Fresh starts! That's what this new year can signify for you and for me and for anyone who wants to get a grip on their surroundings and their home. Clear out that old wrapping paper from the holidays. Decide to donate an item for each item you received this Christmas! Then actually walk around the house and DO IT! Get motivated with a few articles from these terrific organization blogs. They are some of my favorites! 365 days of Organization http://365-days-of-organization.blogspot.com/ Creative Organizing http://creativeorganizing.typepad.com/ Blisstree http://blisstree.com/live/?utm_source=blisstree&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration Organized Home http://organizedhome.com/ Get Organized http://getorganizedtips.blogspot.com/ Life Organizers http://www.lifeorganizers.com/ Organizer Queen http://organisingtips.blogspot.com/ Organiized Families http://organizedfamilies.com/ Simplify 101 http://www.simplify101.com/index.php Organized Mom http://www.organizedmom....

Hey friends! Let's get 246 photos of people we do not know personally onto 56 pages in roughly 35 hours over 13 days. Let's use the client's miscellaneous accent and paper supply box and several dozen brads and several dozen pop dots. Toss in about 10-12 tape runners and some simple, classic designs. Oh yes and please label these family events and make captions for 90% of the photos. It's all written on the backs of the photos so just transpose that info to computer or write it out by hand for the journaling. What you say? No way? Well I am here to say that by using the speed scrapping page kitting techniques we share on Scrapperschallenge, I am DONE! Hurray-- and I did not have any help. Yes indeed, I did it myself! I will be handing off this childhood-to-adult gift album to the client in the next few days. It was a fun project. This family sure went to some amazing spots in the USA over the years which resulted in some AMAZING photos of our natural wonders. The young...

One of my favorite contributors to our ScrapperChallenge group on Yahoogroups is Fran. She has been with us a while now and always pitches right in to post ideas, sketches and helpful information. For the holiday season, Fran volunteered to add a gift idea each day for 25 days to the group. Here is a summary of the fabulous ideas she has gathered so far! Fran and I both hope it inspires you to use your stash and get creative in the gifts you give. Handmade is truly a gift of the heart. And let's give a big shout out to Fran for sharing these with us!! :) Please also be sure to thank the original artists at their websites for sharing the ideas and tutorials too! Dec 25th, Thanks card http://simplicitybylateblossom.blogspot.com/2010/12/cas98-apron-thanks.html Dec 24th Personalized Coasters by Fran http://littlepaperstudio.blogspot.com/2010/12/create-from-heart-coasters.html Dec 23 CD Case Calender (Oh Fran was tricky and snuck one in on me with this one--it's by me!) :) http://m...

EACH PAGE PROTECTOR IN THE PHOTO ABOVE HOLDS A TWO-PAGE LAYOUT. 128 is the magic number! I created 128 12x2 pages at our four day retreat last weekend! Sorry it has taken me a few days to post this update. Been just so darn busy at work. And that is a good thing! We had a tie for the winners with the guess of 125!! My crop total of 12x12 pages done is 128! The closest guess was made by two members, both at 125. And the winners are: Sherry and ebright_fleming@..... Blogger Sherry said... I'm going to guess 125 pages. There's no way I'd ever get that many done, but I've seen how productive you can be, so I'm guessing it's going to be a really high number. Have fun, and I'll look forward to hearing how many pages you do! sherry.kishitani@........ 1:43pm ---------------------------------- ebright_fleming@..... said... I will guess 125, which I feel could be a low estimate, which is crazy, because I haven't even done that many pages for the whole year, ...

It's time for another contest! I am sooo excited! I got up at 6am today and I NEVER do that! I am a late night owl --not an early bird!! I must be excited, eh? So excited that I want to give something away again! I am headed out to go scrapping this weekend from today about 11 am to sunday about 4pm. Yep, that's right! I will be leaving the hubster home and scrappin' for FOUR whole days on my own 12x12 family page projects. Not cards, not gifts--just pages! I don't have to work at the retreat which is a plus for productivity. I have been organizing myself and my supplies all week! How many pages do you think I will get done? You know how I am always prompting you to get busy! Well, now I am putting my advice to work on myself! As always, I have lots and lots of page kits packed up and ready to go. I won't tell how many because that might give you an aproximate hint of what I think is even possible! Give us a guess here and the most accurate guess will win a priz...

Along with our new look, we have a NEW "SHABBY BLUES" CONTEST! In honor of my new blue floral scheme here on the MY ALL blog, I am creating a small prize package from my stash for one lucky winner! I am making it up of blues and whites and florals and shabby chic goodness! Leave a comment --with your contact email--below and you could be our random Shabby Blues WINNER! I will choose a random winner on Thursday evening, Nov 4th. You could win! :)

I finally decided to try to update the blog look myself and came across a great FREE shabby chic blog site with backgrounds and so on usable for Blogger! Hurray! It is called ShabbyBlogs.com http://www.shabbyblogs.com/ and if you click on the buttons on their header there it takes you to the choices for some lovely buttons and backgrounds--beautiful work gals! It just took me a few minutes to do the background and a few more mintutes to personalize the header in Paint and Picasa. (Photoshop not needed!) Whatcha think?

Oh my! My to do list is pretty long today. I am wondering how much I will get done. I am kinda starting out late in the day but, better late than never right? And I figure if I write my list here I will have to be accountable for it! LOL I can check them off later in the day as I get them done. Ignore if not interesting! I don't mind! LOL DONE clear off work table on porch DONE bring in baskets for basement DONE sweep porch vacuum sofa on porch (love those cats!) :) DONE! vacuum LR vacuum steps DONE laundry basket 1 DONE laundry basket 2 DONE laundry basket 3 (sensing a trend here?) DONE!--put new hardback books away to read later DONE dusting Liv Room DONE! -collect toiletries for flood victims from hall closet DONE! -package up cards for troops to ship to KS declutter kitchen cabinet DONE sweep kitchen floor DONE! make guest bed up Goodness this seems like a big list. I better get crackin! Ready set go! 11:58 am MN time! Will report progress later. :) Rock

I know it seems like most of my recent posts are about cards--and they are! I have been using my supplies and trying to create something useful from the stash. It seems to be working. :) Here is one more set of cards for the Operation Write Home collection for the troops overseas. My friend Sue gave me some adorable unmounted rubber stamps and one of them was perfect for this project. I used my Copic markers once again and did a small platoon of 15 army cards. Now I have to pack up all the cards and send them off to Kansas so my regional shipper can get them going to the troops. I feel good about this project and in the last month I have made about 50 cards or more for the cause. I truly hope 50 soldiers--or 50 family members-- enjoy the cards.

(click on photo to enlarge) Thank you Christie at http://creationsbychristie.blogspot.com/ for the idea! I did this above Christmas set of about 15 cards today with the Lovebird (digital image by Jennifer Aho, 2010) for Operation Write home. http://operationwritehome.org/mailroom If you have some surplus (perhaps left over from last year?) blank handmade Holiday cards, consider sending them on to Operation Write Home so the troops can use them to send to their families in 2010. Due deadline is Oct 31. 2010. That is soon-- so get crackin! :) Email the shippers listed on the left side of the OWH webpage to be sure of what they need. My shipper said cards that are different from each other are preferred right now over sending a massive identical set. This is because we are getting closer to that Oct 31 deadline. Keep that in mind. Having them all designed differently would actually be a GOOD thing for stash use! Use one basic card layout idea but change out the papers and accen...

o I issued a challenge this afternoon over on ScrappersChallenge on Yahoo Groups for members. I wanted them to join me as I sorted and ripped articles from my 20 some magazines and kept only the best pages, ideas, or articles. these magazines ranged from way back in 2000 and 2002 all the way up to Jan/Feb 2010 issues!! Did you do the challenge with me? You still can! Here above is the BEFORE stack I had of mostly home and craft magazines. 21 in all---all before spread out on the table. The stack if stacked upright was about 12 inches tall but it never stayed upright for the photo as magazines are so slippery! And here is the AFTER. I included a shot of the ruler in here so you can see that the space saved is amazing. The saved pages, articles, sketches and tips all amounted to about 2 or 3 in each magazine. I ended up with only 1/2 an inch of saved articles!!! Yippeee! So much easier on my mind to find what I want now! I only kept those I thought would REALLY get used or be infor...

The cover Title page (above) The Costa Rica Album! Time to upload some new pages! I talk about speed scrapping a lot. I heartily advocate just getting the job underway --and not second guessing your own personal style and good taste. It can be done. Plan efficiently. Make page kits. Set aside time to crop. Use your stash! I just finished a speed album of 38 vacation pages that I did for my daughter about her Costa Rica trip. My daughter can add her own personal journaling later if she likes. We have plenty of room for that. I am posting the layouts here so you can see how I used what I had. It did not match. Some papers were what I would call downright old and frankly too neon for me. I also used up ribbons, flowers, and more that were bold and bright. However, for this kind of tropical travel album project-- they really did work! I tried to match color schemes to each other (within each two page layout) but not necessarily to the next layout sets. You can get a feel fo...