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.