Love It Chop It

Do you know Kylie Bertucci? 
She is a Stampin'Up demonstrator in Australia with a Youtube channel-Here's the link: Kylie Bertucci 

She has some fun videos to watch-I love listening to her accent-and one of her ideas is about packs of paper, particularly 12x12 packs. She says, and I agree, that if you have paper packs in your drawers stacked deep, you probably will not bother going through them to find a  piece for a card. Or if you have packs of beautiful paper it is hard to make that first cut. But if you love it you need to chop it into pieces you will use to make cards. And here's the thing. If it is out where you can see it in cases that fit on a shelf instead of buried in a cabinet, then you are more apt to use it.

I had 15 packs of paper that I had bought and not even opened when I started my Getting Organized Challenge(see previous blog post), mainly from FSJ, in a drawer in my cabinet. So following KB's advice, I started chopping it up into card size pieces. I put the chopped paper into empty stamp cases with small pieces of the paper on the spine and matching solids on the cover. Here's what those packs of paper look like now right where I can see it.

First thing I realized is I had too much Halloween paper, enough to make more cards than I possibly would send. So I brought it to my Sisters in Stamping group with these cards designed and gave them enough to make a couple cards each.  Here are the cards I designed. 

I made enough for some family members with little kids. 










Then I sent the makings for 6 of these cards along with a finished one to Vanessa and Isabella who have been enjoying making cards in Hawaii. Isa decided to use one as a birthday card that she needed for a friend. She added her own touch of course. 

She added another side to the card for the birthday image and to help it stand up. Vanessa said she thought of the message, "May all your wishes come true" herself. Her friend said it was a card that kept on giving.

She is a very creative 5 year old. Reminds me of when I used to make cards with Luci-she always added her own designs to any card she made.

Getting Organized Challenge

Do you know about Totally Tiffany? It is a company specializing in products to help crafters organize their craft spaces. I ordered something years ago and got on the email list, of course. Twice a year Tiffany runs this challenge with videos and handouts as well as a special Facebook group for encouragement. This fall I decided to join and it has been a great experience. These are the before photos of my stamping space. Notice that the counter tops have lots of stuff on them and there are boxes of stuff on the floor.

 So I joined this group to mostly help me clean up the clutter in my room and make it easier to create cards.

 I am not finished yet. The challenge has one week left on it, but honestly many of the participants rejoin every time to continue working with all the stuff they have. Many are scrapbookers and there are two sessions on organizing photos and memoranda. My photos are in another room, so someday I will get to organizing them better, but instead I used the time to continue with what I had for card making.

 I realized that much of what's under the cabinets in drawers needed to be organized and purged. I had way to much paper for one thing. And I have tools and accessories I haven't used in years.

This is still a before picture, but now I have 5 boxes of stuff on the floor-all stuff that is going away out of my room and probably out of my house.
















 I still have boxes and drawers to go through. I need to catalog my stamps and dies. But now after organizing them they are easier to find and things get put away when I am done. Here are photos of what my countertops look like now.

If you are interested in seeing the challenge videos they are available on Youtube. HERE is the link to Totally Tiffany's home page if you want to see her products or more informations about the challenge.