What a Mess!

A couple of weeks ago, the wonderful JLo (jen) from Jen-Lowe Designs was in town at Scrapbook your Life to teach a slew of technique classes. While she was here she offered a service (for a very modest fee) to come to your home and help you organize your "stuff" or like the more sophisticated refer to in their homes, "My Art Room."

For one day, from 10 am until 4 pm, Jen and I laughed while she gave much thought and took 16 pages of notes for me. She is so much fun, not matter what you are doing with her.

The photo above is only of one little corner of them room before J-Lo. Just image the rest of the room. Jen is a do-er. She wanted to tak all my books off the shelves, right then and there. Instead we moved the Queen size hide-a-bed couch to one side of the room and the Hope Chest with all the stuff on it to the other side. This was so when I get my additional 72 inch desk extension, it will continue on the side of the room where my L-shaped built in desk already is.

Her second suggestion was to take all my rubber stamps out of the boxes and remove all the rubber with the help of Un-Du (or, in California, Bestine from Dick Blick's). Ouch! What a job. But, that was just the beginning. . .

This was just the beginning. I filled 4 more grocery bags.

Look at all the empty boxes!

Next Jen ordered EZ Thin Black Mounts for me. This is an 8x12 piece of spongy thin black stuff that is extremely sticky on one side and has a surface on the other side that allows it to adhere (not stick) to acrylic blocks. When they arrived, I proceeded to maximize my coverage and not lose any surface while fitting my rubber onto the sticky side.

Next you have to take scizzors that are covered with a tephlon-like material that will minimize (but not completely) how much the "stuff" will stick to your scizzors and you are cutting out each and every stamp (no matter how small) to later be organized.

I still have to stamp with Staz-On all my stamps on the front of the StampN'Stor Tabbed Lightweight Stamp Storage Panels, so I will know what stamps are on the other side. . .


When all is said and done, I will have secured one entire shelft for other art. My stamps will be on white shinny 8.5x11 thin mats with labels at the top that can then be kept in 7 boxes from the Container Store (of course, they only had one and had a month wait on the remaining ones to come in. . .) - all on one shelf!

This all prompted me to clean off the right side of my desk to make room for my new Pazzles and my Revolution - so that they could be at my finger tips. I also organized another entire shelf in my room.

I really can't finish my room until my daughter, Kari, gets her condo and moves out. I will then have her entire closet that goes from wall to wall and has shelves, for my "stuff." Plus, all the drawers in her desk that will now be empty and finally the drawers in her two night stands.

Along with waiting for more EZ thin Mounts and the Container Store and Kari moving out, I am probably 2 months away from some sanity returning to my beloved Computer/Art/Guest room. I can hardly wait!