Cropping on the go

This month is all about organizing but we are gonna step outside our scrap space today to address organizing for a crop or retreat.

If you are not organized when going to a crop or retreat you will be so disappointed, you will find that you spent lots of time and money and have very little to show for the effort you put in. I have been to so many crops and retreats where it takes some ladies 2 hours or more just to load their supplies into the cropping room, they have crates, storage boxes, rolling carts and bags that stack chest high when they are done but they tend to get very little accomplished other than digging around in the mounds of stash they brought with them.

I don't do that!! Here are a few of the reasons

1.) To lazy to do all that packing of supplies

2.) To lazy to drag it from the house to the car, from the car to the crop room them repeat the process all over at the end of the night

3.) To old to remember where I put everything when I was packing up

4.) Did I mention I was lazy?

If you are of a mature age like me your gonna end up throwing your back out lugging all that stuff around, for you younger ladies don't be straining those ovaries, not a good thing to do in your reproductive years .

So here is a quick easy way to pack for day crop, I will get back with you on a retreat tomorrow, but much of the information will be the same. When I head to a day crop I take one rolling tote. That's it nothing more even my wallet and keys will fit in the cart.

I get lots of looks when I sashay into the crop room with my single cart.

I know what they are saying.....

They figure I am a newbee and I will be bugging the snoot out of them with questions. I'm not there to crop but rather to talk. I am not very well endowed in the scrapbooking supplies area.

After a few hours they are singing a different tune when I have whipped out a dozen or more pages and they are still looking for that perfect shade of card stock to go with the pattern paper they think they might want to use.

So here is my Little secret; page kits....

That's it, I make up page kits before I leave home them load them up in some traveling folders to keep them safe, throw them in my cart along with a basic tool kit and I am ready to go.

I LOVE to use CTMH level 1 and level 2 kits, everything is already in a sealed bag and ready to go, they even have photo samples on the back of the stickease to take the guess work out of page design, I decide what photo's I want to use, put them in the bag and I am done.

I also do my own page kits, they take a little more time but not as much as you would think, here are the steps to making your homemade page kits.

1.) Pick the photo's that inspire you from photo albums (look at older post)

2.) Pick a pattern paper

3.) Match up your card stock, keep in mind what you will want for journaling block, mats and titles

4.) Pick out stickers, ribbon, embellishments you will want to use

5.) Jot down page title if one comes to mind on scratch paper, quick before you forget

6.) Stack it all together and use a binder clip to hold it all.

7.) Place all of them in a container that will keep the paper safe.

I know some of you thought binder clips!! Is she crazy? Remember this is just to keep everything together for a day or so, the binder clip won't hurt a thing

This along with a tool kit and a how to book for inspiration will have you whipping out pages like a scrapbooking machine. I know it seems crazy but believe me when I tell you less is more, you will find if you stick to the page kit method you will love it, and being away from home keeps you from digging around in your own stash trying to make a decision therefore wasting time.

I leave the page titles and journaling for when I return home, I use a Cricut for page titles most of the time, no need in lugging that big thing around and I find I journal better when I am in the mood, but I do make sure and have a journaling block on the layouts to use later.

If you are still unsure about my advise then add to your tote a photo album and some cash, if you run out of things to scrap you can always go on a little shopping splurge!!!

Pattern Paper

Pattern paper has been in the past and still is a problem area for me. I don't have a problem storing or using it, my problem is in how much of it I buy!!! I am better now than I use to be however it seems to multiply before my eyes.

I store pattern paper in a couple of ways; first I sort by color, blues, reds, greens etc. I also sort by themes, school, sports, boy, girl, that sort of thing. I am often ask what is the difference in sorting by themes and the category bags in drawers. The category bags are papers I use maybe once or twice each year so I like to keep them put away and out of the way, the theme pattern paper is something I use pretty often so I keep it out in cropper hoppers. I label the dividers for my pattern paper to make paper selection fast and it also helps me see when I have more than enough of one color of pattern paper, right now pink tones are overflowing, I need to use a bunch up before I even think about purchasing any more.

I also use Cropper Hoppers to store specialty paper, transparencies, shaped paper, velum, scalloped paper and such, for me it is all about keeping it simple and tidy.

Now back to my little room of sin, it has been two days since I have done a layout, I feel the need to create!!

More paper storage

I have been a bad blogger this week, just when I think I will update my blog something comes up to distract me then I forget! So it is back to paper storage today so I can move on to other area's next week.

Along with using category bags in file drawers I store scrapbook kits in Cropper Hoppers on open shelves, I usually have a couple of them full of kits, on days when I don't want to do to much thinking, cutting, designing or embellishing I just grab a kit and go. The one thing that convinced me to start my CTMH business was the level 1 kits, I thought they would be great to help newbee's in scrapbooking gain the confidence they needed to scrapbook without a large investment, I never would have dreamed I would love them myself so much. I can get lots of layouts done in so little time and money.

Another area I have is my card stock; now let me tell you I use more than my fair share of card stock, i am a fairly simple scrapbooker, I don't feel the need to embellish my pages a lot, although I still end up buying the embellishments! And I think a little pattern paper goes a long way, although I still buy more pattern paper than I need. My card stock is sorted by color, I then label the sections so it is easy for me to find just what I need. When I am working with CTMH products the paper kits tell you what card stock coordinates with the paper, love that, if I am using another brand of pattern paper it is still easy to find the perfect match since it is all sorted by color. I buy card stock in bulk, it is the most cost effective way to buy and in the long run it saves me money because I can't seem to go in my local store and buy just a few pieces of card stock, I end up with a buggy full of something, yes I said buggy, my local store has buggies!! Smart store owners, HA

more to come stay tuned

Photo Storage box layout

Two posts in one day won't happen often! I had Tyler yesterday. He stayed late and had supper with us, by the time he went home, dishes were done, and toys were cleaned up this Nanny was DONE!!

I did get two pages done during nap time using my photo storage box, I was flipping though my Aunt Lucille and Uncle Fritz section and found a few photo's of the campsite they had on the Ohio river, woohoo let me do a layout.

I used CTMH Back Country level 2 paper along with the Campin Fever stamp set, I have never been much of a stamper but since starting with CTMH I am seeing more and more how versatile and economical stamp sets can be. CTMH also sells stickese to use with paper packs but with the stamp set I can use it over and over again, love that!

Organizing paper

If you are like me and every other scraper I know you have enough paper to wallpaper your home and maybe even a neighbors! We have to be smart and economical when we store our paper, so we have room to buy more and the money to do so!

I organize my paper in a few different ways, one of the ways is using clear zipper bags. My local scrapbook store uses these bags when you make a purchase but CTMH also has a similar bag that paper kits come in that would work just as well.

I use the bags to store what I call my category paper, Easter, Christmas, weddings and such. I store pattern paper, the scraps, embellishments, ribbon the works in the bag then label the top right corner. When I am in the mood to scrapbook Easter photo's all I need to do is grab my Easter bag, get our Easter photo's from the photo storage box (remember they are already sorted and ready to go) and I am ready to have at it. No need to dig around looking for embellishments, stickers or anything else, I like to keep the scraps in the bags to save even more time and money, love to use up a few scraps here and there.

My category bags are stored alphabetically in file drawers by Crop N Style, I limit myself to one bag per category, the exception to this is Christmas, I somehow have bought a bit more than I should have but I will be whittling that down very soon. By keeping it all in one bag I can see that I need to STOP buying and use up what I have!! Some times that works pretty well. HA

Layouts for Photo box

Here are two layouts I was able to get done nice an quick using my photo box.

I have a section for my Aunt and Uncle that both past away last fall, I was finally ready to look back and do a layout of them.

I used CTMH Veranda level 2 paper pack and Veranda Stickease, love this new paper from the spring cattie

More Organizing

I hope you are finding the time to get your photo's in albums to make your scrapbooking time faster, easier and more inspiring.

I wanted to share with you what I use to keep all the bits and pieces together that I may or may not want to use in my scrapbooks. I am sure all of you are like our family, we have lots of memorabilia from our travel, school, sports and the like. I don't always use these things in my scrapbooks but I wanted a place that I could keep it all together so if need be I had it at my fingertips or the kids can just look back and get a laugh out of some past memories.

I purchased these storage containers at my local Staples office supple store a few years back, I will tell you they were a bit expensive but I was willing to pay the price to get just what I wanted.

I use legal size hanging file folders to divide up whatever I was sorting, each of our children and grandchildren have a section, they are then divided into categories, sports (lots), school, trips, special events. I also have folders for various trips we have taken. I love, love love, this system, I no longer have treasures from the past floating around in drawers, boxes, closets and where ever they seemed to land.

I haven't done a layout yet today but as soon as I get things around the house back in order from the weekend I plan on hitting some of my ablums and getting a little more of my paper stash used up, hope to post later today.