Totally forgot…

…it`s Friday! I got so busy cleaning and organizing in my craft room that I forgot everything else I should have done today. A well – there is always Saturday. At least I did my digi layout early this morning.

 

Since I have no sense of colours at all it was a little surprising to find blue stuff all over the place. That must be my mothers influence.

Paper clutter…

…is the most difficult thing to handle. And even worse if you are a paper scrapper who loves to take classes. The stacks of paper grows and grows. In the beginning I had to print everything and every paper was put in a binder. I have nine of them. And I have never – ever opened one of them. Maybe I will one day? Or maybe not… But that is not the problem. The binders are stacked in a cabinet and are not hurting anyone. It is the paper that are not in binders that create the problem. Because somewhere in those stacks of paper there are one or two treasures hidden.

I signed up for Aby Garvey`s Paper Clutter class weeks ago but she lost me in the third lesson. I wanted to set up a perfect system for all my papers and made it very difficult for my self. Mistake number one- I gave up without trying. Mistake number two – I didn`t ask for help. Well, I am stupid, but I am not going for mistake number three. With five days to go before the class close – I set the timer and went to work. 

I am not done. Still have a long way to go, but I am making progress. And I have a pretty good idea of how I want my system to work. While the rest of the house is completely decluttered, my work space is not. I did organize my scrap things at the beginning of the year, and that is still working great, but I have been moving things in here for three months without taking action and it shows. Well – that ends now.

Good thing I made my layout for “Beautiful Evidence” early this morning.

Love the beautiful papers Jessica provided us with. Good thing I`m working digital these days…

Senses…

 

In the early morning hours Jessica Sprague had us take a test. 240 questions – and yes, it was early morning.

My character strengths:

1. Industry. diligence, and perseverance - You work hard to finish what you start. No matter the project. you “get it out the door” in timely fashion. You do not get distracted when you work. and you take satisfaction in completing tasks.
2. Hope, optimism, and future-mindedness – You expect the best in the future, and you work to achieve it. You believe that the future is something that you can control.
3. Humor and playfulness – You like to laugh and tease. Bringing smiles to other people is important to you. You try to see the light side of all situations.
4. Perspective (wisdom)- Although you may not think of yourself as wise, you friends hold this view of you. they value your perspective on matters and turn to you for advice. You have a way of looking at the world that makes sense to others and to your self.
5. Zest, enthusiasm, and energy- Regardless of what you do, you approach it with excitement and energy . You never do anything halfway or halfheartedly. For you, life is an adventure.

And it goes on and on. Me? I call it obsessive.

Christmas journaling…

…is soon up, but first there is a few things that need to be done. Like getting the house ready. I figure that if I do that now,  the preparations for Christmas will be so much sweeter. I never have the energy to clean before Christamas anyway. Aby Garvey`s free class “I don`t know where to start” is a great start to get moving. I have signed up for her next Organizing class as a alumni you get it for half the prize and it  works wonders for my motivation. Been cleaning all day.

Talking about wonders. In Jessica Sprague`s class we learned how to work with the magic tool today. Oh I loved that one. It made my day.

 

Can`t wait to play more with the magic.

This two looks like they are born to sit on the kitchen counter.

To declutter…

…may make me a happy girl, but it does nothing for my inspiration. I am thankful that  Jessica Sprague`s class Beautiful Evidence started today. Working on the computer is easy when the desk is clean. It never occurred to me to look in the classroom to see if there were any homework before class started so it came as a big surprise last night to find a ton of things to do. It would have been so much easier if I had the photos gathered before I started to work on the assignments. But, I am okay.

The awesome templates Jessica gave us are big and makes my computer slow down a bit, but  if I were to complain about anything it would be that there are to much beauty to choose from. I took the first template for a test drive and came up with this:

All about me. Seems to be this years theme…Maybe a little to much me these days? I think it is, so I made one for my sister in law also:

So – we might have  the same passion in life…If I had had any hope that she would have an answer to give me I would have asked her what was the most important things in her life these days. I don`t think she would have answered. So I am taking the liberty to do the picking.

These pages are 12×12. I have no idea if it is possible to print that size in Norway. If it is it will expensive. So I re-sized to 8×8 and did a print here at home. It looks good. I doubt I will make an album for me, but some pages will be printed and put in somewhere.

Aby Garvey`s free decluttering class started today. It feels so good to get going again. I started working on my to do list this morning and I love to have the message board in the class as motivation. I am fit to fight and ready to go to morrow morning.

Scrapbooking weekend…

 

…I`m not spoiled with weekends. Working 6 days a week kind of make the weekend short. First comes a week of vacation and then in addition comes the weekend. It does make the week very long. In a good way. And there are two more to come. Wow, I will be spoiled. Early this morning I started out to clean my living room. The first thing I had to do was putting away all the layouts I have made the last two weeks….guess I got sidetracked. Because moments later I was scrapbooking. That would have been okay if I had done what I started out doing, but I was not. Somehow I got obsessed to see if I could stitch on a page without sewing machine.      

 

 

I could, even if it was a lot more work than I thought it would be.

 

 

I had this weird photo of these two. They are walking away from each other. The poem covers what I want to say to them. It says something like this; “Let us be for each other, like we were in the beginning; Friendship, joy, help and comfort. Let the love between siblings live on, because that is the A,B,C of love.”

Shimelle`s last handout for the week was “view”. Looking through my photos I found this “sparkling” photo of my sister in law taken in 2007. I remember her saying that she had enjoyed this ride on the bike so much. There were never enough time to enjoy being outside by herself. Work and grandchild, work and grandchild… So – what now – there are work and three grandchildren.:) Makes me wonder…

 

 

The best weekend to everyone!

Wrecking Sister`s re-united…

…and it is Friday.

A few days ago a nice girl at the Unravelling message board posted something called: Manifesto for Growth by Bruce Mau. It is fascinating. I think I may look closer to what this guy is saying and how that affect me.

 

 

The big question is: Do I want to change? Do I want to grow?  While pondering about that I will do the dishes.

This turned out to be…

…a warm nice summer day. When I woke up this morning it was raining and I needed a sweater. A few hours later it was like walking into a wall of heat when I came outside. Now it looks like it is brewing up some ugly weather. I better get ready and unplug before the thunder hits.

Now – lets  see what I have been up to today. I made two layouts for Shimelle`s class at Two Peas. I didn`t know what to do with yesterdays handout, but slowly it turned into an idea. It was all about nature. I do have a lot of nature and flowers printed out,  but I had no inspiration. Seems like weddings are my inspiration these days…

The bride is not known to spend the money on her self so her mother in law and I were very anxious to see how her dress would turn out. To be honest we were a little nervous that she  would look like a low price act. She did not.  She was the most beautiful bride – ever. We were so proud of this girl, that now belongs in our family.

Today’s handout was about the weather. Well, the day started with rain so I could not help myself thinking about how life would be different if we had been were we should have been. Hanging out on the beach, digging into the buffet and drinking cold beer. So I made a layout about the reason why we are not doing just that.

Grandma was not willing to travel and come home with the svineflue. No one was raising their voice. Now – I did not write anything about the fact that grandpa was scared about being put in quarantine – and not being able to travel home with the rest of us. The kids does not need to know everything. And we need some goodies to tell some other time as well.

Since I am 1 kg down according my weight,  it was time to make a new page in my mini-book. Using Kolette Hall`s beautiful art. I am still passive in the training department. Ah well – some day now…

Karen Grunberg`s class -Telling Stories Deeply, started at Big Picture Scrapbooking today. I need to focus on that one. It is more intensive than a lot of classes – if you want to take the most out of it. It`s not to late to sign up. Karen is a wonderful teacher and I promise you will learn and enjoy. If you sign up – you also get Karens selfpaced class Change of Plans for free. I have made my album ready to go. All I have to do now is to find out how to remember 10 – 20 years back.

It`s time to get ready to unplug, before the thunder hits…

It`s sunshine…

 …and that means cleaning. Did you think I would say; spending the day outside? No, I try to avoid that one. I just watched Susannah Conway`s Unravelling video for the week. She suggested that we should spend the day as our alter ego. Brilliant idea. I will pretend I am the cleaning lady. No, it`s not the alter ego I dream to be, but I can spin. I can be the master of spinning. Actually I will enjoy my day as THE cleaning lady. All I have to do is to decide where I am cleaning and with whom I`m cleaning, and dress accordingly.

Shimelle`s prompt and download yesterday was photography and our relationship with our camera. I got my first Canon camera back in 1978. In the years between 1985 and 2005 there were only a handful of photos taken. My attitude was; If I don`t remember it, it`s not worth a photo. Well, that changed when the family was blessed with children again in 2005. And going digital did all the difference.

Working with sketches was fun so I went looking for more inspiration and I found this sketchblog.

Aby Garvey is once again offering a free workshop:  Help I don`t know where to begin, about decluttering, before her Organizing 101 workshop starts September 9. The one week free workshop starts August 25 and is definitely worth your time. I got so much done during this week I hardly believe it myself. I am signed up to do one more class in September but I think I will jump in on the one week class as well since I am on vacation time and can dig into the shit.

I better find my alter ego and get to it. The rugs are already out in the back – I just have to find the right outfit, the attitude and go to it…

I thank…

…the man in charge of the weather…one more day with rain.

Which means I can spend one more day inside without feeling bad about it.

These last days I have become obsessed with sketches. So – when I was reading Wendy Smedley`s blog last night about using sketches that is outside your comfort zone, I jumped at the challenge. Here is mine:

 

Another wedding – another beautiful bride – and my dancing brother.

Shimelle`s prompt at Go to Press yesterday was including a sewing machine. What is it with everyone? Do everyone know that I don`t have a sewing machine? The theme was seasons and I did my best in PSE…

Thanks to Jessica Sprague I knew how to put stitches to my layout. Only, I forgot to put in the shadows. With a little help of some old – dried in – rubons, the layout came out like this:

I made one more wedding layout yesterday. Using a sketch from Scrapsketches by Moma.

I forgot to look at the sketch so I misplaced the circle. I will file that mistake as “working the sketches” as Cathy Zielske would have said.

Last night Shimelle announced the opnening of her September workshop – Learn something new every day. I signed up for this workshop after her Journal your Christmas workshop back in December and I have been looking forward to it ever since. I loved doing Stacy Julians Hath September last year. This will be another format, but I can`t wait to get started.