Scrapbooking Supplies Swap

Saturday, I decided to swap my scrapbooking supplies and "not currently being used" school supplies (books, workbooks, the children's finished notebooks). I have a nice set of cabinets with a countertop on one end of my schoolroom. That is where I stored the unused school stuff. In our adjoining storage room, I kept my scrapbooking supplies, neatly organized in an old entertainment center. But the storage room is just that, a storage room! And no matter how often I clean it and reorganize it, it still looks like a storage room, and I did not like getting my scrapbooking stuff out in there. Over the last couple of years the storage room has become home to three cats, so I couldn't leave any scrapbook work out on the table overnight--unless I wanted it shredded by the cats! So, I made the switch!

The schoolroom cabinets needed a little bit of cleaning out, so I tackled that while I was moving things around. I also have a tall freestanding cabinet that I use for paper and various school supplies like notebooks, pencils, markers, scissors, etc., and I have an additional closet where I store more supplies on the upper shelves, and the Little People toys on the bottom. I cleaned out all of these places and moved things around.

the schoolroom cabinets, before--notice all of the stuff that had been piled up

This is what most of the upper schoolroom cabinets looked like--school books

another before picture of the cabinets

Stuff had gotten pretty out of hand in this schoolroom cabinet!

An up close view of the messy counter

This is where I previously stored my scrapbooking supplies--in the storage room.

Now for some AFTER pictures!

A nice, clean countertop, ready to be scrapbooked on!

A cabinet storing all of my smaller scrapbooking albums

A cabinet storing various scrapbooking supplies

boxes of photos and supplies

the rest of my photos--they are organized and labeled by year

the freestanding cabinet--upper part

the freestanding cabinet--lower part

the top part of the other closet. I am storing my larger scrapbooking albums here plus my larger boxes of photos and scrapbooking papers

the Little People storage area

I was so happy to have this switch made! I put all of the school stuff that was in the cabinets in the entertainment center in the storage room. Since the two rooms are connected (by a door that I can close!), I have easy access to my school stuff when I need it, but I can use the clean schoolroom to actually work!

I am very pleased with the results!

Maybe I will work on my scrapbooks soon!

My Disney Scrapbook

Now that my photos are all sorted and organized I have begun actually scrapbooking again. I am beginning by making pages for our Disneyworld trips. Megan gave me a Disney album along with various Disney themed scrapbooking supplies for Christmas last year, and I am excited to be using them now! The first thing I did was type a summary of our Disney trips for a title page. Here is what I journaled:



Our Disney Vacations

Jimmy and I have vacationed at Disneyworld five times together. We have traveled there with different amounts of children at various ages. Some Disney vacations proved more stressful than others, but overall we have enjoyed our time at Disney immensely.

Disneyworld Trip 1: July, 1992—We took my brother Rhett (13) and Jimmy’s brother Russ (10) with us. We had been married just one year, and we thought that a trip to Disneyworld would be a fun way to celebrate. We drove, but as best as I can remember, the trip was uneventful. Russ and Rhett were very well-behaved! We stayed at the Dixie Landings Hotel. Since we were a party of four and also since Russ and Rhett were both tall enough and brave enough for all of the rides, we easily rode whatever we wanted. However, this was before the days of the FastPass, and it was in July, so we waited in long lines in extreme heat….but we were young, so it didn’t seem to bother us.

Disneyworld Trip 2: October, 2001—This time we took our own children…Olivia (6), Julie (4), and Clay (2). It was the first airplane trip for the children. They behaved remarkably well on the plane. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside, which was the same hotel as Dixie Landings, just with a new name. Our family of 5 easily fit into a standard room—2 double beds and one single trundle bed. Clay was still in diapers, and he and Julie both still took sippee cups. We rented a double and a single stroller each day. The weather was pleasant, and we had a super time!

Disneyworld Trip 3: January, 2005—Now we have 4 children…Olivia (9), Julie (7), Clay (5), and Leah (1). This was Leah’s first airplane ride. Of course Leah is in diapers, and I am still nursing her. We stayed in the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which nicely accommodated our family of 6. The room had a double bed, a bunk bed with a double on bottom and a single on top, and a crib for Leah. However, at the time, Leah slept terribly away from home, so I spent every night holding her in a chair most of the night. She napped frequently throughout the days at the park. We rented a single stroller. We played pass the baby in order for everyone to ride the rides. Pass the baby coupled with FastPasses enabled the older children to ride most attractions twice in a row with little or no waiting. The weather was cool and very enjoyable.

Disneyworld Trip 4: December, 2006—We decided that 5 children would not be enough to take to Disneyworld, so we invited my two nephews, Will and Seth to vacation with us! The children’s ages were: Will (15), Olivia (11), Seth (11), Julie (9), Clay (7), Leah (2) and Sam (10 months). This was Will’s and Seth’s first airplane ride. Sam’s first airplane ride was 2 months prior, on a trip to New York City with Jimmy and me. We required two hotel rooms this time at the Pop Century Resort. Sam was in diapers and still nursing, Leah drank from a sippee cup, and we rented a double stroller each day. This trip proved to be the most stressful Disney vacation ever for me! I guess it was counting 7 heads over and over again. We played pass the two babies and used FastPasses, and everyone got to ride all of the thrilling rides as much as they wanted. Since it was December, the crowds were bigger than I expected, and the weather was hot.

Disneyworld Trip 5: January, 2009—Again, we wanted extra children, so we invited a dear friend, Rebekah to come along. The children were now: Rebekah (15), Olivia (13), Julie (11), Clay (9), Leah (5), and Sam (turned 3 while we were there). We also decided that more would be merrier, so we vacationed with our close friends, Kelly and Lynn Mims and their four children…John Parker (9), Carson (7), Jared (5), and Avery (4). This time I got to count 10 heads repeatedly, but thankfully, there were three other adults to help me keep up with all of the children! For the first time since our very first Disney trip, we traveled with NO DIAPERS, NO SIPPEE CUPS, and I was NOT nursing a baby. What a difference that made. Another not so pleasant resemblance to our first Disney trip was that we drove. All the way! Two days to get there, two days to get home. We took two vans, seven people per van, and we stayed in two hotel rooms, seven people per room. Our accommodations were located at Shades of Green, the Disney military resort. We rented a double stroller each day, but Leah joined the older kids and rode every thrilling ride repeatedly thanks to pass the baby and FastPasses. The weather couldn’t have been better. This was a fun vacation.

My Organized Photos

BEFORE
Last spring I began organizing my photos. Some of them were in various albums, some of which were falling apart. The rest of the unscrapped photos were stored in this plastic box. This box held all of our snapshots as well as professional pictures, Christmas card extras, and school yearbook photos.



AFTER

I have worked on getting those pictures out of the box and the albums and into these photo safe storage boxes for months now! I worked on it little by little--15 minutes here and there. It's finally complete! All of our photos are in these boxes!

Since I began so long ago, Hobby Lobby did not have anymore of the original boxes I began with.....therefore I have 3 different colors of boxes. Yes this bothers me, but what can I do?

The larger white box to the left holds the non 4 x 6 pictures.....the professional 5 x 7s, school pictures, extra Christmas cards, and a zip lock bag of negatives.

I labeled each box with the years that the photos were taken. I simply sorted them by the year. Thankfully, I could still remember which year the pictures were made!



These category boxes are mostly empty so far.

Now, I plan to go through my photos and pull out ones that I would like to scrapbook.....and place them in the appropriate box. I am so excited about being free from the burden of chronological scrapbooking! As I sorted my pictures, I had lots of ideas for scrapbook pages. For example....I found that on each of our 4 trips to Disneyworld, we had many pictures taken in similar places. I want to make some pages showing those same spots, but on different trips.

My scrapbooking supplies are fairly organized and awaiting me......I have promised myself that I will not buy any more scrapbooking paper or accessories until I have almost used up all that I already have on hand!

Now, do any of you have a favorite brand of scrapbooking 12 x 12 album? I began with Creative Memories albums (I have 2 full ones), but I do not wish to use that type anymore. I also have one Close To My Heart album and 50 page protectors. I really like that album because you can make the pages and insert them in any order. I really like that feature. I want to buy 5 albums in 5 different colors (for my new system of scrapbooking)...do any of you have a product that you like better than the Close to My Heart? I looked at Pioneer scrapbooks, but they are available in only 4 colors.

Thanks for your ideas, and Happy Scrapbooking!

Scrapbooking

This summer when I ordered school books, I also purchased two fun books for me (from Amazon.com). As it turns out, these two books about scrapbooking are fabulous! I highly recommend them! The author, Stacy Julian, gives alternative ways to scrapbook your memories other than the traditional chronological way. I will admit that I have always scrapbooked chronologically, and I am YEARS behind! My first scrapbook begins with Olivia's birth (in 1995), and I think I am caught up through 2000, maybe! I have only scrapbooked major days and themes.....and still considered myself so behind.

Not anymore! These two books have freed me to scrapbook by theme instead of time. For example, Stacy suggests that you create only 4 main albums (you can have more than one of each kind, but stick to the 4 main albums).

1. People We Love
2. Places We Go
3. Things We Do
4. All About Us

Now can't you fit all of your unscrapped photos into one of those main categories?? I certainly think I can.

I am continuing to file all of my loose and previously kept in albums pictures by the year. Once I get all of the pictures filed in my cute little photo safe boxes (I got mine from Hobby Lobby, and they are half price this week!), I plan to go through them and pull out pictures for each of the 4 categories. I have already purchased 5 photo boxes for this purpose and made labels for them. In fact, as I came across my Disneyworld and San Francisco pictures, I went ahead and placed them in the Places We Go box. I placed the pictures contained in a baggie labeled Christmas 2002 into the box I am calling Days We Celebrate. I personalized Stacy's system for me by adding a 5th category (and album) entitled Days We Celebrate.

I am so excited about this new way of scrapbooking!