Overwhelmed.

Oh my gosh. I waded into our basement earlier today and have to tell you that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I so need to sort and purge down there (have been working my way through the house slowly but surely since January). In particular, though, what overwhelms me is that this isn't a project where simply taking the coats that not longer fit to Goodwill or something will suffice. The stuff that's in the basement needs to be purged, yes. But what will remain is boxes (and boxes) of stuff that I know I want to scrapbook...ticket stubs and love letters and maps and brochures and programs from our lives before kids. On the one hand, I'm so glad that even before I scrapbooked I had the mentality of saving and documenting things...so I do have all sorts of stuff down there to work with. On the other hand, I have all sorts of stuff down there to work with. ;)

So, though I'm not feeling quite up to tackling the basement quite yet, here's a question for you. When going back to document stuff from before you scrapbooked, do you use the photos you have (the 4x6 prints from a film camera) and just make things work...maybe even with a general design that you just follow throughout a themed album?

Or do you take the time to go back to the negatives and reprint some of the photos that deserve a bit bigger treatment and maybe resize some of the others to make smaller prints so that you can scrapbook the layouts more like you actually scrapbook now? (Fortunately, I do actually have all my negatives organized chronologically in nice negative sleeves.) 

Any and all thoughts welcome & appreciated!!

Oh! And, I'm going to an all day crop on Saturday (HOORAY!) but haven't even begun to prep anything for it. Ack!! Wish me luck! :) 

Unrelated.

Two unrelated things today. First, just so you know, Micah's at that lovely "saying 'okay' after the things I say isn't sufficient any more...you must now repeat after me 17 times or until I believe that you really mean it" stage. Fun. In fact, he's taken to telling me what to say. For example...

He coughs (on purpose).

I (as I am expected to do, though I know he's faking it) ask, "Are you okay?"

He replies, "Me okay."

I say, "Good."

He looks indignant and shakes his head. Then he proceeds to tell me, "You say, 'glad you okay'!"

To which, of course, I must respond, "I'm glad you're okay, Micah."

Don't even get me started on how he then corrects me on what I call him. "Micah" is not his name of choice of late. He insists on being called "Little Mike Brother." Yes, really. This kid stinkin' cracks me up and is definitely going to be one who keeps us on our toes. :)

The second thing is a bit of bragging on my part. I'm pretty proud of myself for my stamp storage solution and wanted to share. (Don't listen to Nathan, who will try to tell you that if I spent half as much time *using* my stamps as I do *organizing* them lately, I'd be getting a lot more done.) Anyhow. First there's my cool find for storing wood mounted stamps:

 

Isn't it cute? I found it at a local gently used kids' clothing and toy store! It originally held a mountain of blocks of all different sorts. I totally did not need the blocks but loved the container so much I had to buy it! It was only $19 and, with my store credit after selling back the blocks and a few other things, was basically free!! Can't beat that. Now, don't pay any attention to the fact that it is currently pretty much full. ;) Actually, I should probably try to stick with the space I have and just purge old stamps as I get new ones. We'll see. :) 

Now, my more recent find (which makes me totally happy). I store my clear stamps in CD cases. I'd been keeping the little sheets with the designs on them with the cases. I had them all in little boxes that were pretty but it was a pain to get to them when I wanted to use them (had to move boxes off each other and then look through them all to find what I wanted). I thought about just getting a bigger case that could hold them all so I wouldn't have to unstack boxes. Then, I found this as Walmart for just $20!

 

It holds 147 cases and spins, just like my Clip it Up!! So stoked about the accessibility! This left me with just one issue...how to remember what all I have so that I actually use stuff more often. (Isn't that always the issue? LOL!) Here's the part I'm particularly proud of...I realized I could make a binder with all my stamp images! Now, I'd had this particular thought before but hadn't gotten around to stamping all the images on paper yet. Though I'd heard of others who had done this, I found the entire task to not quite be worthwhile. I, you see, like/need to be able to lay the stamped image over my project to see how it will fit. You can't do this with the image on paper. But, you can do it if you use Staz On ink and stamp them on page protectors! (Prior to this, I'd been thinking I needed to do it on transparencies, but those can get pricey.) So. Here's what I ended up with:

 

Another benefit of the page protector route is that I can slip a piece of paper behind it to see the images better but still take the paper out and lay the sheet over my project to see how the image will look and fit. Since I wanted all my stamp images in the same place, I added my clear stamp image sheets also (the ones that come with the stamp sets when you buy them)...just taped them right to the front of the page protector:

 

So, now I can page through my binder when I'm looking for a particular stamp and might even happen upon something else that works better. Right now I have it sorted by theme...alphabets, words, leaves/flowers, etc.

So happy. :) Thanks for letting me share!

Go buy it!

Yes, really. Go to Little Dreamer NOW and buy my good friend Tiffany's awesome digi kit. Right here! It'll only be available until Friday, April 18 and is at a stinkin' low price right now as part of Little Dreamer's Little Apprentice program that's been going on for weeks now, as they've narrowed down oodles of entrants to an initial 41 finalists to the six left right now. Tiffany's too classy to pitch her own kit to y'all (she says you should buy them all), but I'm not above encouraging you to buy her kit (which, as I understand it, is essentially a vote for her). The winner will be offered the opportunity to sell their designs with Little Dreamer. Very cool. And Tiff totally rocks! :) And. The kit is fab, so you win, too!

Snow.

Just so you know, in April, "snow" is a four letter word. That's all I have to say about that. ;)

Answers.

Ready? Let me start by saying that Hos came closest with two correct answers. Yay! I'll send you a little something, just for kicks. ;)

Now, want to know which ones were false?

1. Our van broke down yesterday and was the cause of our longest Target visit ever. (Three hours on my own, I could probably handle...three hours with three boys, not so much.) TRUE. Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as we thought, though still enough to mess with life for a day and a half. Many, many thanks to our wonderful neighbor who truly made the whole ordeal easier! (She watched the boys while Nathan shuttled us home from Target (not all of the carseats fit in Nathan's car at once)...lent us her rig the next day when we couldn't find a rental minivan on such short notice...and helped me retrieve the van when it was done at the shop.)

2. I still bite my nails, though I've tried many times to stop. TRUE. Yup.

3. Asher fell out of our borrowed rig this afternoon and ripped his pants. FALSE. I know, I know. This totally *could* have been true (and relatively typical). But, it wasn't. :)

4. Page 73 of the May issue of Creating Keepsakes features an article I wrote that is dear to my heart. (The website "extra" material that goes with the article isn't up yet.) TRUE. Make sure you check it out, okay?

5. I managed to finish 32 layouts during March, many of which had been in my to do pile for ages and I'm just happy to have them done. ;) TRUE. So happy!

6. We filed our taxes yesterday. TRUE. Thinking those who guessed that this one was false assumed we'd filed earlier, as we typically do. With all of Nathan's business stuff and my own self-employment income this past year, though, our 2007 taxes took us longer.

7. I actually used the elliptical machine yesterday! TRUE. Ha. ;)

8. Micah just got done informing me that the picture of a dentist on his new toothbrush is a "bad guy." (All three had check ups earlier today and let's just say that Micah was not thrilled. This is actually his third visit, but the last time was to fill two cavities, so he had not great memories. Today, he actually spit on the dentist.) TRUE. On the plus side, all three boys got clean bills of health...no cavities!! Hooray! (Course, those first 9 cavities and three tooth extractions all happened *before* we got dental insurance...figures. But we'll definitely take what we can get!)

9. I finally labeled all my wooden drawers that hold my loose alphabets! FALSE. Yeah. I keep meaning to do that. Maybe later this month?

10.  This gave me a headache (only because I kept watching and watching and then asking the boys to watch). Try it and tell me what you see! TRUE. I initially saw her spinning counter-clockwise then switched to clockwise and now can't get her to go back. Noah insists that she only spins counter-clockwise, and Nathan sees the same. I would have guessed that for both of them. ;) Asher, on the other hand, was like me and saw her going both directions. Micah just started spinning around my office.

11. I have numerous frames up around my house that don't have any pictures in them yet...and haven't for years. Yes, embarrassing. One day I'll do something about it. Really. TRUE. Actually, this is completely true. For those who say you've seen my house, you're obviously not looking close enough (for which I'm thankful, lol). Now that I've admitted this, I may have to go and actually fill those frames. There are a number of them...one's even right above my computer here in front of me.

12.  I had pizza for dinner tonight. FALSE. I had the salad bar at Whole Foods.

There you have it. :)