spring cleaning, part 2

My Scrapbook Sale is now history. Mostly I'm happy about that, but I gotta confess that I've got a little bit of mixed feelings here.

On the one hand, I'm feeling really good because I finally was able to fit the sale into my schedule (I'd been planning to have one for nearly two years). I'm happy to say that I moved plenty of supplies on to new homes where they can have a fresh lease on life. So, yay me!

On the other hand, I'm a little surprised and honestly also a little disappointed at just how much stuff I actually still have. I'm talking stuff I didn't even go through. (Eeek!) The fact is, there just wasn't time to get to everything. I sorted and I thinned. I purged and I culled. I did what I could, but in the end I couldn't beat the clock. So, you know what that means - there is more purging in my future! And I may just be putting some of those goodies into giveaways here on my blog.

So stay tuned!

spring cleaning

My Stamp Collection Awaits a Purge

Sort & discard, sort & discard... that's what I'm all about right now. After I re-did the scrap space last summer, I was a little bit naughty. I didn't unpack all the boxes of stuff that I'd moved out of my space.

See, the thing is my stuff just wasn't fitting in my work area. And even though I have an additional space to store my class items away from my work area, truth of the matter was that I'd exceeded available space there too. So, now all the excess is making me crazy and it simply must go! (I'm sure many of you fellow crafters can totally relate to this.)

So, what's one to do with all this STUFF when one decides it's no longer needed? One passes it on! That's right, I'm having another scrapper's flea market. I had one a couple of years ago and it was pretty successful, but I'm hoping to reach even greater heights this time. I want to be a lean mean machine on the other side of this.

Won't you please help a girl out and come take away some of this stuff? You know what they say - that one (wo)man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure. Those are truly words of wisdom. At the last sale, as well as getting rid of a whole lot of stuff, I was able to pick up a few items that solved some of my storage problems (a carrying case for my Cuttlebug, and a display rack for my PaperCraft Princess boutique).

Some of my crafty friends and fellow teachers will be here selling as well so I know they will be bringing some amazing things to sell. You really just never know what you're going to find.

Hope you are able to stop and shop (and please bring a friend!)

Check out my other blog for more info: PaperCraft Princess

really good goodies

Don't let the plain brown wrapper fool you

One of the good (or maybe bad?) things about networking with other crafters online is that you get wind of some very good deals. The kind that cannot be passed up. That's how I found myself placing an order at My Scraps and More a couple of weeks ago.

Their label is so cute!

 A fellow "willow" started a thread with a hard to resist subject line: 65% off. Wow!

So, here are the goodies I found myself drawn to. Thankfully, I found the sale after others had mostly cleaned the shelves (or at least taken lots of other stuff I was attracted to). But I'm super pleased with what I was able to pick up for just over $13 (that's including S&H people!)

I love a good deal. Sigh.

let's see... what have i been up to again?

Oh yeah.... a LOT! Brace yourself... this is a LONG one.

April has flown by in a shocking blur of events. Makes my head spin how fast time can run by a person. Gonna try to hit some of the highlights...

There was class kickoff on 4/3 which as USUAL was a blast. We had a great group at the store and the SGT teachers had a whole boatload of awesome classes to add to the roster. Here are a couple of pics of my table:

"By the Sea" mini album - class is on 5/9

These are "mini" displays of the layouts for my 6/27 back-to-back layout classes

The kids started spring break that day too, so that weekend their Dad took them to see Monsters vs. Aliens while I continued to plug away on those darn taxes. It wasn't a usual sort of spring break here at our place --not as relaxing as usual with the tax appointment bearing down on me. We managed a few fun moments --had the cousins over on Monday, did a "girls day" with dd, but I have to admit that I was pretty distracted. The tax appointment seemed to sap all my attention as it always does. Fortunately I pulled it off and made it to my appointment on time and well prepared.

Once the taxes were out of the way, we dove straight into preparations for a costume party that dd was going to over the weekend. I spent an entire day sewing her regal gown (she went as Queen Esther) and we were both happy with the results.

Queen Esther

After the party ended, David & I headed out for an early anniversary getaway. We had heard about a fabulous dance party "Radioactive" put together by our favorite radio station, KCRW and decided to make a special evening of it. We started out with dinner at Engine Co. No. 28 in Los Angeles. From there we headed to the legendary Park Plaza hotel where the event was being staged. I have to admit to being a little nervous about going dancing. For one thing we haven't gone dancing in public in ages. For another neither of us has been very active lately --didn't know how much oomph we had in us for a night of endless dancing. And not the least of my worries was fear of being the "old-fogey" couple.

All my worries for nothing. The crowd was diverse in age and style. The music was fabulous and everyone there was there for one thing: to DANCE! As for my worries about our stamina, like a couple of energizer bunnies we kept on going. Didn't want the night to end. The party was scheduled to go until 2am but we must have left sometime after 1am and then an overnight stay at a hotel nearby. My only regret is that we were so full from dinner that we weren't able to try something from the Kogi truck (didn't know it was going to be there, I guess).

The only pics I have from our little getaway are off my phone so not the greatest quality. There are much better pics from the event here if you're curious.

Dinner at Engine Co. No. 28

Radioactive - Neo-Soul Streetbeat Sound System with Jeremy Sole & Todd Simon

The Grand Voodoo Salon

Breakfast buffet at our hotel next morning

I was sad to see spring break end because it went by in such a flash and I really didn't feel like we did "anything" but then again I guess we did a whole lot. From there I was on to my next busy project --purging the ole scrapbook stash. It's amazing how hard it is to get around to doing that. For whatever reason it just seems to keep getting shoved to the bottom of the list. However, deadlines are always a help in getting to these jobs and that was what got me off my keister again this time. I was signed up for a seller's table at the yard sale at the Lounge and wasn't going to "waste" my table, so for two crazy weeks, I was a purging-pricing maniac. (The yard sale was this past weekend --and totally worth the effort. Most of my boxes came back empty YAAaaaay!)

Another little papercrafting project I'm part of is a huge bookmark making undertaking. A group of friends are making over 5,000 bookmarks for an international convention that we're going to in June. The bookmarks are gifts for the delegates who will be coming from several other countries. Let me tell you there is a LOT of forethought and planning that goes into an undertaking of this magnitude. We are going strong though - have done all the prep work of cutting, printing and embossing the elements for the bookmarks. Now we are down to two final meetings (hopefully) to assemble the pieces into finished bookmarks. I'll be sure to post some pics later.

This past week I was also busy with another little project. I did an "instant scrapbook" for a baby shower (more info here). It was a lot of work both in prep before the shower, and then the scramble to assemble the book on site but as always totally worth it. The finished book turned out great. Here are some pics of the album before adding the photos:





And some snapshots from the shower --the host did a beautiful job!

The mommy-to-be seeing her finished "instant scrapbook" for the first time

Some of the guest take a look at the album

On a sad note, one of my sweet aunts died this month. She was the sister of my paternal grandma and the dearest, most generous woman you could ever know. I keep seeing all her animated facial expressions in my minds eye. I will miss her so much. Here is one of my favorite photos of Auntie Susie and her mom, my great-grandma Luisa:


The Scrappin' Good Times family is having some sad times --our owner Trish had to say goodbye to her beloved cousin Crystal who lost a very courageous battle with cancer. Another of our designers, Belinda, has had her father in the hospital and he is not doing well. Please keep them both in your thoughts.

Well, that is a whole lot of catching up. Guess I'll have to post more often if I don't want to write an entire tome for my posts.

Later!

what's a girl to do?

What's a girl to do with all the purged treasures culled from her stash?!? Find them new homes at the Scrappin' Good Times Scrapbook Garage Sale! Yup, that's right --SGT is having it's very first EVAH garage sale this weekend. I am *so* excited -the timing couldn't be better.

I'll have a table and honestly I could probably fill two tables if I had the time to go through more stuff (or was better at making quick decisions -lol!) My goal was to get rid of 1/3 to 1/2 of my patterned paper, but that is so much easier to say than do. Sigh.

I think I've managed to put aside 1/6 so far. We'll see how the next couple of days go.

If you're in the SoCal area, I hope you'll come "treasure hunting" on Saturday! Click here for details.