A Bit of Housekeeping and Even More Snow

Good evening. I do believe it has stopped snowing, mostly. Still a lot of blowing going on, but at least the Great Dig Out can begin, again.

Tonight I have two things to show you. One, an Easter card prototype largely inspired by my Tweep Dreena.
She suggested I use a stamp from the Pick A Petal set to make a carrot, then use the Baroque Motifs swirl as the carrot top. I went one better and opened and used one of my new SU dies. Check it out:

The first time I used the die, I punched out all the pieces, then used the negative as a guide to glue them to the card. You can also see the obligatory ribbon. The blue layer was also Dreena's idea. She is SO SMART. Also note the dreaded white space. {shudder}

I tried it again today following yet another of Dreena's suggestions: apply the glue to the die-cut pieces while they are still intact, stick it down to the card front, then peel off the outsides. It was so stinkin' easy that way! I added a little something-something to this version, too:

While cleaning up a bit today, I found the Forest Creatures set I'd earned for Sale-A-Bration, so you know I just had to use it! I love the teeny bunny with the humongous carrot!

I'm not sure yet about the ribbon and sentiment placement. Lots of room for improvement, but I still love that carrot!

Let's move on to what I did most of today, shall we? I tackled the Craft Overflow Area of my Living Room floor. If my son comes to visit next month, I'll need to be able to open the sofa bed, and to do that, this heap o'stuff must disappear:

Pretty bad, yes, I know. Please note: the TV is on. I was watching the marathon weather report.

Let's review the parts of the heap. Here we have a box from SU that contains things yet to find a home in the Captain's Quarters.

I usually have one SU box open and receiving at any point in time. Especially as we approach the Clean Sweep, which is this weekend. All new and unopened SU items land in here.

Next we have what remains of a pile of, um, er, things.

To the far-far left is a bag of 26 M*A*S*H VHS tapes. Anyone want them?

Next we have what's left of what did not get put away last October when I removed all the 12x12 paper packs and put them in my new cabinets in the CQ. What's left are packages of sticky letters; a few pieces of 12x12 sticky sheets; packages of chipboard shapes; bags of cellophane bags of varying sizes; and a box of unmounted stamp sets.

In front of that we have:

... let's see ... a lost-then-found box of Christmas cards; a few more unmounted stamp sets; some SU Treat cups (quite a few, actually); and underneath all of those is a box of IKEA hanging folders. Anyone want the hanging folders?

To the right is a pile of boxes of cards, topped with more cards yet to find their way into a box.

In front of those is a pile of pre-printed (by moi) treat box templates I was going to use one year and never did, and in front of that is this pile:

... a bunch of UFOs that survived many a Clean Sweep and are still homeless, unfinished and unloved.

In front of it all:

... my tent, because I have no where else to put it. On top of the tent, from left to right, are (1) a box that holds all the crap I took off my CD cabinet when I was executing the big furniture move, (2) a pile of table cloths I use for my markets and craft shows that I plan to replace this year (no where to put them), and (3) some old carpet pieces left over from the Other Room conversion to a Craft Room. They will be tossed, eventually. Right now they serve as an alternate scratching toy for kitty.

I went to work, going through everything and starting to find homes for it all, and here I am about half-way:

I see carpet! Yesssss!

Look - empty boxes:

These contained a ton of cards from workshops past, and also some things I tried but never really liked, but also never threw away. But today, ooooohhhh, TODAY, I was merciless, and this is all that's left:

Of special interest is the pile of card backs front-left, and a pile of "maybe I can save these" cards and card fronts to the right. A girl can dream.

But wait! What have we here? Why, they're calendars:

Note to self: don't buy mini calendars until you are really ready to use them. Otherwise, they'll expire and become fuel for a fire. Anyone want some 2009 mini calendars? Speak up, or they'll be recycled.

Let's examine what became of some of that stuff that found its way into the Captain's Quarters. First, that pile of UFOs made it no further than my step stool in front of my card catalog:

I have not even triaged it yet, and I'm not gonna. It holds a treasure trove of crafty goodness that I will just tackle one day. Plus, I had no where else to put it, as you will see here shortly.

Stacked up next to a bag of overflow ribbons we have this:

This contains packages of die cut shapes, chipboard packages, card kits, and some open SU Scrappin' Kits. Two of the kits in the mix are these:

They are from Taylored Expressions and I just loved them! Still do, actually, though I have obviously not found the time to open them. They would make a nice rainy day project. I'm keeping them.

Moving on. Atop the Captain's Table is this pile of SU 6x6 DSP packs plus some cut scraps of DSP:


All the strips of paper are left from 2 Christmases ago when we rolled up the strips and filled plastic ornament bulbs/globes/balls with them.

The rest of the scraps look Spring-y, so I'll try to use them for Easter cards.

Also on the Captain's Table is this pile o'stuff:

Lots of unmounted stamps, including my "missing" set I wanted to use the other day:


And then there's this:

When this set first came out, there was a mis-print with the label, and all of us who pre-ordered the set got replacement rubber & sticker for this image, leaving us with this "bad" one. But you know what? I can put it together and maybe even use it! Or sell it. I am NOT going to toss it, that's for sure!

Along the way I discovered many bags of envelopes and note card packs and all sorts of little things, so I took the opportunity to reorganize this drawer:

From right to left we have: packages of note cards & envelopes. I use these to make my City Cards, plus I used some of them to make Pea's note cards.

To the left of those are all my SU envelopes. To the left of those are my vast collection of SUcellophane bags. And to the left of the envelopes are things like my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, roller guides, brayers, etc.

And NOW, my Living Room looks like this:

Waaaaay better, don't you agree? But wait! When did I find the time to do all of this? Why am I home all day? Because I live amid the great Snowpocalypse of 2010, that's why! DC was closed again today and we had ourselves a blizzard!

Here is this afternoon's view from my couch:

Remember the metal trash can I have that holds my bird seed? You can still kinda see it here:

This is the whole back yard:

And from a cat's eye level:

The snow has actually stopped falling, and I really should go out and clean off my car while it's still light out. Or not. I can do it in the morning. I am pretty sure I'll still be here tomorrow. The area road crews actually stopped plowing today because of the white-out blizzard, so I doubt I'll get to work tomorrow, anyway. We'll see.

So, not bad for one day, hmmm? I can get all sorts of things done when I focus. ;-)

I will take my leave now and maybe go stamp something. I've earned that today!

Thanks for stopping by!