is sized to fit in a empty plastic clear cd jewel case. Unsnapped and turned wrong side around in an L shape, the case shows off the calendar one month at a time. Remaining months are stored nearby in a plastic zip baggie. January February March April May June July August September October November December That is the 12 months of 2008 in altered stash CD jewel case Calendar style! Enjoy! Rockester

(Click any photo to enlarge it.) Yeah!! I love how this pocket calendar gift project is coming along. If you are on my Christmas list or my daughter's list, look away now 'cause you won't be surprised later on! I got some 2008-2009 two-year pocket/purse calendars at the dollar spot. They came with plastic covers, so instantly I thought of a project! I remembered a fantastic class I taught a year or so ago at a local store on making altered and personalized checkbook covers. I knew I had to make these calendars into a similar altered project. It was a natural! These would be so cute as gifts done with a Basic Grey "Blush" pack of paper I had at home. Everyone I know seems to love Basic Grey--even if they are not scrapbookers ! Teens especially like that paper line too. So I bought a BUNCH of calendars and spent most of yesterday altering and adding accents to these little gems. I used all one paper line from Basic Grey with just a few scraps from my Provo slab. C...

(Click on any photo to enlarge it.) I decided to take a little break today and make something fun. The links on Scrapperschallenge inspired me to make a cookie sheet calendar holder of my own. This is a re-usable frame made from a cookie sheet and paper crafting supplies. Since I print my calendar out monthly and often hand two of three months up at a time in the kitchen, I wanted it to be flexible with magnetic clips to hold my calendar papers. Other people just make new monthly title cards and leave blank boxes on the white calendar section and move the date numbers around (the numbers are mounted on magnets) to make each month accurate. I wanted to just hang my computer created planner calendar up. So I needed another kind of option. Here is my version. (Ignore blurred personal event details on photo) And here is how I did it. First find an old cookie sheet. Mine was an older one with lots of 'character' and staining. I loved the rustic aspect but that is just me. If you wa...

(click on photo for close up) Celebrate November! Make a door decor calendar/memo board for your college students! Use a firm 12x12 cardstock as your base. (Further instructions here ) Here is the second door decoration I have made for my daughter's dorm. She and her roomate LOVED the first one seen here for spooky OCTOBER and have asked for more! Using my stash, older papers, and odds and ends is sooo much fun when I know it will bring a smile to their faces. (Don't believe me about using up ancient leftovers? If you look closely, you can see some plain die cut leaves from about 1994 and an Accucut title from about 1987!) I made two pockets agian for the memo paper and so they can recycle the "IN, OUT, and BACK IN 15" cards from last month. Enjoy!

Look what I did today! (Click on photos for close ups!) BUTTONS BUTTONS BUTTONS I am happy to say I got out my button box today. I have been meaning to incorporate more of my button stash into my layouts. But in the last month or so, the layouts never seemed 'right' for buttons. But today was the day! Not one page set --but two --were perfect for buttons! I decided to see how they would look used in one of my favorite ways--as flower centers for the layout above. Once I got going I loved the look and kept on going. I did a total of 4 pages with buttons!!! The above set is for a Sweet Teen Client and has dozens of silk and paper flowers with button centers. The other page set below titled "Falling for You" has photos taken at a local orchard. Because of the theme of the page, I used dozens of fall leave shaped buttons. I borrowed three or four from my pal Dawn (Thanks Dawn!) and I had all the rest already in my embellishment box! I just sprinkled them in corner clu...