Scrap booking!! The Desktop Carousel

** My son is allergic to our schoolroom **

so I've been a busy lil' bee...

cleaning

'n organizing

'n arranging

'n more in there.

Recently, I put an air purifier machine in the room...

"Nom Nom Nom"

{Holmes Table Top Air Purifier from Target}

and it's chugging away...

the HEPA filter is eating up all those

dust morsels

and itty bitty allergens

that are mysteriously floating around the schoolroom.

I think it's starting to work

because it seems fresher in there.

:: Very Nice ::

The Ol' Desktop Carousel:

Even though I use this little guy every day

it stays pretty neat

because everything has its own place...

The for realsies change came when  I labelled it...

(it had always seemed obvious...this is a calculator, that is a pencil)

But...
when you are getting a workout

moving this table here
and then...

moving it back...

and then...
ummm...
moving it back again...

sometimes a restful break is in order!!

So...

now everybody can find the calculator!

I used 3 colors for the background papers...

and then 3 colors for the lettering.

why?

Well, I like the combinations you can get with 3 colors....

With 2 colors things look very 'matchy matchy'

and constrained...

4 colors is overwhelming to the eye

and tends to look cluttered...

but with 3 colors you get a triad-

it looks colorful and yet, organized.

Odd numbers tend to look good to your eye

when you are decorating.

Bin #1: Yellow Background + Green Lettering

Bin #2: Green background + Blue lettering

Bin #3: White (with faint blue lines) background + Orange lettering

Bin #4 matches Bin #1

Bin #5 matches Bin #2

Bin #6 matches Bin #3

Think of the 3 basic colors:

red

blue
yellow

The orange lettering AND

The white background 

represent RED.

The green lettering
AND the yellow background
represent YELLOW

The blue lettering
AND the green background
represent BLUE

You may realize that in actuality, I used 5 colors plus white.
Well, sometimes I used 2 different colors to represent one color.

white + orange = red
*the white can substitute for any color-black can as well*

yellow + green = green

green + blue = blue

I got a bit fancy making green represent both yellow and blue--
but blue and yellow make green-so it works.

See the pattern?
I hope so!
Go ahead and ask if you have any questions!

This is where the scissors go!

This desktop carousel has tiny drawers too...
but I use only a few of them.

Tiny markers go here--otherwise they would get lost.

Under the pencils & mechanical pencils are erasers and pencil lead.

The instructions for using the compass.

So that is the scrap booking fun for the day!

Oh. No.

Do you remember these?

My daughter, who is away at college, has a magnet board for her dorm room.

I promised to make her a new set of magnets for each month.

And today is January 30th.
I have some fun papers to use!!

Gotta go!

I

BTW....

My blue Ragamuffin kitty,

Boo Beau,

has been depressed

ever since Betsey Belle died

They were special buddies.

He's been acting out and stranger than usual...

We've tried all sorts of tricks and ideas

to get him to come around...

but who knows with a kitty anyways??

Ragamuffins are 'inside only' kitties

because they are super friendly and baby-like all their lives,

when he's in the litter box...

he knows to claw at something when he's done...

but has never quite gotten it 

(when you see him scratching 

the side of the litter box or the air!...

you can't help but laugh until you cry-its so pathetic!),

his nails are practically impossible to trim 

because they seem to be buried extra deep into his anatomy,

and it makes him uncomfortable to push them out.

In other words...

he has no clue how to defend himself

and

he was outside all night.

With hungry coyotes openly trying to get into chicken coops around here during the day,

it seems ridiculous to hope that he will come back.

Hopefully he's under the house and just confused...

I'll keep you posted.

The school room

I might be in danger 

of over doing one of my New Year Resolutions...

having more fun...

but it is just sooo much fun to have fun!!

Cleaning / Organizing:  The schoolroom!

** My son is allergic to our schoolroom **

After taking out the allergy-aggravating rug

 out of the schoolroom,

I realized there was still a lot to do in there.

I opened up the vent registers on the floor

and cleaned out the vents-

as far as I could reach / vacuum.

I disinfected  and sprayed with Febreeze...

 just because it seemed like a good idea.

Next, I inserted some vent filters

into those floor vents and replaced the covers.

These special filters should

filter out the allergy producing elements

blowing through my floor vents.

A quick hand vacuum

around the vents...

and it was done.

I'm getting there.

Scrap booking!

Of course, cleaning always brings out 

the restless artist in me...

How sad...such a plain cork board.

 I looked through my papers and found this....

This looks good for a school room cork board!
This paper is from BoBunny.

 oh! And this one too!!

This will be perfect for a border.
This paper is from BoBunny.

And the ideas started!

If you noticed in the photo above, 

scrap book paper sometimes has a white strip

 across the top-

I trimmed that off.

There!  All better now.

 Then I vertically centered 2 of the dark papers.

They will be the main feature of the cork board.

As you can see...

I measured to figure out how much

 of the other paper would be needed.

I actually rounded up the number to two inches
on each of the top and the bottom spaces.
That way I was sure the border paper would not come up short.


Then I put the border paper into my cutter and cut each strip to 2 inches.

 Then I placed and spaced them out so they would (hopefully) blend together nicely.

Next, I got out the spray adhesive.

The can was a bit wonky from this summer's 4H posters...

but I managed to get enough out!

I laid down some scrap paper to protect my surface.

I usually grab some old newspapers.

The first time I went looking for spray adhesive,

nobody knew what I was talking about.

This was some years ago.

(Getting used to that--I'll tell you about looking for

a special type of wall board (used in schools) some other time!)

I ended up in a special artistic shop.

Now it's everywhere.

That's super nice!

Basically, it's aerosol glue.  I could have used any number of kinds of glue
 but this is just easier for large areas.

Ta Da!!

The border is done.

The best part of spray adhesive

is that it remains "tacky" for awhile.

I was able to move the pieces around a bit

before I decided everything looked good.

Next, I sprayed the 2 black papers...

Now for the frosting on the cake...

 

The lower right side:

(I used Bo Bunny stickers)

a glittery pencil,

an old library check out card

and a sparkly pile of books...

The upper left side:

Again, using Bo Bunny stickers,

a glittery apple, 

a flash card

and 1,2,3 buttons.

I added a little bow...

oops...

the ends are flying around. :)

That didn't take very long!

I just need to hang it up now.

You know...

it might be too pretty to use.

I have other cork boards....

I would LUV it if someone would give me 

a suggestion...??

a comment...??

an idea...??

about how to do it better-

or for more clever ideas!

Better yet....

send me a photo of something you made!!

I'm waiting......

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!

2012

Cute new gloves!!

Isn't this what you think of?

Organizing...

Cleaning...

Eliminating Clutter...

for a fresh start on the new year.

This New Year I made a few resolutions...

1.  Gain 20 pounds.

ROFL!!

okay! okay!

fer realsies now...

1.  Actively make our dinner table attractive/homey

2. Begin exercising regularly

(so original)

3.  Organize this house!

4.  Make sure this girl gets some play time!!

Yeah!  This looks good to me!

How about you?

I've started on the organizing and de-cluttering already.

It is energizing!

I am looking forward to this project...

ORGANIZING:
My organizing started in my bathroom.  
I will give you a sneak peek 
at what it looks like right now...
I didn't think to take a picture
until I had gotten to a stopping point.  
But, happily, you can see some of
the mayhem and foolishness
in my bathroom.

The white things with the square holes
 are the original baskets.
Yes, this bathroom was organized about 9 years ago...
but it needed some updating.
Besides, those baskets are 
difficult to use and not self contained.


I just adore the 'itso' bin.
It's the white box with the frosted bins on the left.
Soon, I will be able to go back to Target 
and get some more 'itso' bins.
Also, I need to get the rest 
of the stickers off of the bins.

Oh!  And labels....
those need to be made. :)


Otherwise, a good start.

SCRAP BOOKING:

Yesterday evening, I sat down and had some fun as well.

Like a piggy in a mud puddle

I splashed around in my scrap booking supplies.

It's a little door knob hanger

or to hang on a hook or peg.

(if you were wondering!)

I've been seriously considering 

selling items like this at 

our local farmer's market

or even etsy.

Go ahead and comment what you think....??!!

I would like to show you something...

I gave Autumn Rose a plain, black magnetic metal board

for Christmas.  It's about 2 feet wide and 8 inches tall.  It's for her dorm room.

Next, I promised her that I would make

special magnets for her board every month.

Let's see what January's magnets look like...

The cell phone is because she is ALWAYS on the phone or texting.
I think she believes her cell phone is an appendage or something...

The plan is to make a new set of magnets each month.

Then, I will put the new month's magnets in a baggie.

Last, I will send the baggie to her at school.

When the month is over,

she will put the magnets back into their baggie,

clip the baggie with the magnetic clip,

then put it on the back of her magnetic board 

in order to store it out of sight.  

This baggie is for January.

This is going to be so much fun!
I already have some cute ideas for February.



What are you starting with?

Organizing! Schoolroom

My son has allergies and needs to breathe clean air.

We DO have clean air around here.

But...

(1) we are surrounded by farms--dirt!

and

(2) our area gets A LOT  of wind.

Sooooo......

We have bamboo flooring through out our home.

It's wonderful!  

But up in our schoolroom, 

the chairs started making long, ugly scratches in the wood.

So I decided to put down a large rug on the floor.

Yeah...

it's been a mistake.

So, after 4 years of protecting the floor,

the carpet got rolled up and taken out this week.

Underneath, the floor was loaded with...finely sieved dirt!

(Looky there son! That's why you can't breathe in the schoolroom!

Thank you dear mother--you are sooo Captain Obvious.)

That schoolroom has never been fully organized...

and with the carpet out and the cleaning starting...

well, it just seemed like a good time to start

ORGANIZING

as well.

I came across our old "Egg Money" jar. 

(my children used to have an egg business) 

It had a little label on it...

but...

I had been vacuuming and cleaning

for some time at that point...

and that jar started looking...

a little PLAIN.

I immediately got to work!  

We can't have plain, ol' ugly jars sitting around!

Much better.

But then...

the pencils standing in their soup can started looking...

plain.

So I pulled out a few fun cups!

From the left...the first cup holds

all things Hello Kitty!!

The next one--so cute--holds pencils and a few pens.

The last one, on the right, holds my green pencils.

I correct papers using green.

I was avoiding the whole "red looks like blood" idea...

but I once overhead one of my children

telling another child...

about how horrible it is to get a paper back covered in a sea of green.

So, I could have been using red all along.

Nobody likes being wrong--

and correcting with green pencil doesn't change that.

There you go....

a bit of homeschool wisdom fer ya!

No fee.

Now it looks like I have to admit to all of you..

that I am addicted....

to Hello Kitty!!

Fortunately...

There's no 12 step program to overcoming this addiction...

Tee  Hee!!

I do have my own Hello Kitty gang though.

When I find out that some little girl is OBSESSED with Hello kitty,

 just like me,

I recruit them into my gang...

There is one big drawback though,

 even if they join...

they are too little to remember doing it.

So, I'm always having to remind them!!

:: sigh ::

My husband's office had a Christmas party last weekend.

So, my numbers are up.

For now. :)

The Contest Ends in the Morning!!

The My Memories Contest is about to end.

I put this page together in a matter of minutes.  I love the fact that I can make my pictures cute and fun with no glue or sticky fingers. =)  I hope you have checked out the My Memories site and looked around a bit.  If you would like to win the $40 value software then leave a comment or two-no worries about telling me what page you like.

This contest ends on Monday, November 14th at 10:00-west coast USA time.

The background information:

The "My Memories" Company has developed their own digital software for scrap booking.  They would like to offer one of you shy readers your very own software-for free.  No obligation.  

The contest:

Go to their website at  www.MyMemories.com.

Look at their papers and kits--decide you like one in particular.

Come back to my blog and leave your comment....include the name of the paper you like.

On Monday, November 14th I will randomly pick a winner.

Be a winner--like Biskit!

Biskit, back in the good ol' days...

What if you win? (like Biskit):

If you win this little contest, I would email you a special code.  You would go onto their site, order the software, and instead of putting a credit card in the payment area, you would type in your special code.  They just need to know to which email address to send it.  Then they email it to you and ta da!  You can get those digital photos off of your computer and into cute little virtual scrapbook pages. You will also get a coupon code for $10 to purchase more products.  Again, you would not need to leave a credit card number.

What if you don't win? (not like Biskit):

Don't be sad!  After announcing the contest winner, I will then announce a "Share the Memories" code for anyone to use.  It is a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store.

So that is it in a nutshell!  I would love to have a comment here.  I would!

My home is softly lit and the dogs are sleepy and quiet.  I am sitting here on the couch where my Rose usually sits.  I have been looking at pictures of her-laughing and mischievous-on FaceBook.  She's not here, but in my heart.  Only 9 more days until she has her Thanksgiving break and is home to sit here in this place herself.  I wonder if it's snowing again... I can hear Robbie's motorcycle outside and I hope he's okay in the pitch black dark!  No matter where my son goes...he's always loud and energetic.  Biskit is happily curled up on my lap and we are listening to Emmaline practice the piano.  This never gets old.  My husband is cooking dinner and it smells delicious!  Oh, and now it is ready. I hope each and every one of you have a warm & happy home and family tonight.  

Just for Fun! Wednesday

Here is something fun for everyone!  

A Scrap Booking template that can be used with any software.  

This one is a .png file, not a MyMemories Suite Template-so you don't need the My Memories software.  This template includes 2 quick pages and all of the papers and elements used in creating them.  For those who know what this means, the elements and QuickPages are .png and the papers are .jpg format.
Just click on this link:  Cool teal with stripes page kit  After 2 weeks, the template goes away.

Next week, I will have another one to share with you!

Now, you DO REMEMBER that I have a little contest going on--right?  To review:

The background information:

The "My Memories" Company has developed their own digital software for scrap booking.  They would like to offer one of you shy readers your very own software-for free.  No obligation.  

The contest:

Go to their website at  www.MyMemories.com.

Look at their papers and kits--decide you like one in particular.

Come back to my blog and leave your comment....include the name of the paper you like.

On Monday, November 14th I will randomly pick a winner.

Be a winner--like Biskit!

Biskit, back in the good ol' days...

What if you win? (like Biskit):

If you win this little contest, I would email you a special code.  You would go onto their site, order the software, and instead of putting a credit card in the payment area, you would type in your special code.  They just need to know to which email address to send it.  Then they email it to you and ta da!  You can get those digital photos off of your computer and into cute little virtual scrapbook pages. You will also get a coupon code for $10 to purchase more products.  Again, you would not need to leave a credit card number.

What if you don't win? (not like Biskit):

Don't be sad!  After announcing the contest winner, I will then announce a "Share the Memories" code for anyone to use.  It is a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store.

I hope this has cleared up any questions.  

I hope you feel free to leave a comment--or many comments--on my blog.  

ENTER AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WOULD LIKE!!

Now, for the news...

Here is a revision of the apple poem that someone sent into Dr. Laura:

"Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don't reach for the good ones because they don't want to climb that high and they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they settle for the rotten apples on the ground, which aren't as good, but easy to get. They don't realize that with every step they climb, not only do they get stronger but the apples get more and more delicious. The apples at the top are well aware of how special they are. They have a strong core and they have decided to reach their full potential before being picked. So they hang on, soaking up the sun and improving themselves. At last, the men who are brave and determined enough to reach the very top of the tree are rewarded with the biggest, juiciest, and most delicious apples."


I just sent this to my daughter in college because this is absolutely lovely.  Marriage is not something you rush into.  When I was a senior in high school, I met my Pastor's mother, a godly woman.  She gave me this advice: 

God gives the best who leave the choice to Him. 

It was 3 years later, during my wedding shower, that she reminded me of her advice. 

I was only too happy to answer: 

Yes! 

I believed with my whole heart that I had done just that.  

God's timetable is not necessarily when we think it should be.  Be still, don't fuss and worry yourself into a knot over everything. God Himself loves you and if you allow Him to be in control of your life and your circumstances; He will do what is best for you, in His perfect time.  Married or not, I think we should all strive to be the best 'apples' we can be--the ones on top of the tree!


John 3:16  For God so loved the world (that means...you)
that gave his only begotten Son (you have sinned all your life & sin has a price: death.
                                                    Jesus has paid that price for you) 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish (after death, spend eternity in hell), but have everlasting life (after death, spend eternity in heaven...with God Himself).

¹⁷For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

 ¹⁸He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

 ¹⁹And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

 ²⁰For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

 ²¹But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

A place for everything and everything in its place.....

WAIT!!


You are 'not allowed' to read this blog
UNTIL....


you enter my contest!!!!

Look at yesterday's post to get updated!!


After looking at our Police Blotter, that old saying comes to mind: 

'A place for everything and everything in its place.'  

A lot of people have been rather RECKLESS 

in their comings and goings this past week.  

For instance:

A man on Creek Road reported that someone was 

building a road through his property.

Building a roads sounds like good, wholesome fun for the whole family...it's just too bad this guy had to go and spoil the party.
Lesson Learned:  Check with the County before you start building roads willy nilly-they will let you know who enjoys a bit of road-building fun.

Live Ammunition reportedly was found 

in the shrubbery on Walnut St.

Well, it has been hunting season around here.  And there has been a great deal of hunting going on..but even if you see the perfect elk on Walnut St., nobody's gonna take a shine to you opening fire on a street that includes the college and the hospital. 
Lesson Learned:  It's those dad-gum city folks who make you hunt in 'designated areas.'

A man's wife sneaked through the 

back door of a residence 

and scared him.

There is no crime our local police can not solve. Of course, some nut jobs just want their 15 minutes of fame.
Lesson Learned:   Don't think you are getting away with anything here lil' missy!

A suspicious man reportedly pulled up 

to a residence on 10th Avenue 

in an ambulance.

Hmmm...this actually sounds like a well organized criminal.  
Lesson Learned:  If you need the ambulance, just go down to 10th.


Well, here's a salve for your overworked brain...barn kitties!!!!

Look, they are in My Memories pages!!

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON MY BLOG!!!!

 Look at yesterday's post if you need to be updated!