Jamie Danford

Making the Cut... How I Pepped up the Penthouse~

No doubt about it, I am still LOVING my newly refreshed Penthouse.  The overhaul was such a good thing for my scrappy mojo, and so far my room is staying nice and neat...

I've been asked by a bloggy reader, to talk a little more in depth about my Penthouse Purge process, so let's have a chat...

Janie asked: Can you do a post on how you went about culling your scrapbook items? What to keep, what goes? How did you make your decisions? How much did you keep? Thanks! 

Oh girl, let me tell you it was a looooooong time coming, and I'd been building up some major resentment toward the majority of my supplies.  I still had those stick kids die cuts from My Mind's Eye and MAMBI, circa 1999!  So of course, those were an easy decision.  

One of my main problems, and a major reason for my stockpiling of paper and embellies was that I kept telling myself that I might get contracted to do an album for someone (people used to actually pay me big bucks to scrapbook for them) or that I'd get the urge to do a gift album for somebody.  So I held onto a lot of themed items (baby, Sesame Street, Disney, elementary school, zoo, boy stuff, random sports, etc) that I thought I could use for other people.  Since neither of these things has happened in the last few years, I figured it was safe to toss these items as well.

My daughter is 16, and in 11th grade.  So I kept a limited amount of school stuff, just enough to get through the next two years (I'm caught up, so the younger student stuff could go.)  She plays softball, so I kept those items. 

I've still got a bunch of Christmases, Halloweens, and birthdays to do, so there are plenty of papers and embellies in my drawers for those themes.  But other than that, I pretty much gave away everything else.  

I'd amassed a pretty ridiculous collection of sticker, die cut, and chipboard alphabets, most of them with letters missing from past titles, but I have a Cricut, so it's probably sort of silly to keep buying more when I can cut my own, right?

 I held onto just a handful of my faves...

...but the rest went in the giveaway box.

The process ended up being an awesome experience.  At first, I was hesitant and overthinking everything... scared that I may end up 'needing' something I'd given away, but once I got going (thanks to my buddy Sid who has NO problem tossing stuff... as long as it's not hers haha) it got easier and easier.  To the point where I felt like the energy in the Penthouse was getting better and better with each box full of goodies that went downstairs. It was like 'The Biggest Loser'... scrapcrap edition.  I couldn't wait to see how few supplies I'd have left. :)

I think the hardest thing to get rid of was my cardstock collection.  I gave away hundreds of dollars worth of my favorite scrapbooking product, and it was HARD.  But I kept a respectable amount...

...and it actually goes a lot farther than I thought it would.  I've been feeding off of my original stack, with only minor additions (black, white, tan, and my favorite red) for 7 years!  (I had a crap ton of it I tell you.)  

Now I've only got one drawer of patterned paper...

... two drawers and a small tote of stickers and embellishments...

I gave away all my tools and gadgets except for the things I use regularly, so they fit nicely in two drawers...

...and of course my trusty tool caddy that lives on my table...

I will add that I have a great little half closet where I've hidden a drawer unit to hold general craft supplies like paints, brushes, foam stamps, heat gun, etc. This also houses extra albums and sheet protectors, plus my memorabilia storage.

Now I'm back to the basics, and it feels excellent.  I don't miss the things I gave away, and I know they're being used by happy scrappers who are creating their own keepsakes with them.  So the whole process was a WIN-WIN!

 

 

Back to Scrappin'!

Now that the cherub is back in school, I'm left here at the house all by myself... and it's GLORIOUS.  I've made a list of projects to work on, like pruning the 8,495,137 azaleas that surround my house, repainting the kitchen (third time in six years) and catching up on my scrapbooking (just to name a few.)  

And now that the Penthouse is perfectly cleaned, purged and organized, I feel energized as I climb the steps into it's quiet happy walls.

 

It took DAYS, but I managed to finally get all of the layouts that have been lurking in boxes and crates into albums.  

(It nearly killed me.  What a disaster!  As much as I preach about documenting things, the majority of my layouts didn't have dates on them.  Wth?!?!?)  Bad scrapper!  Lesson learned.

 After that was finished, I spent hours sorting all of my remaining photos into categories, and weeding out the duplicates of those I've already scrapbooked.

I've made a list of some of the subjects that I want to tackle first.  My priorities are catching up on Christmases, Halloweens, and school stuff.

Michael's had lots of 12x12 3-ring binders on clearance, and I found two blue ones perfect for Lizzy's SVA days.  As my first creative project in the new and improved Penthouse, I diassected the information folders we received when she first went to school at SVA.  I used the shield/crest thingy for the front windows of the albums...

And incorporated another piece for the intro page...

So the plan is this... tackle the outside projects in the mornings when it's not hot as a tomcat's ball sack, and play in the Penthouse for a couple hours of creative productivity.  Heck, it's so pretty up there, I actually wrote a new chapter for my book... which is kind of a big deal since I stalled out around the 21st chapter two years ago, and haven't been able to get back on track.  I'm tellin' ya, that Penthouse o' mine is a magical place nowadays! 

In fact... I think I'll head up there riiiiight now. :)

Scrappy Dappy Doo Dah...

Oh what a delightfully productive weekend!  While the hubbster was sneaking through the woods in search of Bambi, and Lizzy was frolicking in Athens...

(Dear Lord, Please don't let her want to be a Bulldawg!)

... and meeting Honey Boo Boo (giggle)...

...My girlies came over for some quality time in the Penthouse.  There was plenty of laughing, drinking and eating of cheese.  Um, and a little teensy bit of actual scrapbooking. 

I've fallen behind, so I decided to just start where we are and scrap the photos that make me feel happy.  These happen to be a few fun 'dress up' events in Lizzy's life. 

Like the local military school's Commissioning ceremony and dance.  It was sort of almost a blind date scenario (they'd only met once), but she had fun and was so happy to be able to dress up and dance with her friends. 

And then there was the Homecoming game night...

And the Homecoming dance...

And the Harvest dance where the girls got to invite dates.  Lizzy opted for the easy way out and asked her friend from youth group to be her date.  She says it was the BEST night ever. 

And then... you'll NEVER believe it.  I actually put the layouts in an album!!!! 

Yes.  This is shocking.  I'm gonna try {really hard} to keep up with this high school stuff.  (Famous last words.) 

Maybe Trixie can keep me straight...

Scrap on my friends!

Scrapbooky Stuff...

I finally hauled my booty upstairs to the Penthouse this past week to log some quality scrappy time, but ended up going through a bunch of layouts, sorting them, and putting them in albums instead of actually creating anything.

There are literally hundreds of layouts in boxes and bags up there that I've been toooo lazy to slip into scrapbooks.  Naughty naughty scrapper!  So I decided that I could find all of Lizzy's school layouts and get them into the SCPS albums that I bought years ago without being too overwhelmed by the enormity of my slack-assedness. 

I got these 12x12 albums from Timeless Tapestry back when I had Savannah Scrapbooking. 

I hoarded six of them, thinking that I'd have two years per book but as it stands, I've only got two loaded with layouts, and my kid's about to be in 10th grade.  So either I WAY overestimated, or I have WAY underscrapped!

I had the best time going through the layouts and reminiscing about her younger years in school (most of them were filled with traumatic mornings and homework horrors) and I am SO happy I created layouts for not only the big events like Jump Rope for Heart and yearly Christmas parties, but also things like non-uniform days and class behavior charts.  I know one day my baby girl will love looking back at her years at SCPS.  (Even though now all she wants is to graduate, move downtown to a cool condo filled with pugs and bunnies, and work at Krispy Kreme.) 

I went ahead and jotted down a list of other stuff I need to scrap, so I'm probably gonna try to get totally caught up  with these specific layouts before I move on to any other scrappy projects.

And while I was shuffling layouts around looking for those pertaining to school, I found a pile that I'd neglected to put on the bloggy.  (At least, I think I didn't.)  So I'm gonna throw them on here now, okay?

Ah, St. Patty's Day... probably the easiest occasion EVER to scrapbook.  Throw some shamrocks on it and call it a day.

I had entirely too much fun with my old Heidi Swapp acrylic paints on this one.

I swear this one's not all crooked in real life.  I'm just a crappppppy photographer!

Sigh... I don't think I'll ever get tired of making layouts about my baby girl. 

Man, this has gotten me all motivated and stuff!  I wanna head up to the Penthouse RIGHT now and dig in, but alas... the man is on his way home from the hunting club so I better wait until another day so I can spend some time with him.  :)

 

 

Five Years Gone...

Can you believe it's been FIVE years since I closed Savannah Scrapbooking???

That's just crazy!

Five years ago I closed up my baby and walked away from the most awesome job in the world. 

I had a super fun five year run with my little biz, and met people from all over the country. 

And through (or despite) the clogged toilets, backordered merchandise, hours and HOURS of inventory, economic woes, and the occasional crabby/crazy/stinky/psycho situations, I got to hang out with the coolest, most creative women a person could ever hope to meet. 

And I'm lucky to still call most of them friends.  So here's to you my beautiful scrappy friends... I still hold memories of you in my heart.

~Amy, Michelle, Sid, Roxie, Autumn, Stacy, Trish, Renee, Pam, Christy, Kristine, Renee, Eunice, April, Maggie, Alisa, Lynn, Sandy, Sherri, Jennifer, Beth, Debbie, Lori, Susan, Amber, Elizabeth, Kim, Melinda, Jennifer, Lisa, Sara, Robyn, Teresa, Cathy, Mandi, Carla, Deiha, Stephanie, Tanya, Tiffany, Jill, Gina, Barb, Rhonda, Natalie, Deborah, Larissa, Nicole, Lauren, Sandi, Cecile, Angie, Rachelle, Tracy, Joy, Jane,  Sheryl, Cheryl, Meghan, Summer, Heather, Gail, Nancy, Bonnie, Jonancy, Shawna, Faye, Becky, Robin, Sharon, Tamara, Betty, Lamuir, Janet, Sue, Toni, Beverly, and Brandi.

So let's raise a glass to the sisterhood... to the sharing of ultrasound, wedding, birthday and graduation photos... to indepth discussions about vaginas, vibrators, marriage and money... to laughing until we cried, peed in our pants, or spewed soda through nostrils... to good-natured gossip, rumors of underpantslessness, and torrid tales of sex after 40.  We welcomed each other into our families' stories, gave advice, and lent comforting ears/shoulders/cocktails. 

You all rock.  I'd do it again in a heartbeat (now that I've had five years to miss it.) 

Anybody got $100,000? I need to win the lottery!  :)

Attention Scrapbookers!

My pal Angie has reorganized her scrapbooking stash and has 7 paper racks (12x12) for sale.  Let me know if you're interested and I'll give you her email.

;)

Show and Tell...

Spent some time in the Penthouse this weekend and have a couple of layouts to share...

Will I ever get tired of ric rac?  I think not. 

How 'bout that super cute paint brush and paint can???  Cricut 'Handyman' cartridge thank you.

Oh yeah, I'm feelin' the giant photo corners... bringin' sexy back.

...Quite honestly, what embellishments would do the 'Slobhole' justice?  Is there a scrapbooking company out there that produces chipboard pieces like empty Froot Loop boxes?  Dirty makeup wipes?  Stinky socks?  I decided to let the photos speak for themselves.

I think our One Direction concert in Atlanta probably deserves its own album because of its monumental importance in my child's life, but this two page spread will have to do. (If they had let me accompany them to the concert, there'd have been more photos for sure, but they were intimidated by my coolness and forbade me from joining.) 

Ah... scrapbooking... how I love thee.  We really need to get together more often.  ;)

Happenin's in the Penthouse (Sorry, no porn)...

Well well well... Lizzy's out of town on her mission trip and Big Dave's in Waycross at a softball tournament all day.  Hmmmm... what's a girl to do?

I hit the stadium first thing this morning, ugh, climbing stairs at 7am is NOT the ideal situation on a Saturday morning, but I got it over and done with and had the whole day in front of me.  Alone.  

The pool was beckoning to me, but in the end I climbed the stairs to the Penthouse and got my scrap on (not to be confused with 'strap on'... totally different.)

I knocked out a couple of two pagers I've been dreading from our trip to Atlanta.  For some reason I just wasn't at all enthused to scrap the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke... I dunno.  

And then I threw this little cutie together...

Man, Bobunny makes scrapbooking SO darned easy... it took all of twenty minutes to put this together, and I think it's adorable if I do say so myself. ;)

In addition to the three layouts, I even forced myself to put some pages in an album, which is pretty darned miraculous seein' as how I've been procrastinating the process for so long... and we all remember the box of doom don't we?

This is the box where layouts go to die.  

Or get slept upon by an obese calico... same thing.  

So I was pretty happy about getting a bunch of my 2011 pages in sheet protectors...

What?  You don't actually wear makeup when you scrap do you?

Don't get me wrong, I've got PLENTY of layouts that have happy homes in the two dozen (+) albums scattered among my shelves...

...But somewhere along the way, I stopped putting them in albums and now I have an overwhelming avalanche of pages in need of homes.  Ugh.

And while I was snappin' photos, I figured I'd show off our new and improved and oh so freakin' organized (sort of) Cricut station...

Bow chicka wow wow baby.  It's the scrapbooking equivalent to 'Magic Mike' I think.  

I also thought I'd share some of my oh so classy, not adolescent at all wall art...

Sure, I've seen scrap studios adorned with custom cut vinyl wall decor, and I've seen 'em with snazzy collections of oh I don't know, say Barbies, monograms, artful black and white photographs.  

I prefer the side of a beer box and some random stickers.  Shocking.   (And just so you know, that beer box holds special, um... marital meaning to me in reference to a certain night back in 1991... the operative word being, 'couch.' Just sayin'.)

It was a good day in the Penthouse.

But then I got hungry.

And the clothes needed to go in the dryer.

And I had to pee.

So now I'm done, it's 3:28pm, Big Dave's not due home for hours.

Looks like it's time for a Real Housewives of New  York marathon. Party on my friends!

;)

 

 

 

Show and Tell!

Well I'd say it's been a while since I've had any scrapbook layouts to share, but low and behold, miracle of miracles, I actually managed to complete a few this past weekend at Tybee.

Between eats, drinks and laughs with my kooky friends, that is.

So let's have a looky shall we?

Yummm... I am LOVING our new Cricut Expression!  It'll cut big fat titles and images like the ones above.  Needless to say there was a LOT of Cricutting going on this weekend.

How wonderfully random is it that I found a whole pack of little polar bear die cuts at Sandi's freebie table in Raleigh a few weeks ago?  Perfect for our Polar Bear Plunge pages!

This birdie paper was another freebie... SO cute! Man, and I forgot how much I love this notebook paper punch (on the journaling box)... meOW!

And this was one of those layouts that's been hanging around haunting me for EVER... well, at least for the last three years.  Finally got around to gettin' her done.

Love the colors on this one.  And I found the little owl button in one of my containers of randomness.  He's adorable fo' sho'!

Oh I'm diggin' this one... even though it's kind of a cheesy title.  I stole the pics off of one of Miss Priss' friend's Facebook walls, haha!

And lastly, this little friend...

Uh oh... the next one will be the big 4-0! 

Well there ya have it, a weekend's worth of scrapbooking. It sure was nice! And now that I've got the Penthouse fairly cleaned and organized, maybe I can get back to scrapping on a regular basis... one can hope! ;)

Penthouse PURGE...

After seeing Sandi's scrumptious scrap studio, I got the itch to clean out and purge my own scraproom.  The Penthouse was bursting at the seams with a ridiculous accumulation of scrapcrap.  I didn't take any before pics, but let me just say that the closet was something that rivalled a beaver dam. 

However, after some serious sorting and a heavy hand toward the Goodwill box, it's clean and organized... and best of all EMPTY so I can stash my scrap tote in it...

...aaahhhhh, empty shelves... glorious.

I also shifted the Cricut 'workstation' to make more room since we'll be introducing our new baby, the Cricut Expression to the mix...

And I began the daunting task of cleaning off my side of the table...

... still a work in progress.

So far I've already taken a bin of 12x12 papers (leftover from the store) and my Crop n Style XXL tote, plus an assortment of stickers and embellies to Goodwill, but now I've got another load waiting to go...

Plus, while cleaning out the recesses of the closet, I stumbled across a couple of alphabets that go with the Revolution die cutting system...

Abigail and Beauty Queen.  Anybody want them?  I don't have the machine they go with.  Make me an offer... I'm cheap.

And I also found these...

Same goes for this set of relics from Savannah Scrapbooking (sigh... they make me a little nostalgic.)  They're full of QuickKutz alphabets (like a thousand dollars worth of 'em.) 

Whaddya think?  Ten bucks? Twenty?  Email me.  No offers and they go to Goodwill.  Goodness only knows what will become of them, it's sad to see my precious babies go, but at this point I haven't used them in over three years so they've gotta find love somewhere else.

Tomorrow I will continue the purge... my goal is to streamline my stash and free my brain from the overwhelmingness (uh, probably not  a word) of its enormity (definitely a word.)

Plus, I've gotta get my shit together because I've got a scrapbooking weekend (TYBEE!) coming up in less than two weeks and plan to get MUCH more accomplished than the last crop I attended... drunk or not.  Just sayin'.

;)