"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...

LISA R's ROOM REVIEW Yeah! We have another room review for you. Here is Lisa's room BEFORE and what she had to say. "Since my son moved out, I 'flipped' his room into my 'new' scrapbook room.... "I've been so danged busy organizing! LOL! I have still a lot to organize. Some of those pictures, like the closet picture, the stuff is out of the closet(as well as out from next to the dresser)so that's empty now and I've placed some totes inside the closet with the vacuum. So that's better now." Lisa took her room from Before (see above) when she couldn't even walk into the doorway to completely empty (see below) to organized the best way she felt it would go (see below) What a wonderful improvement. Kudos and Congrats to Lisa for all her hard work. I think she did most of it in about a week too. I know she was very excited as it all started to come together for her. Here is what she had to say, ".... OMG, I feel SO MUCH MORE ...

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...