Furture Photographer????

The Photographer!
This last weekend my sister and I took the kids for a hike on Mt.Burdell. Olivia took PamPay's camera and went to town taking pictures. She had a HUGE smile on her face and kept saying "Mommy I really like taking pictures, this is fun!!" All of the pictures below were taken by Olivia (age 6)

Organization: Flowers

I love flowers!!! I have to say, flowers were by far the most frustrating item to organize. As I've mentioned before I need my supplies to be portable. This system I came up with works really well, and leaves me room to "grow!"

First, I sorted my flowers by color, then I put like flowers together in small ziploc snack bags. In some cases I had a large amount of the flowers so I used sandwich bags.
Then I put all the smaller bags inside a 1gallon ziploc bag (with a zipper slide) marked with the color.
After I had all my flowers bags sorted, I folded the bottom of the 1 gallon bag over 1" at the bottom and secured with tape. Once all were taped I punched holes in the double fold and put them in a 5" Heavy Duty binder.

Now when I pack for a crop all I need to grab is the binder, which fits easily in my Cropper Hopper XXL tote.

Bodega Bay Scrappery Retreat

Had a great weekend out at Bodega Bay for the Scrappery Retreat!! The house was great, the views were gorgeous and the company was a blast!! I loved every minute! I even got 24 pages done!!!

I'll post pics soon!!!

Bodega Bay Scrapbook Retreat

Scroll to very bottom of my blog to see a slide show of retreat pictures!

Organization: Ribbon

Isn't ribbon sooo pretty!!! It looks so nice all crammed in a jar, huh?? Well I think so, but alas it just isn't functional for me. As I've said previously, I attend many crops a month and need my supplies portable. Here's my solution for all my ribbon.

The first thing I did was sort my ribbon by color.

red,pink,orange,yellow,green, blue, purple, brown, gold, black, white, silver, multi

I cut foam core into 4x6 pieces

Foam core is available at any craft or office supply store. I happened to purchase mine at a local drug store.

I wrap each ribbon around the foam core, securing with tape.

Then I put each foam core piece into a Cropper Hopper Photo case.

For my smaller ribbon I roll it and place it in a small Cropper Hopper embellishment box with a small amount sticking out. The piece hanging out makes it easy to draw only what I need out.

Then I place all the small embellishment boxes in a Cropper Hopper Embellishment Case

Now this is much more transportable then jars of ribbon dontcha think??

Organization: Paper

I must admit....I'm a paper-aholic...I LOVE paper! I've been scrapping for nearly 11yrs, so you can only imagine what my paper supply looks like. Over the years I've sorted my paper a number of was, not always with much success, but I have FINALLY found a system that works for how I scrap!!

First I sorted by theme. This work well for a while, but then my system of scrapping evolved and the themed catagories were no longer functional for me.

Then I switched to sorting by manufacturer. This was a HUGE mistake for me. I found I could never find what I was looking for, or would go through 5-6 folders before finding it. Very frustrating!

Now I sort ALL my paper by prodominate color. What a time saver this has been for me!! When I scrap I always look at the colors in my photo before choosing my supplies. Now with my paper sorted by color finding a paper to go with my pictures is a breeze.Incase your wondering about the pink holders....I'll feature those in a furture post....stay tuned for details!!

I sort multi-colored papers, too busy to decide the prodominate color, together in a folder. Then I have the papers sorted in this order: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, gold, black, white, silver. I have them stored in Cropper Hopper verticle storage, with patterned paper's first followed by cardstock.

I store my paper scraps in Cropper Hopper Sticker folders. These are great little folders! They have 4 total pockets for sorting. 2 large 12x12 pockets and 2 smaller pockets. I sort py patterend paper and cardstock in the two bigger pockets and mixed and by size in the smaller pockets. These are stored in the CH verticle storage behind the cardstock.

Organization: Photos

Heres how I organize my photos. I have found this method to work best for how I scrap. I scrap mostly by person. Each of my kids has a book for every year they are old. I also have specific vacation albums, sports albums, school albums and heritage albums. I DO NOT have "family" albums.

Step One: I have ALL my photos developed at a local photo shop here in town. I have found their quality the best for me.

Step Two: I sort the pictures by topic/subject
Here I have the photos sorted by Our Ice Skating trip, Amelias 5th Birthday celebration, Amelia and Olivia Dancing and Amelia and Emily cuddling on the couch.

Step Three: I then sort each topic/subject by the person in the photo.
Here I have sorted our Ice Skating pictures into three piles; one for Olivia, one for Amelia and one for Emily. Step Four: Once I have them sorted by person I do a rough draft of my journaling on a post-it note and stick it to the pictures.

Step five: I label a tabbed index card with the month and year and the subject of the pictures. I Use a small post-it note so I can reuse the index card.

Step Six: I put all the pictures in chronological order by month and year into Cropper Hopper Photo cases.

Step Seven: I have a large Cropper Hopper Photo Storage case for each child. All there pictures are stored here.

INDEX PRINTS: I used to keep these just tossed in a box, but found it was just a big mess. Now I have them in albums with photo sleeves.

I slip the index prints in the photo sleeve in chronological order.

I purchased these albums at Micheals.

With my photo CD's I store them in plastic sleeves (purchased at Staples) I keep them in chronological order in a CD box.

With some photos, such as a specific vacation, I sort the pictures directly into the page protectors of the album I'll be using. Above and below is the album for our 2007 camping trip. I divide the pictures into subject, then drop them into the page protectors in the order I want them. This helps me to determine exactly how many pages I need in the album.

Here is a theme album in-progress. Completed pages go right back in the same page protector as I had the photos slipped into.

For photos I don't scrap, but still want to keep, I have photo boxes sorted by person. I also give extra pictures to my girls for them to do their own scrapbooking.

In My Neck of the Woods

Heres some pictures from our hike around Deer Island today.

This house sites vacant at the trail head. This house is signifagant to my family histroy....It's where my Dad lived from the ages of 8 to 18 (1950-1960) This is where he was living when he and my Mom met.

This was once a barn at the back of my Dads house.

Up the Hill...........
Down the hill........

The "king" and his court

Daddy and His Girls

"Mommy, I picked these for you!"

Take a little time to smell the flowers!

Now that's a pile of rusty metal!!

An abandoned barn along the trail.