Nicole's blog challenge

Nicole's blog challenge at SSS is to post some of your favorite scrappy items, old or new, and write about them. I had a hard time narrowing it down, but here are two things I absolutely love right now:

I love buttons! Yummy buttons...especially since I decided to toss all the original packaging from them & store them together in this big jar. So much fun! I think I'd love buttons even if I wasn't a scrapper.

American Crafts Thickers. What did I do before these were invented? I love the fonts, the colors, the different materials from foam to felt to chipboard. I can't get enough!
I also have a crazy fixation with Basic Grey's Phoebe line. I love it so much, I refuse to use it! And I did think about posting all those paper dolls and paper piecing patterns from my early scrapping days, way back when, but I decided to forego the photos on the grounds that it would incriminate me as a pack rat, of which I am not. (I just couldn't part with them during my big scrap purge...they were all so cute & such the rage back in the day and you never know...they might come back in style!)

Off to school

So here they are this morning...dd & ds, ready for school! I am anxiously awaiting them to come home (any minute now) and fill me in on all the details & excitement of the first day of school. I always loved the first day myself...it always seemed so..I don't know...magical? New clothes, new supplies...what fun!

"No one" & the Hermafix

I had to work today, but my kids don't start school until tomorrow so my mom had to watch the kids for me. I came home to find dd playing on the computer. Seated next to her, ds. Now as I looked around, I noticed several Hermafix tabs stuck to my scrap table. I also found my Hermafix dispenser opened with the tape spilling out. Amazingly, "no one" did this. It just happened on its own. Imagine that. How could I have been so silly as to suggest that "someone" had a hand in this when it was clearly "no one?" As I am sitting here at the computer typing this, I have taken a closer look and have now peeled Hermafix tabs from all surfaces...the scanner, the computer desk, assorted stray boxes, and the hardwood floor, just to name a few. Now I'm not sure who this "no one" is, but I would like to have a word with him...or her. Although I'm 99.9% sure---no, make that 100% sure---that "no one" is indeed a he. I can't help thinking of one of Steve Martin's funny lines from Cheaper by the Dozen 2...."eggs cost money!" (said rather agitatedly). Boy does it crack me up when he says that! So here I go: "Hermafix costs money!" Did someone say that school starts tomorrow???

Bitter thoughts

I have gotta tell ya....there is nothing like a full scale scrap room reorganization to help you gain perspective. My room is currently a wreck, I've got so much organizing to do in my new space. I hate to admit it but I was having very bitter thoughts towards scrapping today. As I sat on the floor of my new space, surrounded, no let me correct that, buried in my beloved scrap crap, I could literally feel myself getting angry with this whole hobby. Sitting amongst my possessions, I could only think, What a stinkin' waste! Thoughts of, "I wish I had all the money I spent on all of this now", "Why am I doing this anyway?", and "Who is their right mind would waste all this space on supplies & 30+ albums?" Sickening. Really sickening. Suffocating even. At one point I seriously thought of selling it all & just throwing in the towel. As the night has worn on, I have decided that maybe, just maybe, I will continue to scrap as long as I can reduce my supplies. My goal? To get rid of half my stash. I know, you're probably thinking "she can't be serious", but I am. Believe me, my original thought was to reduce by two thirds, so half is nothing! That's it. That's all I have to say. Major purge, here I come!!

My achin' bones

Just an update...the upstairs of my house is still in an absolute disaster area state. I'm stealing a few minutes away from "waiting for the primer to dry" to post to my blog. We were at an absolute stand still for a week because dh threw his back out while golfing (oh correct that, how dare I say it. It didn't happen from golfing, and he says it with a straight face!) Over the past 2 days, I have contorted my body into more configurations to sand, prime & paint than a carnival freak show act and now, I am starting to feel the pain. Whose big idea was all of this anyway??

On hiatus

It is official...I am on scrapping hiatus. It wasn't planned, it was just a spur of the moment type thing. And oh what a mess it is!!

A little background: Our house has 4 bedrooms, 2 upstairs, 2 downstairs. The master bedroom is downstairs. When ds was born, we thought instead of putting a baby upstairs, alone, we would let him share the other downstairs bedroom with dd. Ok, fine. This has been working out well for the past 5 years, 10 months. However, I, being the cleaning & neat freak, can no longer stand this arrangement! Do you have any idea the "stuff", the "junk", the "crap" that a 9 year old & almost 6 year old can accumumlate? It's just too much for one bedroom!
Soooo....I have decided that it's time they inhabit the 2 upstairs bedrooms. This has been a subject of interest to dd for about a year now, but she is a little scaredy cat so as appealing as the topic may have been, it never went anywhere. We did know that this would have to happen eventually. I mean how long will a girl want to share a bedroom with her little brother anyway? I mean really! So with that, dh & I decided it was time to push the issue, dangle some bait & they bit. (still keeping fingers crossed there are no future issues)
Now bear in mind, we are living in an old home, 74 years old to be exact. The one upstairs bedroom has not been touched by us. Meaning: it still has the original wallpaper. Black & white. Yes big time black wallpaper. This awful black wallpapered room? My scrap room. I decided to waste not a second of time however & began the tedious process of removing the wallpaper. Huge mess! I can proudly say though that after 2 days, the room has been removed of all offensive wallpaper. The mess it created has been virtualy colossal. Only those of you who have dealt with an old house truly know about the "can of worms" theory and can probably predict what I'm going to say next. The walls under this wallpaper? Not exactly the greatest. Translation: lots of skim coating, plastering, spackling, etc. before we can even think about painting. Lots of work ahead and...have I mentioned the mess?

Now you see why I am on hiatus. My scrap stuff is literally everywhere and it appears it will be everywhere for some time. But, I must keep in mind how happy I will be when this is all completed. I can see visions of Potter Barn-esque children's rooms and a lovely scrap room for me (downstairs) that looks nothing like the black wallpapered plastic bin warehouse of my former memory. Ahhhh. Amazing how I can still dare to dream through all this mess. Wish us luck.

NO.WAY.

No.way. Oh.my.God!!! Rebecca Sower, The Rebecca Sower just posted a comment on my blog! I am giddy with delight, I can't believe it!! How did she ever see my last post? It's not like I'm a scrapping celebrity or anything!

OK, I'm sure that one of you girls is responsible for this, you'd have to be...how else would she have seen it? So whoever the sneaky yet clever one is out there, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! You have no idea how instrumental you have been in making my day!! Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful day!