Sunday, January 20, 2008

For all of those not in the know (which is everyone). My computer is crapping out and it no longer recognizes the keyboard. So, to type I have to either copy and paste letters from a website into where ever I want to type (which takes eons), or type on my laptop then open up that file on my desktop computer and copy and paste as needed. Fun, fun, fun. This is copied from the laptop because I am not a glutton for punishment. So, if I don't reply to an email or comment on a blog, this is why. Eventually the computer will just die off enough that we will replace it. Maybe tomorrow. Until then, I will do the email/blog stuff mostly from work. Got it?

Actually, our new mortgage just went through and we got an unexpected check from overpaying the escrow for our old mortgage, so we really should just go out and get another computer, but we are cheap and lazy and not yet prepared to do that.

I dazzled you with my literary prowess in the description of my scraproom, and I am now procrastinating my scrapping by giving you a visual companion to that (for all you visual learners). Prepare to be amazed! I would welcome ANY suggestions for organizationalness and reorienting of things in my little room. I LOVE to organize, and I am still in need of help.....

My repurposed spice rack

Hard to see, but I put some patterned paper around the tops to cover up the spice names that couldn't be removed

Spice rack

Fifth right side cubby on the left wall--tackle boxes of small embellishments. You can also see the Sixth left side cubby wiht a few inks and a container with my small shaped chipboard albums

Fifth left cubby on the left wall--My inks and paints

Fourth right side cubby on the left wall--three boxes of supplies (pens, adhesives and photos/negatives), along with absolute randomness

Fourth left cubby on the left wall--envelopes and blank cards and just randomness


Third right side cubby on the left wall-old scrap magazines, instruction manuals, small albums I have completed


Third left cubby on the left wall--Digital camera equipment and randomness

Second right side cubby on the left wall-smelly candles for room ambience



Top left cubby on the left wall--OLD cameras and some fabric for photo shoots

Second cubby down on the far left of the left wall--more old camera photo equipment

Top right side cubby on the left wall--yearbooks

Top shelf on the left wall--my 8.5 x11 scrap album and fabric for photo shoots that I really should start doing again. My kitties are beautiful and I should share them with the world!!

Fourth shelf on the left wall--extra candles, wrapping paper, white 12x12 paper and clear plastic album sleeves for finished layouts

Third shelf on the left wall--containers to be altered and my large cutting mat

Second shelf up on the left wall--ribbon rack and random stuff stored here

Left wall bottom long shelf (same level as the desk. My 6x6 papers a re stacked up, my sewing machine and embellishment spice rack are here

Second cubby down on the far left of the main wall--picture sorted by where I lived when they were taken

Third cubby down on the left side of the main wall--memorabilia collected while on vacation and not yet used for layouts.

Middle main wall cubby--foam alphas, rubons and vellum items

Containers used for storing my alphas

12x12 paper storage (bottom center cubby)

Ribbon storage in old shoeboxes (yes, I should cover them with pretty paper and make them not so shoeboxish)

The storage tray on the wall on my right--holds large paper scraps, uncompleted layouts and random crap...

The front end of the wall on my right

The back end of the wall on my right

The back right side of my desk

The back left side of my desk (of course with the LOTR playing on the computer as usual). Note the massive pile of chipboard in baggies. I need help!!! Both in storage of these and in the not purchasing of them!!

The shoe holder I have on my door for seldom used items.

My new cell phone--the old one died a terrible death, and these Muziq phones were on sale, so Ethan and I both got them (used our Sprint credits and only ended up paying $50 each for them). They have mp3 players built in and are very cool. My first portable music player! Ethan of course got the black version, not the pink one. I am SO not a pink person, but this is a sort of light cranberry, not a bubblegum pink so I decided to go for it.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Much ado about scrappiness

I have recently begun to explore my scrappiness. I am the world's slowest scrapper. I cannot tell you how many times I have entered my scraproom, settled myself into my chair and not scrapped. I end up organizing my little space, goofing off with pictures on my computer, or spacing out. When I DO actually scrap, I am now getting some stuff done. I have had some serious scrappers block lately, so I scan the 2peas website for layouts that look cool and I modify them to work with my Australia album pages (roughly 8x11 sized), and go from there. Scraplifting. Whatever.

I have thought a lot about why I scrap. I want to document what I did, and make it in a visually pleasing manner. I see lots of layouts that are beautiful and complex, and are more like posters or pretty art. I want to tell a story. My layouts won't be published or copied by others, but they WILL tell you what I did or where I went or how I felt. And that is what I am trying to do.

I took my lovely rotating spice rack that I won in a white elephant exchange eons ago and emptied out the spices, cleaned it up, put patterned paper around the tops where it had the spice names, and put my eyelets and brads and small things like that in it. It looks pretty cool and opens up a bit of space in my room.

I love how cozy my room is. It is 4.5 by 5.5 feet big, with built-in shelving and a desk for me. See pics from I think April 2006 for more.

On my left is a wall of shelving. There are two cubbies, each about a foot wide for each level of shelves. The bottom shelves are storage for junk right now.

The second shelf (calf height) has tackle boxes with small embellishments that don't go in the spice rack, and the other second shelf has an embellished French Vanilla Cafe container that has my shaped chipboard albums that are not yet completed (well, not yet STARTED would be more accurate), and also some inks that I don't use as often.

The next set of shelves (about waist height when I sit in my chair) have all my inks and paints on one, and the other side has three wooden boxes--the bottom has pens and pencils, the middle has glue dots, tapes and attaching things like that; and the top has old film negatives and printed out pictures I have not decided what to do with. I also have a whole pile of junk shoved next to these wooden boxes. Very pretty. This is also where I store the embellished birthday and Christmas cards I get in the mail (once they are done being displayed on the fridge).

The fourth set of shelves (shoulder height when I sit), have some scrap magazines and books, books about CS2 and the info books for my computer and scrap sewing machine. The other side has a bunch of crap. And an album I am mostly done with but keep not working on. My first little album, actually.

Shelf five has one side with all my camera equipment--camera, lenses, etc, and the other side has a bajillion smelly candles. I light one every couple weeks, and the scent stays in my teeny room forever.

The top set of shelves has more camera stuff (mostly my manual/non digital camera stuff), and old yearbooks for Ethan and I.

So that is my left side.

On my right is a wall. No shelves. I have a wide file holder with 3 pockets that has a bunch of papery crap in it. Probably all should be thrown away but I am such a packrat I can't bring myself to do it. It is supposed to store layouts in progress that I am stuck on, so I could put them there and go back to them when I have an idea. Supposed to.

I also have some thumbtacks that I hang some rubon alphas on, and some button containers, acrylic stamps, etc. Basically anything with a hole the size of the thumbtack is there, but I ran out of thumbtacks after 5 so not really that much stuff. I do have some papers with scrap sketches on them, but I have done layouts with all those sketches so I really should toss them.

So that is the wall on my right.

Behind me is a shoe organizer that hangs over the door. It has about 20 pockets and holds things I rarely use--shaping scissors, rulers, etc, etc.

On my left and in front of me is more shelves--one long cubby for each level. To be honest, these are all full of junk. Just stuff crammed in there precariously. But nothing has fallen out yet. I have the cool Starbucks advent calender that Davinie gave me to alter that I just haven't done yet (but I will--it is a cool idea...), I have more candles that won't fit in the candle cubby, I have a beautiful picture of Homer, Alaska with a mat I got for it, but it is panoramic and the $100+ I need for the custom frame makes it collect dust on the shelf. I have a huge cutting mat for sewing that I don't use. Fabric for photo backgrounds for photo shoots that I never have.

The bottom-most shelf is on the desk itself. I have a stack of 6x6 papers with DVDs on top of them; I have my mini sewing machine that I have used once for scrapping because I forget I have it, there are cords galore for my computer, the sewing machine and my printer and extra lights, and my external hard drive is shoved in the very back. I recently added the rotating spice rack (sorta like a teeny lazy susan with two levels of spices).

On the desk itself is my laptop (left side near the back). Behind it is a ton of chipboard shapes and letters still in their packages that I forget I have and therefore never use. Next to them (and this is all underneath a shelf that is 12 inches deep), is a medium sized three drawer container that has Basic Grey Chipboard letters (bottom drawer), file folders (middle), and small alphas (top). Then I have my small 3 drawer container with tags (top drawer), distressing supplies (middle) and pictures in progress (that I have done something to, but abandoned). I have three drawer insert things stacked up next to this that each have a lid and three compartments. They hold beads and punches and are on the far right side of the desk. In front of all this stuff is a bunch of random crap with no home. WOrking on that. On the far right side is a small pot with all my eyelet setters, hole punchers, scissors, etc. I also have my 12 inch paper cutter and the glues I use most often. The rest of the desk is open for my projects. I have about 24 inches wide and about 15 inches deep to work with, and that is fine for me.

Straight ahead are tons more shelves. The bottom shelf has cubbies that are about 4-5 inches wide and they have glass jars full of flowers sorted by colors. I also have Prima jars on top of my medium sized 3 drawer container.

Above this shelf is a shelf with 3 cubbies. The far right cubby has a metal chocolates container I covered with paper and filled with all my alphas--stickers, rubons, chipboard, etc. The middle cubby has all my 12x12 papers. Sorted by brand and/or color. Cardstock in it's own containers. The far left cubby has some shoeboxes with a bunch of holes punched in the side. Each hole has a couple inches of ribbon sticking out of it, so I can see what I have and pull out and cut off what I need.

The next shelf up also has 3 cubbies. The left and right ones hold boxes with pictures inside, and the middle one holds clear containers with my rubons and vellum items.

I think there is just one more shelf, also with three cubbies. These all have various albums in them.

So that is my scraproom. But there is more.........
Under the desk, there are some shelves with random crap on them, and on my left there is a 4 drawer rolling storage unit that I store pieces of patterned paper, sorted by size (top drawer), solid paper sorted by color (second drawer), stickers and Jolees that I will never use (third drawer), and picture frames and random crap (bottom drawer).

On the floor to my right are UPS boxes with the tops cut off that have the monthly kits I used to receive. I removed all the embellishments, just have the patterned papers and cardstock still together. Need to do something about them. On the floor to my left and behind me is an empty box that I set my printer on. I can just rotate my chair to access it, and I step over it to get in and out of the room.


THAT is my room. In case you were wondering.

Monday, January 07, 2008




I don't think I look like myself in this pic. Do you think I look like someone else?? A little bit?? Who???
OK.

What is up with the Amersons?? Well, we have finished our refinance, new mortgage starts in February. Ethan did pay off the credit cards, so we have no debt but mortgage, which is awesome.

We are going to Hawaii in September, still trying to decide if we want to tack on a couple days on Oahu before going to our timeshare in Maui for a week or if we want to fly to the Big Island for a couple days to see the volcanic activity. Suggestions???

We are supposed to go to Los Cabos in April--still waiting to hear back from our timeshare for confirmation. We upgraded from a studio to a 2-bedroom to go with Justin and Kim (our wedding gift to them). So, hopefully that gets approved and I can get some plane tickets. Getting a little antsy--usually I have vacation stuff all booked much earlier than this!

What else.....we didn't really make New Year's resolutions this year. Still working on the Treks--now finishing season 4 of TNG so we are over half way done with that series.

One resolution we DID talk about (not a New Years one, more of a life one), is to visit every continent (except of course Antarctica which just doesn't sound like a lot of fun). We have a VERY long way to go on this one, but I am sure we can do it. I have been to Australia and Ethan to Europe, but it doesn't count until we BOTH go, so........ I am hoping to go to Europe in 2009. Not sure where, but Athens and Rome are high on my list. Maybe fly into London (easiest), go to Paris for a day or so (have heard that Paris is best done in small bites--probably take the train through the chunnel and spend one night there), then go to Rome (Ethan has already been, but knows I really want to go), I would love to see the Cinque Terra area, and maybe a train or something to Athens and fly home from there?? Or Athens first, then Rome. I think it is easier to fly home from Rome then Athens.

Cool?? I MUST take Ethan to Australia to snorkel and see Sydney. So awesome! Asia will be pretty easy--tons of countries to choose from. Maybe Singapore with Justin and Kim?? His dad used to live there, so Justin has been and would have tips, plus it is quite English speaking and the language barried would be much easier. But does it count as the Asian continent??? I will have to think about that.

South America will be pretty easy, too. Lots of our timeshare properties if we go that route, and lots of countries I wouldn't be scared of going to.

Africa will be our hard one, but the most looked-forward-to for me. It has long been a dream of mine to go to the Congo. With the political instability there, that is not an option for me, but we could do South Africa or Tanzania or Namibia or something like that. One of the nurses at work recently did Tanzania and South Africa and has raving reviews of her journey.

So. Lots of travel ahead in our lives. I love going places and seeing things and just experiencing the world. Ethan and I gave up giving each other gifts for Christmas or birthdays with the thought that we would rather give 'experiences' (ie: travel), so we are making a point to do at the very least one big trip each year, and hopefully a couple smaller ones as well. So 2008 is Los Cabos (our first return to a city we have already experienced) and Hawaii, and hopefully 2009 is Europe and a Vegas trip (should have our Treks done and that was part of our resolution!!).

What else... I am going to Portland in February for the CKC convention (just for one night....short but sweet).........

We are hoping to take a train to Portland in March for Kim's birthday and do a McMenamins hotel--probably Edgefield. We got buy one, get one free vouchers from the Seahawks with our playoff tickets that are just too good to give up.


Other things........

Seahawks!! Had an awesome time at the game on Saturday. My head hurt, my throat hurt, I lost my voice, but......we are going to Green Bay!! We want the ball, and we're gonna score!!! (probably no one who reads this particular blog will get that last sentence, but it still cracks me up and is quite popular here in the South Alaska Seahawks nation).



So. That is what is up. I have a picture I will try to remember to load in later. I went to a Christmas party for the Ortho staff at work last month and straightened my hair. This picture totally makes me look like someone else!! I have an inkling who *I* think I look like, but I will have to see what my loyal readers think.....