I've been doing a lot of crafting lately. Between working on friends' baby book pages and and starting my maternity and Landon's book, I've been using a lot of paper. I am sure that I am not the only one that believes that "any shade of blue will due" is complete crap. There is nothing more frustrating than working on a paper craft (scrapbooking, card making, etc.) and not having the right color or, worse yet, only having one when you need two sheets. As many of you know I have decided to take a Leave of Absence with my job as a teacher to stay home with my new sweet bundle of joy. Bonus ... more craft time .... downfall ... my income stopped. So I decided to take what was left in my craft account and stock up on PAPER .... solid color, every shade, many sheets of PAPER!! The problem is that when I live there is a Michaels and a Joanns. These 2 stores are great for the basics but only provide multi packs of basic colors. Recently I scored at Hobby Lobby and online. Before I left for North Carolina my sister suggested I look at www.thepapermillstore.com. I was overwhelmed with paper options but was able to narrow in on what I was hoping was basic 12x12 scrapbook paper. There were a million options but I settled on 12x12 paper made by ColorMates and called "Smooth and Silky". The paper I chose was between 80 and 90lbs. Each pack contained 25 sheets for $7.47. This was the cheapest I've seen. When I returned from vacation there it was on my doorstep and I was EXCITED and a little nervous it wasn't going to be what I wanted. To my surprise it was EXACTLY what I wanted.
The other place I LOVE to get beautiful shades of 12x12 paper is Hobby Lobby. The closest one to me is 1.5 hours away so when I go it is a planned trip. HL ALWAYS has great sales but the last few times I went their paper wasn't on sale. While in North Carolina I discovered there was a HL close to our beach house AND ..... drum roll please ...... their paper was 50% off .... SUPER SCORE ..... They have the most beautiful shades of every color. I pulled 10 sheets of each color and hauled it to the front. I felt bad for anyone who got in line behind me ... they quickly moved to another line. The cashier stated "I have to count each sheet because of the cameras" and then promptly said "how many of each sheet did you get?" ... hahaha .... In the end my receipt, that showed every single sheet of paper individually on its own individual line, was as tall as me and printed on both sides. The cashier said she had never seen a receipt that long. Me either!
Bye-bye craft account .... hello not needing to go to the store for anything craft related for A LONG time. My other pet peeve is the moment you are working on a project and realize you only need a small piece of a specific color but either don't have a full sheet of it or you really don't wanna waste a full 12x12 sheet for one small piece. I keep all my scraps for this very reason. However, my scraps didn't get used when they were all mixed together. One night I decided to organize them. I bought 12x12 folders at Michaels and sorted the paper by colors. Some colors like orange and yellow went in the same folder. These scraps have been used and have saved me from having to use the expensive full sheets. It's all about saving those pennies!!!
It's Tuesday again and I have something awesome to share. Do you ever wake up and say to yourself "today I need to ..." and then they day ends and you wake up the next morning and say they same thing again about the same task? I know I do. We have great intentions to get things done but get overloaded with the amount of things to get done and we usually end up doing less than we wanted. I work best with lists so I created a weekly task manager chart (it would work for a child's task chart too). I've taken all the major tasks that I need to get done... or have high hopes of getting done ... and broken them up over the week. Some are my tasks and some are my husbands. And let's be honest... not everything gets done BUT I can say since I've implemented this (2 weeks ago) I've been pretty darn successful. An even bigger bonus is that my husband checks the chart as well and asks what hasn't gotten done and helps.... yes, I have an AMAZING hubby! You wouldn't think you needed to schedule things like checking the mail but damned if I don't forget EVERY day to do it and a week or two will go by and then it is SUPER full!!! If you are interested in making one yourself email me for my template .. jessie.hood.3@gmail.com. Or I will make you one and laminate it for $5.00. Just email me what you want on each day. I use WET erase markers over dry erase markers because they have a finer tip making it easier to erase.
The next project I just completed was a weekly dinner planner. I made a list of dinners I typically make or would like to make. Then I added things like "Lance's Choice", "Pinterest", "leftovers", etc. I bought this magnetic weekly calender from Bed, Bath, & Beyond (about $10 - and you can use a coupon) that also had a cork board on the bottom. I created a template in word with squares of all of the meal ideas. I then printed, cut out, laminated and attached magnets to the back (magnets 52 for about $6 at walmart). I bought a square magnet board to put above the weekly calendar to hold all the meal ideas. On Sunday I plan out the meals for the week. If there is something I wanna do that I don't have a card there are blank ones you can write on. For tonight's dinner, Tuesday, you can see we had a Pot Roast. This was a new recipe for me and one that I got from Pinterest. So on sunday, when I was planning my meals I chose the "Pinterest" card because I knew Tuesday was going to be a meal I got off pinterest. Then, when I decided what I wanted to make I switched the cards. On the bottom where the cork board is I pin my fast food / restaurant coupons, restuarant.com discounts, and I clip up my gift cards too. Yes, keeping those in your wallet are handy but this way when I'm planning meals I might decide we are going out one night if we have a coupon or gift card. Modified - you could make this on a cork board with push pins. Once again, if you wanna do this for yourself email me for the template. If you want me to make the cards for you I will and laminate them for $15. If you want the magnets on the back it will be $20. You just need to email me a list of dinners you'd like.
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Two years ago I decided to start a crafting and organizing blog. I posted a few times but didn't keep up with it. This time will be different! I have so many ideas and crafts that I want to share with my friends, family and the world! While googling the internet, looking for my old blog, I came across a video called "Most Organized Home in America". Naturally, I couldn't wait to watch it. This woman has a small space that she has organized in an awesome way. Even more cool .... well to me anyway .... is that 80% of her organizing ideas are ones that I have already done in my home ... so you could say that I have one of the most organized homes in America.Check out her video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoC83JhkCAw
Lastly, this blog is meant to be an avenue for me to share my ideas. Please don't expect me to be witty or grammatically correct ... lol ... I'm a math teacher ;-)
