Culling

I have finally decided to cull my scrapbooking products. A major decision in the life of any scrapbooker. However I am so tired of my 'cluttered' room. I find I go to the same products all the time. And all the ones I've had for years that I thought I was putting away for my days when I am not earning money and can no longer buy 'new' stuff - have really lost their shine. I wouldn't use them anymore.
A lot of what I've kept stashed away for 'later on' hasn't seen the light of day for years. I've spent so much money that I am ashamed of the waste. Although I am giving it all away and hopefully some of it may get used or passed on.
For instance the amount of idea books I had at a cost of around $35-40 each and the piles and piles of magazines that are all so outdated - why keep them? Possibly to justify my decision to have spent the money on them. But they are really past their 'use by' date.
So I took a huge amount of them to a friend who can look through them, tear out what she wants, pass them on to others of just throw them away.

I am only keep this years CK magazines and all my Scrapbook Trends and CARDS idea books.

I bought four of the large photo storage boxes many, many years ago and enthusiastically began putting photos in them. But somehow they got put out of sight and then for a few years I just kept adding packets of photos on to a pile of other packets of photos.
Last night I got them all out and put them in the boxes - much tidier. And am grateful for digital photography and the fact that I tend to now only print photos I intend to scrapbook!

My desk is a nightmare so I have to yet tackle that. As well as the umpteen little plastic drawers sets I have with who knows what in them.
Then it's a matter of tidying up my ribbons - again. Then my tools. My plan is to have my cuttlebug and my cricut out all the time so I can just access them easily. I am even hoping to be able to have my sewing machine on a desk with the other two tools.

Lots of plans........a full rubbish bin, and a car boot or two to give away.

And then......no more buying stuff!!!!

Yesterday I went with Anita to Paperific at the showgrounds. It was fun going in by train and tram. Lots of chatting and catching up about our families and life in general.
The show was disappointing though. There really wasn't anything remarkable there - and any make and takes were hard to find.
I did buy some glimmer mist cuz I've been wanting some of that, some stickles and some lovely pens that I intend to use to make my 'old' flowers a bit more interesting.
It was nice to catch up with some friends from the past. Nice to see you Didi, Jodie, Deb, Kerry and Lyn.

Now I've got to make some dough for pizza's to take to Andrea's tonight.......I have a huge basket of ironing that I've been ignoring and I need to prepare a lesson to teach my young friends at Church tomorrow.

Future Socceroo

I li

Could this boy become a future Socceroo???? Being a biased Grandmother I think he can.!!!

He is also a very handsome soccer player as well!!

India and McKenzie two very faithful supporters of their soccer playing brother....even when it's a freezing morning! A lollypop helps!

We hadn't been to see Isaac playing soccer yet and as it was Martin's birthday on Saturday we decided to catch up with him at Isaacs game.
He is a little 'gun' player! He loves it and that's the most important consideration. However his sisters get a bit bored when it's so very cold and McKenzie just really hates it when it's windy so she wasn't going to be too co-operative with photos.

I can't believe that my second youngest child is now 31! How old does that make me feel? Although as they say 'every day above ground is a bonus' and so every day I get older I am grateful!

I 'might' be getting a new car. My Astra that we bought a couple of years ago is turning out to be a bit of a lemon. It was fine until we had a service done and since then it's been back at least one or two days every week for the last 8 weeks! So we have been looking around a bit at our options. The Hyundai i30 is looking good. But we're just not 100% sure we should be committing some well earned super towards paying for it!! Hmm......Decisions, decisions.

I am nearly finished with my 'type drawer'. I think I'm pretty happy with it....however the good thing about this is I can change anything anytime I want to. When it's all done I will take a photo and post it here. Still need to add a couple more photos and then there is one family shot I still need to take which isn't easy. It's of Andrea's family and it has to be a really specially good day for Sahnie to sit and have her photo taken.

So, now that I have almost finished creating a 'mess' in my scrap room I have decided to clean it out really thoroughly. I am going to cull big time! I have so must 'stuff' that I bought years ago because I felt the need to have to have every new thing that was released. Even if I didn't have an immediate plan or need for it. I liked it, at the time of course. However, now that I just scrap for my own pleasure and not for teaching or displaying in a shop my need for all this 'stuff' has really diminished.
In fact, most of what I put on my layouts now is from Cricut cartridges or the cuttlebug (sometimes!). Or even piece things together myself. So the demand on all the pre-maid things is very minimal and taking up a lot of space.
I have books and magazines going back years that I never look at. And the current pile is getting higher and higher and I never even get around to referring to those.
I am also fed up with the messy, cluttered theme of my scrap room.
Now that I've written this I realise this is going to be some task that I am going to undertake. Will have to break it down to small steps I think. And two BIG boxes - one for things to pass on and one for the grandchildren to play with....and then there is the rubbish bin as well!
Hoping to get started on this today!

I have decided to find a quote or statement each month that will give me a bit of a push to work on myself to be a better person.

At the moment it's this one:-
"Help me to be cheerful
when things go wrong.
Persevering when things
are difficult; and serene
when things are irritating."

I like this one........because like most people I have and do overreact to different things that come and go in my life. I have been trying to learn to not be this way because the only person who I am hurting is myself. I have learnt that on our journey we naturally get challenges thrown at us. Some are so hard....others we make harder by how we respond. It sure isn't worth responding to anything in any other way than cheerful, serene and persevering.

Good News For The Locals

Well, it seems that Kaiser Craft are more than likely going to open a store at DFO in Cheltenham.
This week Robyn, Rosemary and myself trotted around Geelong checking out a local store and Kaiser Craft. I met Chris Kaiser - the better half of the Kaiser Team!!!! And she told me that they are pretty much coming down to sign the lease next week!!! If it all comes off it will be great. They are doing so well with their products. Just releasing some new ribbons on cards at a very cheap price!!! And their new ranges are going to be released less frequently, but with more to the range such as rub-ons and stickers and ribbons and 6 papers per range instead of 4. I think the first release is in July.
How cool with it be to have them at the DFO in Cheltenham??? It will take me all of 5mts to get there!

It was so good to see Rosemary again. It's been since late last year, I think. Her new home is gorgeous. And she will have a huge scrapbooking room - as soon as she unpacks her house!

It was a long day driving to Geelong and back - shopping - and having a very yummy lunch. We all had the same - a potato and bacon pancake with cheese, two eggs and advocado on the top. Delicious!!! I won't mention what dessert was - a bit too decadent and way more than I should have eaten.

I am really keen to getting back to scrapbooking pages. I am stuck trying to finish my type drawer and am just not getting the creative juices happening at the moment. I might have to put it away for a bit and do something else for a while.

I've been roaming around a bit on Twitter and it makes me wonder what the big deal is about it. I much prefer reading blogs and catching up on what people are doing and creating. I can't see the point in one sentence comments that no-one even knows what it's all about. I did read one that is full of revenge and spitefulness. What's the point in that???
Who even cares? So I won't waist time snooping around there anymore.

I'm looking forward to a long weekend. I think some of us are going to do some bowling on Monday. We've had lots of fun before and it's a great activity to involve the children - especially on a cold, cold Melbourne day. (as is predicted anyway).

Alison - lovely to read your comment - thank you!!!!

Off to get some sleep.