Opened an ecrater store - Heritage Scraps

I opened an ecrater store to sell my stuff in, currently I am listing die cuts, but have much more to add. 

Heritage Scraps ecrater store

Hope you will stop by and see what I have and find something you can use in your craft projects; I have 1000s of more die cuts to list, but am listing some everyday as possible.  If you are looking for something in particular, you can email and ask.

First I am focusing on getting all my small green Sizzix dies listed.

Organizing Family Photos

In another chapter of my ongoing organizational efforts, I am trying to get my family photos organized.

I am also an avid scrapbooker, so have some photos that are in scrapbooks. Most of the other photos have long since been removed from those destructive magnetic photo albums that were so popular in the 1970s. They absolutely will destroy your photos. These photos are stored in 3 photo boxes made specifically for photo storage. Originally I had divided the photos in the boxes, placing all of my dh's family pictures in one box, all my family's pictures in a second box; and then all of us and our children and grandchildren in the third box. This has gotten a little unorganized over time; since when the kids look through the boxes they see no need to return them to the proper box. I have also made an effort to label each photograph on its back. I include who is in the picture, where it was taken, when it was taken, any occasion that it may be of, etc. Again this is not 100% completed, as I occasionally find unlabeled photos in the boxes.

The biggest problem for organizing photos is trying to organize all the digital photos as they number into the 1000s. With digital cameras, no requiring any expensive developing, to see our images, we shoot infinitely more pictures. A birthday party now can have 200 photos; instead of the 24 that the roll of film limited us to.

Also being a genealogist, I have scanned 100s of family photographs from near and far family members.

The problem comes in labeling, organizing, and ultimately being able to easily and quickly locate a picture when I want it. And I admit that I am probably only doing a C- job of digital photo organization.

I have made many stabs at getting them organized. Some of my efforts have been:

1. I created a folder on my desktop that I named Pictures; and I drag all pictures on my computer into it. So that they are at least all in one place.
2. I have created subfolders in the Pictures folders in the following categories:

• Crafts - pictures of crafts I have done, or pictures of crafts I have seen that I would like to do or use for inspiration. There are sub-folders within this sub-folder for the various types of crafts I do; such as: Quilting, Crocheting, etc.
• I have a subfolder for each family surname that I research, and place all photos of that family in each folder. Within the Talbert folder I have a subfolder for each of my children, one for pets, one for places we go (trips, vacations, etc), one for reunions, etc.
• Scrapbooking - I am hugely obsessed with scrapbooking and have a massive folder with numerous subfolders about scrapbooking, such as: Sizzix, Cricut, Titles, Tags, Page Layouts, Pages I Have Done, Alphabets, Fonts, Borders, etc.

Now this may seem very organized but not really so much so. As there are 1000s of photos in there and there are many, many folders which are only labeled by the date that the computer imported them from the digital camera. Also when one of the kids stops by they pull their memory card out of their cameras and download a copy of all their photos onto my computer. Which is good because I have all the pictures and also good because they have a backup else where of their pictures. However, if they don't delete the photos from their camera after downloading to my computer; the next time they download it will download not only the new pictures they have taken since then, but they will redownload additional copies of the photos that were downloaded last time. This makes for tedious matching up to find the duplicates and delete them.

I guess, to put it into perspective. Yes, organizing is a necessary but tedious part of this; but that is only because we are blessed with the technology to save our littlest memories so easily. Our ancestors, would have priced as a priceless heirloom even one photo of that dear baby or of mother and father. So we are blessed, just overwhelmed. Like anything else, working on it bit by bit and having an organizational plan can help us get organized and remain organized.

Good luck with preserving those visual memories.

Cardmaking Organization

I have been organizing and decluttering all my crafting items. Giving away any that do not work for me, to make way for what does.
My dh seen how much I was getting rid of and asked if I was getting rid of all my good stuff. But I told him that I wasn't getting rid of my good stuff; I was decluttering so that I could find and use my good stuff.
I went through all my rubber stamps and on the first cut got rid of anything that I didn't like or could not imagine using.
Then after they were pared down some; I went through them a second time and separated the ones that I would use for greeting cards or ATCs or for mail art; from the others that were mostly for scrapbooking or altered art and art journaling.
Then I found a very large decorative tin and I put all my cardmaking rubber stamps in the tin; so even while they are just sitting on the shelf they are decorative looking. Plus when I decide to work on cardmaking I can just grab the tin and move it to wherever I am going to work at.
All my blank envelopes are in a box, standing on edge so I can flip through them to get to the one I want.
I got the majority of them at the local flea market; the lady had a large box about the size of a medium microwave and it was full of envelopes also all were Hallmark greeting card envelopes. She had a sign on it saying $4.00; so I asked her how many do I get for $4.00? She said the whole box and naturally I snatched up that deal.
I have also found at the flea market embossed greeting card blanks; using some of them last Christmas to make my own Christmas cards.
The scrapbooking rubber stamps I have stored in 3 drawer white plastic cabinets that I got rather inexpensively from Wal-mart. I have them organized by theme; like frames, Christmas, doodles, etc.
My idea is that the easier it is to grab my things and get working on a craft project when I have a few minutes, the more I can accomplish.

Craft Area Organization

Here is a picture of my craft area organization. The green bookshelf in the midle holds my rubber stamps, then there is the sizzix bookshelf and the trim cabinets and bookshelves. On the bookshelf is my Cricut, and punches.

Hope this gives you some ideas. I know crafters always have lots of toys, oops meant tools, to organize.