Tabby Tuesday

I was unloading laundry from the dryer yesterday and stopped to take a phone call. When I returned, Lily had made herself quite comfortable in the dryer!

Garden areas in late June

I spent considerable time at the beginning of the summer working on my garden areas (see posts here and here). The changes I made solved some of the problems but, unfortunately, a few issues remain!

In this collage, you can see that I have a decent amount of color in this backyard garden right now, but I still have spacing issues. They are much more apparent now that many of the perennials have reached full size for the season. In some areas, plants are too close, while in other places, awkward gaps remain. I filled the empty spots with new perennials (and some annuals) a few weeks back. Some of them are doing well, but others aren't performing as I'd hoped. In addition, our trees are considerably bigger now and the lighting conditions have changed what was once a full sun area to partial shade.

By snapping a few pictures now, I'll be able to remember where I need to make adjustments this fall and next spring. It's obvious to me that certain plants need to be moved. I'm hoping that by moving them to the remaining gaps, I'll solve the spacing problems.

Gardening...it's always a work in progress. I just have to keep reminding myself that that the reward lies mostly in the journey, not the destination!

Organization Challenge: Part IV

Well, five us us worked on Scrapbooker X's room last night for over 7 hours. We pushed ourselves because Scrapbooker X is coming home from her vacation today, and we wanted to have the room in good shape for her.

A couple of us spent many hours last night sorting a mountain of buttons, brads, and other embellishments into rainbow color order!

Here's the "completed" wall showing albums, cardstock, paper, and the new shelving. It took 6 hours (prior to our work session) to sort the cardstock and paper. One of our friends spent over 4 hours sorting flowers prior to our work time last night! She put them all into Making Memories jars.

Then she completely transformed the area behind Scrapbooker X's desk to a much more usable space. We had not touched this area until last night but now it's ready for Scrapbooker X to do some serious work!


You can even see the desk now! :-)

As you can see from this photo, the room has a ledge that runs around its perimeter. Scrapbooker X has collected lots of glass containers which will be cute and functional accent pieces in the room. We had hoped to fill and position them decoratively, but we simply ran out of time!

The Very Handy Husband purchased and installed vertical blinds last night faster than you can say ROYGBIV! This made a big difference in the room and will enable her to use the space at night without the neighbors peeking in!

Although we are very weary, I think we all feel great about what we've accomplished this week! The scope of the project was so large that we simply ran out of time (and hands) to do everything the way we would have liked. But the room looks great and the organization systems are now in place. Now Scrapbooker X can take over and really make it work for her!

Aliens, begone!

I was getting ready to print a set of jazz band photos recently and discovered, to my surprise, that many aliens had been at the concert! Below is just one of the many shots of green heads in this set of photos.

What's a scrapbooker to do? Cutting off the bottom portion of each photo was not a good option. Using a lovely green patterned paper to match the aliens didn't seem like a wise choice, either. After all, I want to get rid of the aliens...not draw attention to them!

But printing the photos in black and white completely eliminated the alien issue and created sort of a retro feel which worked well with the theme of the page. Because I'm all about fast and easy these days, I printed three photos in a column on a sheet of 8.5x11 photo paper and cut around the entire block. But best of all, I used two hoarded products: Some very old Ki Memories paper and four Making Memories mailbox letters. (Not to worry: I still have plenty left!)

Another easy layout done. Aliens (thankfully) not included.

Feline Friday: How to drink liek a ladie

Sumtimes I get real thurstie fur a cold drink. So I teached miself how to drink out of dis ginormous watr bowl! An I still luk liek a ladie! If u wants 2 tri it, heer's how:

1) Carfullie jump up on da edge of teh bowl.

2) Stick ur head down in it and start drinkin! Drink fast! U mite even see waves. Do not bez alarmd.

3) Ladies shud not get their pawz wet. Carefullie pozishun ur feet just above teh water. Dis taeks practiss!

4) When ur dun drinkin, nonchalantly jump down as if ure doin nothin out of teh ordinarie.

Thaz it! If u tri dis, let me knoe if mah instruchuns werk!

Luv, Lily

Organization Challenge: Part III

I am so excited! We are making REAL progress in our friend's scrapbooking space. She'll be back from her vacation Sunday, so we've got to hurry!

My friend's Very Handy Husband joined us again this evening and installed shelving along one wall. The shelving idea was the brainchild of my companion on this project, and I think it's pure genius. Adding vertical shelving gives us much more storage and desk space, plus room below the bottom shelf for rolling carts.

Very Handy Husband was powered by Mountain Dew, by the way. :-)

While the shelving was being installed, I gathered cardstock and sorted it very roughly into rainbow-color order. *sigh* There is NOTHING BETTER than rainbow-color order! Next I'll be sorting the patterned paper by color to go into the neighboring paper trays.

Scrapbooker X had this old MAMBI spinning rack in her scraproom, but she was only using the top ribbon racks because the bottom ones are sized for 8.5x11 paper. The spinning rack was taking a lot of floor space which could be used for other purposes.

My friend had the great idea to remove the wire ribbon racks and attach them to the wall. Now all of the ribbon can be arranged in rainbow-color order! *sigh* This is a great example of re-purposing!

And yes, the paint is now in rainbow-color order! *sigh*

We've established zones in the room now for photos/photo printing, her Cricut, Sizzix and QuicKutz, and magazines/idea books. The next big task is embellishment organization.

Much work remains to be done, but the room is starting to take shape!

Layout: Ice Skating

Here's another super-easy layout I finished recently, again with a bit of help from my daughter.

I created a collage of these fun ice skating photos using Picasa, then I printed it on an 8.5x11 sheet of photo paper. (Cheating? Maybe...but it's a great way to get a lot of photos on a single page. And since I pulled these photos from Facebook, the quality wasn't great, but in a collage it's not quite so noticeable.) I had my daughter write the journaling, then I printed the title/journaling strip on my wide-format printer.



For all of you Ki Memories fans (and you know who you are!), notice that I used a few pieces from my hoarded stash -- including my coveted chipboard snowman! But I continue to use this particular striped paper only little bit at a time. That way, I'll be able to use it for years to come!

Organization Challenge: Part II

This evening we worked again on Scrapbooker X's scraproom (read about this challenge here).

Although it may be hard to see, we made some very good progress. We continued sorting items and moving furniture to create a better flow in the room.

In an ideal world, you would completely clear the room and move pieces back in one at a time, but due to the configuration of Scrapbooker X's house, that's not possible. To a certain extent, we had to shift our piles from one part of the room to another to make room to move furniture.

Our third friend wasn't available today, but a very handy husband (not mine!) stepped in and took care of a few repairs. He also helped us move some of the heavier furniture pieces.

Later this week, he's coming back to hang shelving along this wall. I'm told he'll be paid with ice cream! :-)

While we're making real progress, we know we won't have everything done before Scrapbooker X returns from vacation. But we hope that the basic structure will be in place, enabling her to feel productive and inspired in her space!

Layout: Iowa Jazz Championships

Here's a layout I finished up last week about the Iowa Jazz Championships, with a little help from my daughter. It's a pretty big deal for a jazz band to qualify for this state-wide event. Her band took fifth place this year.

I've been looking forward to working with this particular set of photos. The lighting on stage was great and the blue/gold spotlights made for an interesting vertical design element.

I wanted the look of this layout to be sleek and contemporary to reflect the band's music, so I kept the design very simple (no surprise there!), using strong horizontal lines to balance the vertical spotlight stripes. I enlarged two of my favorite photos, then I had Daughter choose the others.

I also asked her to write the journaling. As often as possible, I like to have her tell the story for her events. In years to come, she'll be glad she took the time to write down her own memories. I think we make a pretty good scrapbooking team! :-)

Care for some...um...vortex bread?

After our first bread-machine disaster (read about it here), we gave it a few days then decided to try again.

This time, Daughter added no additional water and again followed the instructions precisely. Everything appeared to be going very well until the final 30 minutes or so, when an unusual-looking vortex began to form in the top of the bread.

Unfortunately, we had no idea how to fix the problem at that point, so we let the loaf finish baking and then removed it from the bread machine. In spite of its odd appearance, the bread was completely done and actually tasted quite good.

Just a bit difficult to butter, that's all.

Organization Challenge: Part I

A couple of friends and I embarked on a little organization challenge this week: We volunteered to organize the scraproom of a mutual friend while she is out of town on vacation! All three of us enjoy organizing and thought it would be fun and challenging to help out a fellow scrapbooker.

Scrapbooker X, as I promised to call her :-), is a super-creative, artistic person. We can only imagine what she could do if her space was organized and inspiring!

As you can see from these photos, Scrapbooker X has a large space...and quite a lot of scrapbooking supplies! She also has several storage units and containers but isn't using them to their full potential. In addition, she has collected a number of decorative pieces to create a garden-type theme in her room. In short, she has the potential for a great space!

On our first visit, we surveyed the territory to get a feel for the task ahead. :-)

When organizing a room, it's a good idea to start with the "big picture." How do you want the room to function? Can you designate areas for certain tasks like stamping, sewing, or die-cutting? Scrapbooker X is lucky to have a room large enough for several activity zones. With a good organization plan, she will also have room for friends to scrapbook with her.

Our first task was to begin sorting and grouping like items together so that we could move furniture and begin to set up activity zones. We labeled boxes for tools, paper, embellishments, and other supplies. We designated a box for items that had made their way to the scraproom but didn't really belong there.

Ideally, the next step would be for Scrapbooker X to sort through each box and group things into three categories -- Yes, No, and Maybe. The "Yes" items are things to keep. The "No" items are things to get rid of -- sell, donate, repurpose, etc. The "Maybe" items should go into long-term storage (6+ months) for later reassessment. The only items that really should be organized are those designated "Yes". But since Scrapbooker X is out of town and can't do this step right now, we may end up organizing everything. She can take care of this step later.

I invite you to follow us next week as we delve into this organization challenge! :-)

Feline Friday

kits

kit cat ;-)