Fall crafting musings

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before you see you see the latest card I made, I want to take time out to talk to you about doing a little organizing.  Yes, I know people organize in the spring (Spring Cleaning), but I am talking about organizing your crafting space, no matter what type of crafting you do, rather it is needle crafting, sewing, scrapbooking, or some other craft.  First of all, it has been recommended that a person do two major cleanings:  Spring and Autumn.  This does not count towards the everyday cleaning you do.  I am starting to do that for the first time in my life.  So as I do things around the house, including time management and my crafting area, I want to document everything I do. Currently, my townhouse does not lend itself for me to have a whole room for my crafts, that's for my next house, which I want to upgrade to 3-4 bedrooms, maybe a basement, AND A BIG YARD for children to run around in.

I have been in a slump all summer craft wise.  Sure, you have seen my cards when I make them for the Card a day blog (I have another one tomorrow), but between vacations (went to a family reunion and to Canada), a Longaberger consultant's convention, working to get my Longaberger business together (I have been spending lots of time at Homestead promoting the business and the company), and dealing with personal and spiritual things (God is not a thing, it is mostly my church and lots of activities to reintroduce my church to the community again), I am lucky I even remembered I do this for a living. (you can breathe now, sorry for the long sentence).   So now it is September, and my house looks like a cyclone has been through it.  Sure I did basics, but since I do not own this town home, my landlord (My daddy) wants to come in to paint while he has a painter available, plus I do not like how it looks either.  I just hope he lets me pick out my paint color.  Back to the organizing side of crafting.

I have not touched my cricut machines in 5 months, which is the longest I have gone ignoring them, since ignoring baby bug (original Cricut) when I first got it.  So the first thing I did was created a maintenance chart for them in Excel.  I noted things such as check blades, get a deep cut blade for all three, check the print ink levels on the Imagine, and do updates on all three (E1 (Original Expression Machine) E2 Anni. (I have the 5th anniversary version of the E2) and Imagine machines).  Also included are checking mats and cartridges.  Next I ran an update on my computer, and updated CCR (Cricut classroom) Adobe Air, and Cricut Sync.  of course they were out of date.  Since the last time I updated (back in January 2012), I added a new antivirus software from Microsoft, but it activated my firewall, so I had to tell the firewall that it is OK to download anything from ProvoCraft.  Now, I am running updates on the E2 since it was the closest machine to the computer.  I want to "Pinkafy", (if there is such a word) my E2 and Imagine to add Pink end caps to replace the grey ones on the Imagine machine and the green ones on the E2.  No rush one the deadline.

Finally, I need to move some furniture around, and it involves my siblings and my eldest nephew.  No one can never be still long enough for me to tell them what I need, so I am playing by ear. (where's a good husband when you need him, and I want one, so ladies, are you willing to give up your hubby for a day?  I will feed him-JK)  Oh, and I am creating a binder.  Taking some advise from the home organizers who craft (and on You Tube), this is where I am going to separate everything.  Personal from business, tools from paper, envelopes from chipboard.  You name it.  The binder is a pink binder from Staples, and so far, I am happy with the process.

My last advise for you as you organize, take advise from the experts, but make it your own.  For example, I love the binder system that Alejandra from Home Organizing on You tube has, but I also have some old binders that I either have to incorporate in the new system or get rid of only to by lots of Staple's binders, which is not very cost effective.  So to combat this problem of mine, I will look at the older binders to see what I can use, then go to Staples to replace the bad ones.

So tonight you will be able to see the card I made this time, which is in the theme of Autumn.  If you have any comments or advise, please send them.  In the meantime, have a blessed evening.

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