Productive day

I ordered a Clip It Up online last week, with the hopes it would help me tame much of my crafting clutter. I have always liked the concept of browsing for my papers and embellishments the same way I browse for my clothes in a department store, but I cringed at the price. However, after spending a small fortune for stupid stuff for my daughter in her new college dorm room, I thought I deserved to spend a little on my own space.

As FlyLady says, the mess wasn't made in one day, so it wasn't going to get clean in one day either. I set a small goal, to clean out one box of paper scraps and get it mounted on the Clip It Up. I went downstairs with two sizes of ziplock bags and started sorting and tossing.

I should explain something about this particular box of paper. About four years ago, I had a very nice Stampin' Up demonstrator named Joy. I knew that I drove her crazy, because I would go to her workshops and want to change the projects she had precut and ready for us to make. I knew that she would refuse to cut new cardstock to suit my changes, so I would sneak into her scrap drawer to see if I could find a piece of cardstock the right size and color (I usually could, because all the scraps from precutting for the workshop would be in there). Anyway, her husband is in the Air Force, and they moved away. I would still get emails from her announcing the current specials, but not any more personal contact, so I was very surprised one day to get a large cardboard box in the mail from her. In it was a note, explaining that they were moving yet again, this time overseas, and she couldn't take everything with her, so she thought I might like the things she sent. The things she sent were the contents of her scrap drawer - hundreds of bits of cardstock, most smaller than a quarter sheet, all the SU colors, some stamped already, some scored, all the sorts of things sane people would consider worthless. To me, it was a treasure. I immediately made her a thank you card from the contents and some stamps she had sold me in the past, and planted the box next to my crafting desk, where it has lived until this morning. Often I would dig in there for a bit of cardstock, and more often I would throw my own scraps in, but the box stayed there, part of the sprawling clutter emanating from my desk.

I told myself that I was going to throw out everything that was smaller than an ATC, but I did make an exception for long strips an inch wide - those are good for borders and sentiments. I also found tons of white cardstock cut at 2.5 by 2.625 inches - I recall that almost every focal point in every one of Joys workshop projects were about that size. It's a size that accommodates a lot of SU stamps, so I kept those separate. I sorted all the bits by color, and I must say that although I threw away more than I saved, my Clip It Up was well used. I also found several things that I thought were gone forever. Tomorrow, I will get to work on my desk. I originally wanted to do the desk first, but the Clip It Up works best if the weight is balanced, so I wanted to get a lot of paper on the bottom tier before I started filling the top.

Anyway, after I did all that, he last thing I wanted to do is stamp, so I went upstairs to play with my beads. I had some bicone glass beads that I bought at Michael's, so I made this strap necklace:



I had made this pattern before, with expensive Swarovski AB crystal bicones, and it cost me nearly 20 bucks just for a bracelet. This necklace I made with cheap glass beads marked down on clearance, seed beads instead of delicas, and a cheap toggle from a findings kit I picked up at Tuesday Morning. This necklace cost me about 4 bucks to make, and I have lots of beads left over. Of course it doesn't shine like crystal, but I like it anyway, and it looks more casual, meaning I will be more likely to wear it.