Week #3..Defunkifying my Journal/Pocket cards

I had a bit of a busy week, so thought I would tackle organizing my journal and pocket cards.

They weren't as organized as I had thought, lol. 

I had done these years ago....so they weren't as bad as they could have been either.

I cut the collections backs off, so I have easy reference to any cards that I own.

I put the names of the collections on the backs with my lable maker....I Love my lable maker

I picked up a few of these containers from Ikea (a few years ago) and they fit the pocket cards perfectly!!

I have my off brand cards organized in colours.

I had these files and just printed up the colour names on with my lable maker.

These files I made myself and again, added the collection names one with my lable maker.

These are the 4x6 cards.

Here are the 3x4 sized cards.

Now they are all nicely organized agaim.

Then I got to thinking...they nicely fit into my desk.....I love the look of them in my drawer.

Only thing is that these would take up 2 of my drawers and I'm not sure I use them enough to warrant using up valuable drawer space....but then I may use them more if I do?!?

My room is always a work in progress.

Another area down...and many more to go!

I hope you all have a very safe and creative day 💕

Tracy ❤️❤️❤️

Who doesn't love organizing?!!

I think I need a change.
When I made this desk and organized it, I loved it.
But now I am realizing that I don't have enough room on my desk to spread out (which I usually do when I create...believe me).
What I have been doing is bringing my projects in the rec-room and working on my pool/craft table.
But then end up going from the rec-room to my craft room to get supplies and not always putting them away.
I want to mostly work in my craft room, unless I have my friends over, then we always craft on the big pool/craft table.
This photo is an older one, from when I had just put my desk together and when it was actually clean 😯

In order to make more room on my desk...everything had to come off.
Then to figure out what I want to put on my desk, if anything.
I decided to keep my Copics on my desk. I don't seem to colour as much anymore and I miss it. I figured if I had them front and center on my table, maybe I would colour more.
I also added my tool carousel, or spiny thing as I call it, as it houses so many tools.
Look how much more room I have now!!

I then decided to should go through my spiny thing and clean it out and pair down my tools.
Like seriously, how many pens does one person need!!
Ok, ok, we need a lot of pens, but I don't need them all to be in my spiny thing.

After cleaning off my desk again, I added my paper trimmer as I use that a lot as well as my scrap tin and a candle as I knew cleaning out this room is going to take a long time, so I might as well enjoy a relaxing scent while I'm at it.

I then decided to tackle my stamping area.
I don't actually stamp here, but I store all of my inks, embossing powders and stamping supplies here.
I still need to organize my tag tray you see there...it is a mess.

Last job for the evening was my inks.
I hadn't labeled all of my inks, so figured I might as well complete the task and finish labeling them all.

Oh right, I also organized all of my letters for my Letter Boards into a container.
I am really happy with my progress so far on my room....but I have so much more to do.

I am going through my whole room and decluttering what I don't need, which is difficult for me as I bought most of what is in there for a purpose (at one time).
I do find it easier to gift my friends my supplies...as a matter of fact, I just gifted one of my friends 2 full muti-coloured ink pads and I am happy that she wanted them :)

I will share me progress as I go along.
I was going to do a messy room video....but I think I have more of those than of organized room videos, teehee.

Hope you all have a very Creative day :)

Tracy :)

Layouts Defunkified

I have finally got my loose layouts organized!!!!
I was a bit surprised that I had 44 layouts completed.
But I was even more surprised to see that I had 89 layouts semi-completed.
Meaning layouts without photos.
Then on Friday Night Scrapbooking, I did another 2 page spread without photos.

So now to count I have 135 layouts done!!!
I organized my completed layouts (on the left) in order by date of when the photos were taken.
I organized my semi-completed layouts (on the right) in order by kit...if they were made from a kit.
As a lot of my layouts are made from kits I had purchased at Crop & Create or our Thank You Goodie Bags.

My next task is to make a video on my completed layouts that I haven't shared yet and to also put photos on the semi-completed layouts.
My daughters were really giving me a hard time on not having photos on so many layouts...but I have been having so much fun just making layouts with or without photos.

I made a video on how I organized these :)
To watch this video on my YouTube channel, just click on the link "Tracy's Treasures24"


I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy

Layout Organization and Face Time

I am still working on organizing my layouts.
I don't know why I had the urge to put these kits in order of when I bought them from the Crop & Create event...but I did, lol.
It took most of my day.....many may think it was a waste of time, but it is something I just had to do and am happy that I did.

I also did a couple of videos of the pages I have done from the kits, but most of the pages don't have pictures on them, so I figured I will hold off on the videos until the layouts have the photos on them.

Yesterday I was at my daughter Ashley's house scanning our old photos to have digital copies.
That also took most of the day, but we are on my albums which are in order, so the scanning should go a lot quicker now.

But the great part is being able to see, play and snuggle with this little guy.
Oh my goodness he has my heart.
Oh yes, and of course seeing my daughter Ashley :)

I miss this girl so much!!
Kristy is still in Italy and having a blast.
I am so happy she is enjoying herself as I know she would.
One thing that helps me miss her a little bit less, is that we have a family group text.
So she posts what she is doing during the day and we keep her up to date with shat is happening here.
But even better....we FaceTime at least once a day!!
I get to see her pretty little face and hear her happy voice and she will give us a tour of her hotel.
3 more days and she will be home!!!

I hope you all are having a Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

Happy International Scrapbooking Day

Hope you all are having a great International Scrapbooking Day :)
I planned on scrapbooking all day, so told my friends to drop over if they wanted to play along.
My friend Lynne came by and we had some chuckles and instead of scrapbooking we organized, lol.
Lynne took her photos out of her sleeve albums and put them into photo boxes, and I moved from task to task, lol.

After Lynne left I worked on my albums and layouts.
My daughters have mentioned that I haven't completed their baby scrapbooks..yup, sad but true.
My oldest is 27 and I still haven't completed them.
So the first thing I did was take out their albums and some of my finished layouts that I don't have photos in.

I went through my daughter's albums and figured out what years or milestones that I had missed in these books and wrote them on sticky notes for each one.

Then I gathered up all of my layouts that weren't in albums, or that don't have photos on them.
Yup, those are all (that I know of) layouts that I have completed.
Some are completed pages with photos on them, others need photos.
I am hoping that a lot of the layouts with no photos will work in my daughter's albums...that will make completing their albums so much quicker.

I also did a quick video sharing my hopefully easy process with a couple of quick flips in their albums :)
If you would like to see the video on my YouTube Channel...just click the link "Tracy's Treasures24"


I hope you all have a very creative Scrapbooking Day :)

Tracy :)

Organizing my Photos

Thought you would be seeing my tote organization....ya, me too, lol.
But I can't just have one task going at a time, I need many.

I have been worried about my photos in these sticky paged albums.
The adhesive they use (or used) on these albums are not archival safe.
Over the years the adhesive deteriorates your photos and makes them brittle
I have planned on taking them out of here for years.
Today was the day!

Some of the albums were difficult to take the photos off, and other the photos practically fell off.
See how the adhesive effects the photos.
The top left one is so discoloured.
I was going to discard this one, but my daughter (Ashley who is a photographer) told me she could invert the colour (or something like that) so I kept it.
See the cute short haired girl on the bottom left...thats me ;)
There is a long story about that hair cut...but that is another story.

Look how the pages have discoloured around the edges...that is what happens to paper over the years if the paper isn't acid free.

I used these tools to pry and lift the photos off of the pages.
Some were stuck on there good...or should I say bad.
Most are not damaged from the front, but this one really didn't want to come off.
Plus I was so over this process, and may have lost my patience.

If this wasn't enough of a challenge for me, I also asked my siblings for their albums of our childhood photos to scan them as well.
After taking off all of the photos, then came the tedious process of putting the photos in chronological order.
Which wasn't the easiest as my mom wasn't very organized ...... she had old black and white photos with more recent coloured photos. Also only a few photos had the year on them.
Plus my mom passed away years ago and all of our relatives have either passed away or live so far away, putting them in some kind of order was little like playing a detective.
This is where searching for details in the photos help a lot....."he is wearing a wedding ring, so this is after mom and dad were married"
Or even looking at the size of the photos or the background colour of the photo paper.
My daughter was really good at this.

I purchased a photo album with sleeves to put the photos in so they wouldn't get out of order before scanning.
My daughter Heather had this job.
We did this while FaceTiming with my daughter Kristy, who is in Italy, and told us about her day :)
In between prying photos off of the album pages, I took many breaks with this little cutie.
I am so lucky that my family lives so close and that they actually enjoy spending time with me, teehee.
Making memories everyday :)

We still have so much more to do and I will share with you more on our process when we are closer to being done.

I hope you all have a very Creative Day today.

Tracy :)

Organizing my creative totes

I have been putting off organizing these totes of mine for quite some time.
By the look of my living room floor, I should have put it off for a bit longer, lol.

If you know me you know I love planners, journals, notebooks and well, anything paper related.
I also craft all over.
I got to crops, to friends homes and anywhere around my house.
So I will grab another tote and fill it with the supplies I need for that project and move on...never to put away the supplies.
So I decided to go through everything.

This one is my Craftsman Tool Tote.
I have been using this for my planners and journals.
Then I just started to put other things in here, and it just got to stuffed and I kind of stopped using it as it didn't work for me anymore.

This one I bought from 31 Bags.
I use it to just throw stuff in.
Like when I am working on a project and tote my supplies to other areas in the house.
Truth Time: when I have to clean up and I don't feel like I have time to put my supplies in their proper places, I just dump them in this bag.

As tiny as this tote is...I can sure fill it up nicely, lol.
I keep this little tote on my desk when I am scrapbooking.
It has my pens, scissors, bone folder and other supplies and embellishments that I need (or may need) right in front of me.
I like this little tote as it doesn't take up a lot of room on my desk or table.

Now like everything when I organize...the first thing is to take everything out and see what I have.
I put things in a bit of an order.
Planner stickers, fauxbonichi stickers and stamps in the back.
Washi tape on the left.
Supplies that need to be put back in my craft room in the center.
Embellishments on the right.
Pens and inks in the front.
See a bit organized ;)

I took my planners, notebooks and journals out and am going to figure out a better way to keep them.
The Create 365 planner holder holds my Christmas planner.
I left it in there as I have loose papers in there pertaining to this planner.

Look at all of these empty totes.
I have to admit I do have more totes as I have a bit of an addiction to them.
I left the pens in my Craftsman tote as I have to go through them all as there are some that I don't like to write with, so they will get donated to friends.

You thought I would be sharing my organized totes with you today?!?!
I wish, lol.
My living room looks a bit like a stationary store blew up in it.
Hoping to complete it tomorrow, but I can't make any promises as I have another project I am doing with my daughter.
So many projects not enough me, lol

I hope you all have a very Creative Day today :)

Tracy :)

Back to the Organizing Grind.

Will it ever end!!
I know I take the summers off from organizing...but seriously....
If you go in my room, you would think I was soooo organized...but it is all an illusion, lol.
I used to have dividers in these drawers to keep my raw chipboard and wood veneer pieces separated. I ran out of room, so decided to just put them in ziplock type bags to keep them separated and I can store them all in this one drawer now.

I started to clean last night....then got distracted and started to move my supplies around.

So today I thought enough is enough and went down in my room and started resumed my organizing from last spring...yup, you read that right, last spring.

Actually....I started to fine tune my organizing last year!!!!

Ok, so time to stop beating myself up about this and get to work :)

Hope you all have a very creative day :)

Tracy :)

Kitchen Cupboards Defunkified !!!

Not sure if you all remember I was going through my whole house and organizing it...I even started a series I call "Defunkifying My Life"
I was doing so well and I had documented my whole process.
Then I took a break when the weather got nice, as summer is so short and winter is so long.
Then sadly I lost all of the footage...that was so upsetting and frustrating.

But I still wanted to share my process with you all, so I decided to share anyway.
So because I lost all of my videos, I decided to share with you all the finished cupboards.
I did have some photos (as my phone died soon after my computer ate my videos), so I added them in the appropriate places in the video.

Here is my completed Kitchen Cupboards :)
I hope you find some tips or ideas to help you defunkify your kitchen.
If you would rather watch it on my YouTube Channel...click on my name "Tracy's Treasures24", as for some reason, it doesn't show the full screen on my blog.


Tracy :)

Social media tracker

In the Spring (after I lost all content on my computer) I wanted to make a chart on keeping up with social media.
I thought I had this perfect way to keep track of my social media postings.

I have to admit, I am not the best at keeping up with it all, so I made a book to (hopefully) keep things in order. 

I have the projects I worked on 

Then if I edited and uploaded a video or project. 

I also have the sites that I want or need to post them to. 

Sounds like a perfect solution righ!?!  

Well it would be if I remembered to actually check them off, or post them....and this is only the first page. 

I need to play catch up again....story of my life. 

Hope you all have a very creative day :)

Tracy:). 

Adhesives....Defunkified!!!

I tackled my adhesives and LOVE how it turned out.
Is it odd to be this excited about organized glue?!?!

I had a mixture of different types of adhesives in this one drawer on my desk.
I like how they were close at hand...but a mess to just grab and go.
I kept my foam adhesives, double sided tapes, glue dots (or snot dots as I call them) and some of my ATG refills in here.

But you may wonder...where does Tracy store her liquid adhesive.
Well let me tell you...I kept them in a high cupboard behind my desk.
As you can see, I seemed to store more than just adhesives in there.

I had this container in there and was excited to see what treasures I had forgot about.
Turns out...it was clear packaging I had saved to make shaker cards, and recipes I will never make...I don't even like to cook!!
Now I have an empty container as I trashed what was inside.

I did a video in more detail....now doesn't that make you happy, teehee.
If you would rather watch it on my YouTube channel, just click the link "Tracy's Treasures24"
I do keep a small amount of adhesive in my working bin, but the rest is tucked away in these containers that easily slide out.
One container for each type of adhesive...liquid, double sided, foam and then my hot glue guns :)
I know you want to have one last look ;)

I hope you all have a very Creative and organized day :)

Tracy :)

Pocket Cards...Defunkified!!!

Now don't these look so nice and organized...

Well you know they didn't start off looking that good :)
I kept my pocket cards and my tags together in this Ikea container.
And kept the Ikea container in this tray.
And as I had mentioned before, I tend to pile things without a home, on top of flat surfaces....and this was as good as a flat surface to me ;)

I also purchased quite a few more Pocket cards and kits.
Funny as I don't do Project Life (as this is what these are intended for) but I sure seem to purchase them.
So first thing I do when organizing is to put everything out on my large table.
Once I have everything in front of me, it is easier to see all that I have.
It is also easier to see what I don't want and can pass on to other and also find the best way to organize and store them.

At first I was going to store them in the Core kit packaging.
That would have worked great!!!
But I found out I could store more in these Ikea containers.
Thankfully I picked up a few of them on one of our trips.

This Ikea container holds the older cards that I had.
As well as my grid and index cards.

I put the core kits and some other smaller kits in this second Ikea container.
I also cut the packaging from the boxes and put them in the back of the container.
Because the packaging has pictures of which cards are in which kits, it is easier to find the ones I want.
I made a tab for each kit, labeled them and even added a card from that kit on the front of the tab, so I know at quick glance what colours are in that kit.

I am really happy with how these turned out, I can see at a quick glance which ones I have and I don't have to open a package each time I want to get one card.

I have been learning a couple of things about how I work and how to organize my supplies that will work better for me :)

Now onto the video :)
If you would rather watch it with the full screen, check out my YouTube channel for this video and many others :)
"Tracy's Treasures24"

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)