Life with Littles

I WON!!!!!!!

I have been so excited, but have not has a chance to post until now.  I won third place in the 30 day Organizational Challenge- Room Category!!!!!  There were so many great entries I was amazed that I won!  What a great honor.  Check out all the entries at Laura's Blog.  It was a fun challenge, and I have been having a great time "playing" in my "new" scrapbook room!

Finally Finished!!!!!!

Can I just say that I can finally breathe a HUGE sigh of relief!  I finished my last final yesterday and I am officially out of college for the summer!  Woo Hoo!!!!!!  My jobs officially ended on April 3oth, so I am officially a stay at home mom! 

We have also collectively decided (meaning hubby and I) that the next two years (when I officially enter the nursing program) will be difficult and we must have our act together.  The next 3 months will be spent sorting through EVERYTHING and I do mean everything in this house and getting rid of what we do not need.  We will also be finishing up any of the small projects that need to be done around the house.  Of course it wouldn't be summer without spending some quality time with the littles.  We will be going to the pool and taking a few weekend trips together.  I am just giddy with excitement!  Okay, not that I really know what giddy means, but it sounds good, right?

Soooo, I will be sure to post all the horrid details for you each and every day so that you all will know about my progress.  Are you excited yet?

30 Day Organizing Challenge After

****Update.  For some strange reason typepad is cutting off the majority of this post, including the part with the pictures.  Until I get this fixed please view the album at :  http://lifewithlittles.typepad.com/photos/scrapbook_room/

Whew!!!!!  I got it done.  With the exception of the baseboard still needing to be installed and a couple of plate covers (our local store was out of them).  It has been a long hard road, but I am thrilled to finally have it done!  I am going to answer the questions first, then you can scroll down for the horrible befores, and the most amazing afters.

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?  The hardest part was just getting started.  I just hated even going into that room because it was soooo bad.  But once I got started my momentum really got going.  I had planned on working 30 minutes each day, but I just didn't get around to it most days.

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?  I have been sure to put like with like so I am more likely to put it up.  I also made sure to make it pretty so that I will be more apt to keep it clean.

3. What did you do with the "stuff" you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?  Oh my....there was so much stuff that just needed to go somewhere else!  Some of what was in there was unused building supplies, so they went to the garage.  The other things that did not belong were empty storage containers that I no longer had a use for, and craft supplies that needed to be stored in the back room.

4. What was the biggest lesson you learned from this experience?  That it really does not take that long to do a big project if you just get started on it.

5. Now that you have completed the process , do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life? Oh yes!  I have not been able to scrapbook for quite a while.  Mostly for two reasons.  One would be the lack of time.  Going to college full time and running 4 children around to the places that they need to go leaves me with little to no free time.  Since I am not going to be in college over the summer and the activities for the kids will be minimal I should have some time to get caught up on everything.  Not only all of that, but the littles have been thrilled to be able to come in and get an album off the shelf and sit down to look through it.  Even John who is 3 gets them down on the floor to look at them.  It has been a great experience!  Thanks to Laura!

Here is what you seen when you come in before and after  I moved my stamps over here by the stamp pads.  I even still have room in the cabinets.  I can't believe it!

After-  The drawers house my stamping supplies such as sponges and my kaleidacolor pads, embossing powders, etc.  Above my stamp pads are little buckets that house things I use a lot for stamping, tags, q-tips, cotton balls.  I got the buckets at Wal-Mart after Easter for 50 cents each and I love them!

 

Here is a complete picture of the same wall

In the drawer unit I have glues in the top, next comes the cutting supplies, templates come next, and punches are in the bottom drawer.  My hubby still has to put the handles on the drawers and cabinet doors but it is all nicely organized inside.

Here is a picture of wall 2, the drawers hold all of my markers and refill inks, the bottom has my fibers, Xyron, and confetti.  I love the way my ribbon storage turned out.  VERY handy!  The board on the wall was one I picked up at Wal-mart that was covered with red gingham, I recovered it will fabric that matches the buckets on the other wall.

Before

After

Here is Wall 3 with the bookshelf.  I took the stamps of the bookshelf and moved them next to the stamps (duh, works much better that way) the "pizza boxes" hold my embellishments grouped by category.  The plate hanger on the wall is being used to put some mini albums on display to encourage viewing.  I plan on keeping current mini albums here.

Before

 

After picture 1

After picture of just the bookshelf

Here is a picture of wall 4.  The word family is chipboard and I found it at Target for somewhere around 3 bucks.  I also got the words cherish, faith, and something that I forgot at the moment.   The dot for the i is a flower.  I love how it turned out.  The pictures are of the littles but are covered up because after all this is the internet.

That's the grand tour.  Hope you enjoyed it!  I would like to eventually paint the chairs white, but they were given to me and I want to make sure that they are going to work for me before I go to all the trouble to sand them down and paint them.  Thanks for looking!