It is the second week of April! Is your kitchen out of control? It's time to try to decrease our extras in the kitchen area! Clutter freaks--come out of that pantry!!! Yes you! I can see the Tupperware and plastics exploding out of the cabinet. I can see the old stale cereal behind the maple syrup bottle! Let's get busy this week in the kitchen zone. Foods : If it is old and stale --toss it. If you really don't like it (think salad dressings, marmalades, sauces, mustards, food gifts from December that you haven't even opened, etc) but it is still good, then donate to a food shelf TODAY! It's not getting any more tasty or fresh sitting in your cupboards. Kitchenware: you know we all accumulate a LOT of it over time. Seems like every fast food and gas station chain has a promo and a plastic cup collection. LOL Recycle the cups and plastics or donate them. HALF is the goal. Decrease the food storage plastics in your kitchen by HALF this week. Keep the sizes that WOR...

In a Funk? Let's chat... All right. It's just you and me here. Me typing on my end and you reading on your end. Let's ignore the other 9900 people on the SC list that read this at other times during the day and chat a minute. You and me being real. As the moderator you hear my little speeches and emails almost daily. I try to encourage everyone as a group every day to MOVE toward those goals that we have in common. Now, I am just talking to you. You may not know me in person. But I can tell you are waiting for something. You are waiting for some sort of a 'go' signal from the cosmos, from me, from the groups you belong to, or from yourself before you really kick start yourself and make a change. You might say you are waiting for the loved ones in your life to do x, y, or Z before you tidy up your life. You might be waiting for a raise before you can 'afford' to organize. You might be waiting for the kids to move out so you can have more space. There are lo...

From our discussions this am --and from other talks with friends lately-- I think we need a Halfsies (50%) Household Challenge. What is that? Is is an aggressive Spring Cleaning challenge for those of us who have waaaaayy too much stuff. A room or a whole household...it doesn't matter. If you can't walk through your home and say that it is pared down and perfect, join us! Do as much as you can. If you feel overwhelmed by your belongings and your household disarray, join us. If you feel like no one can come over because things are a wreck, join us. If you just want some focus and encouragement in each room, join us. If you can truly say with an objective eye that HALF the stuff you own (50%) has to go for you to get back to happy, let's do it! April will be HALFSIES month. We will go around the home room by room and cut in HALF our inventory inventory in all the places we can. You may not even realize yet that you have as much in each category as you will find.... Half the ...

"How can we find more time for our hobby?" I hear it all the time from scrappers of all types: "I need more hours in my day," "I can't find time to scrap," "If only I could have a whole week to myself to get organized," "I can't seem to get going on my books," "I haven't done a page in months," and "I shop more than I scrap!" Common complaints, right? Have you ever said similar things? I must admit I have often felt pressed for time and my hobby is the first thing to flex. But if it flexes too often, we don't get very far finishing pages do we? Let's figure out a way to have more TIME to scrapbook. The Problem: Our resources and time is limited. Not only by our busy schedules, but also by the unexpected aspects of life--like job stress, carpools, children's events, sickness, etc. Sometimes I hear scrappers joke about "never getting caught up" "working on my books from now to for...

You have heard of a microscope....You can use it to look in giant detail at a tiny bit of something. Our society tends to encourage us to do this with our science, our education, our politics, and even our hobbies and lifestyles. Everyone is a specialist. One expert will even try to out-expert the other.... But today I was reading about turning our thinking around a bit when we solve problems. It is often better to take a MACRO-scope view instead of a microscope view. We can use this kind of 'overview thinking' not only in our jobs --but at home. That concept got me thinking. The bigger picture of life and a sense of prioritizing on a bigger scale are often left behind in lieu of pursuing the specific immediate goodies of life. Taking a bigger view was brought to my attention this week as I am helping a friend organize her entire home. I empathized with her when she said she had lost sight of what it must look like to other people coming in to her home. She has been overlo...

Do you have a messy clothing closet? Would you like to learn how to tame it? How BAD is it? :) Send me your ONE photo of your clothing closet as a messy-mess. Send it to me at Rockester@magnaspeed.net with CLOSET MONSTER UNLEASHED contest in the subject line. ONE lucky person will win the following book: Some of the closet pics will be posted here without names. OCTOBER 31: I will RANDOMLY pick the winner on the scary holiday (because those closets are scary too!) on October 31st, 2008. So pass this on to your friends if you don't mind the competition. :) Unleash that Closet Monster in your wardrobe area and win a truly helpful book on Halloween! Remember--just ONE pic so make it good. Rockester@magnaspeed.net Good luck Rockester

It's Super Fling Boogie Decluttering Time! Let's kick some bootie here....kick it to the curb I mean! Dig in and REALLY declutter your home. Gather up all that junk.... Flylady says it's time for her: "Super Fling Boogie Meter!! Every few months we have what is called a Super Fling Boogie, we all as a collective group around the world, rev up our engines and commit to spending 15 minutes a day getting rid of the clutter in our homes.The Super Fling Boogie will start on September 22nd in Zone 4 (The Master Bedroom) and we will go through all of the zones/rooms in the home!! To make this fun we have a pound meter set up below, we ask that everyone either weigh or guesstimate the weight of what you get out of your house. It could be trash, recycling or give away. If it leaves your house, it counts as pounds tossed out of your home. The meter will be up at http://flylady.com on Monday the 22nd!!!" Over on Scrapperschallenge we will also be keeping track of how much y...

Keep what is working for your storage needs. Eliminate what is not.Here is how to keep your home organization and scrapbook workspace decluttering manageable. Commit to it. Every change starts with commitment. If you don’t have a way to mentally keep yourself on track for any organization project, write it down. Something as simple as “YES I WILL!” note to self hanging on the bathroom mirror will help you keep going when organizing the bathroom cabinets.Cheer yourself on with post it notes. Start with something manageable . Projects take time but don’t bite off too much at once. Peter Walsh says 30 minutes. Flylady says 15 minutes. Julia Morgenstern says 10 minutes. I am not sure I honestly keep my work sessions that tiny. But the idea of making things more manageable in smaller time slots is sensible. No one likes to have to stop in the middle of clearing a dresser or filing life insurance papers away. You like to have a start point and a stop point and then pat yourself on...

My makeup drawer needed help yesterday. Well actually it needed help LONG before that. But I just got fed up yesterday. You see I don't wear much makeup on a daily basis. I can get dolled up for a photo shoot or a public speaking event. But daily? I can't be bothered. I don't know if it is because I was raised on a farm until I was 12 and mom never had a ton of time for makeup back then either. (Later she became a beautician so go figure!) Or maybe it was because it was Oregon in the 70's when I hit my teen years and everything cosmetic was aloe vera this and avacado that. Those are good ingredients but I didn't feel compelled to put things on my face to wear that I was also seeing on my dinner plate and on my grandfathers sunburn. So now I am an adult and I do wear some makeup. But for some reason, I have accumulated a ton of suppplies. My makeup drawer overflows into the medicine cabinet and the hall linen closet. Maybe that has something to do with having a bea...

Cropping Party Games Because I have been a scrapper so long, I am often asked how to plan a crop or party. Sometimes I just say “Bring out the chocolate, call our scrapbooking buddies and it will instantly be a party!” But honestly it takes a little more planning than that. One of my favorite things to do is to share my stash in the form of prizes and giveaways. From fiber to gems to rubber stamps, if you come to my crops you usually get goodies!!! But usually you have to EARN them in the form of occasional crop games or contests. I have adapted some bridal and baby shower games to scrapbooking parties with success. And I have also adopted other games I have played at conventions and store crops. Here are a few games for scrapbooking parties that might help you plan your next get-together. Here are a few games to space out throughout the crop about an hour apart. At the beginning of the crop: Name Doodle Contest: Have markers of all kinds available (your Zig collection?) and blank name...

FIBER GIVEAWAY FREEBIE!!! LEAVE A COMMENT and you could WIN!! I have two box lots of various fibers and yarns to give away this month. Want 'em?? Leave a comment below how you use yarn in scrapbooking and everyone who leaves a comment on this blog entry is in the random drawing for a box of various yarn skeins and partial skeins of several colors. Colors will vary from photo above but you get the idea. So, just leave a COMMENT in the comment button/box at lower right of this blog entry and mention a ribbon or fiber tip or yarn fiber-use comment. You MIGHT WIN one of these goodie boxes absolutely free. Be sure to leave your email so I can contact you if your name is chosen. Thanks! And good luck! Rockester

Click to enlarge any photo. Here are the photos! Walk with me through the before and after pics of my various sections of the room. :) You won't believe how messy a room can get in one month (NOV/DEC) and how clean it can get in two weekends of really sorting and hard work (1/13/2008 and 1/20/2008) Above: AFTER: Inspiration board My inspiration board of photos of my family. It really is just a garage sale bulletin board hung long way on a door back and covered in pretty fabric. Use what you have to make your space special and creative--including those precious photos. Below: Before: cutting desk my cutting station desk with a few projects stacked on it. And then...after...The cutting station desk with a close up of my tool caddy. It is really a garage sale find--a Pampered Chef tool turn around. This wooden desk is in need of a coat of paint but I love that it is sturdy and STAYS where it should when I am using the Sizzix or the giant iron school guillotine paper cutter (garage s...

Need an aggressive method of purging your home of unwanted clutter? Tired of the build up from decades of household crap? There is an exercise I recommend. I do it sometimes when organizing my stuff and other people's items. I call it the "STOP and Drop 8" method. I just did this with my friend Judy P's on friday with her. She is on oxygen and needed my help. Here is what we did. A STOP sign has 8 sides. So we use the number 8 here as a benchmark number. Take everything out of the drawer or closet or whereever. In this example we have the spice rack in Judy's kitchen. Judy had about 35 different spice bottles in one cabinet. they were falling out and spilling when the door was opened. A couple klobbered me on the head when I went to make us lunch. :) Laughing, she gave me the go -ahead to consolidate for her because she can't reach up and do it. She had duplicates and emptys and all kinds of herbs and spices. Some looked pretty old and some were brand new. I ...

I moderate a great list. I love it! :) As moderator there, I often get private emails asking for additional tips or help or thank yous. Every now and then I hear sadder stories about very creative people feeling overwhelmed. Feeling stuck. Scrapbookers who haven't scrapped in years. Stampers who can't seem to get motivated even to pick out ink for a card. Crafters and sewers look at their lovely stashes and say "Why was I doing this again?" That's when I get out my thinking cap-- and my empathy pen --and write them heartfelt notes in typical Rockester style. Here is what I usually say. Overwhelmed? You wanted to start 2008 off with a productive and loving focus. You had good hobby intentions... But why are you just heading for the sofa instead? Any of these three common scenarios may be the problem. 1. SUPPLY CHAOS STRESS : You come home from a full day of work. You are soooo tired. But you would love ot be able to get some crafting done tonight. You might even ma...