New Scrap Office

I am thrilled with my new space. Not only is it more efficient, practical and esthetically pleasing: I know where everything is!

Behind that door is a closet which I still haven't tackled. Currently all of my business suits, fancy dresses and my wedding gown live there plus several boxes I still have not unpacked from our move 2 1/2 years ago. Ugh!
I love these storage cubes. I got them last year when they were on clearance at Michael's and they had a "25% off your entire purchase including sale items" coupon.

I love having a permanent cutting station set up. My Graphic Design class last semester taught me so much about using the exacto knife and accurate measurement. I had always been hesitant to use this method of cutting because I was afraid I'd make a mistake. Now I have everything I need at arms length and lots of good lighting!

The big table (2 Ikea tables pushed together) allows me to work on multiple projects at once which was a really big hassle before. I often am juggling several clients and my own projects and I end up with piles, boxes and storage tubs under foot.

I organize my card stock by color in cropper hopper vertical storage containers . A lot of my paper is in pads so those are lined up on the same shelf. My favorite loose papers are stored inside of the blue QVC/ Creating Keepsakes storage unit. I pulled the drawer out to use separately and I stand the paper up in there. I also have 3 paper towers in my studio which hold a lot of the paper I use for my clients. Loose ribbon goes into one of the glass kitchen cookie jars I got from target for $5. They are separated by color to narrow down the search. Ribbon still on the roll or card is organized in trays, the cropper hopper ribbon storage boxes and in bins. I also have two, 2 drawer plastic units that give me four drawers of storage. In there I have a drawer for: blank cards and envelopes, blank mini albums, ephemera and vintage books, and Xyron cartridges and sizzix dies. On top of the drawer units, I have a box of "found items", a clear stamps binder and my polymer clay supplies.

This area has mostly fine art type supplies - all kinds of acrylic paint, watercolors and various mediums, Prismacolor pencils, verithins, markers and Caran d'Ache crayons. I also have all of my ink, punches, circle cutter, templates and everything Tim Holtz.

I loved the idea of having a garage like many kitchens do for small appliances, so I took apart my storage rack and put one of the bins on top of the desk. Here I store my favorite adhesives, sewing kit, sizzix machine, gel pens and other items I need frequently. Next to it I have all of my rulers and triangles plus a bin for bits and pieces storage.

The shelves are dedicated to embellishments. I have a different bin for my favorite 3 D stickers, flat stickers and rub-ons, a box of fabric squares, drawers for chipboard, jars for flowers, buttons, embroidery thread, and appliques and stackable jars for brads, eyelets, and other small items..
I also have a tub for bling and a bin for charcoal supplies plus a few stacks of chipboard letters.

Here is my knew space in the midst of activity, I am constructing my "fabric of my life" pages for the WASSIMA swap, and I have everything accessible for the 19 x 19 album I'm working on for a client. I LOVE IT! I do wish I had my sewing machine out in the open and a TV so I can listen to the history channel or some TV junk food on Bravo when I am doing late night projects.

Art Office Reorganized!

I have a studio where I do art with clients and friends but I rarely get creative in there on my own and I never do client work in there. I usually do my client work in our office/ my art room until recently when I set up a folding table in my room and moved the computer in there. I've been working with extremely delicate old photos and I did not want them to be at risk of being handled by anyone else in the family. Plus I needed to really spread out and my bed provides a lot of space. My husband has definitely been grumbling about not being able to use the computer and not being able to spend anytime in our bedroom so I surprised him while he was out of town by reorganizing the office into a more efficient art room and getting a bunch of my supplies and tools out of sight. It was such a massive undertaking that it took me 2 days but I finished tonight aand we are both REALLY happy with the new configuartion. Plus it will be a great set up for school next semester because I am taking a still life painting class. I am way to tired to take pictures tonight so I'll post tomorrow. I am going to celebrate by sleeping.

I REALLY have to mention that I have a terrible, shameful vice. I watch the Real Housewives on Bravo. Yes - it is true - it is rediculous, but I can't help myself. My husband is disgusted and makes fun of me. Anyhow, I just have to say "SHAME ON YOU Vicki and Tamera." A friend would have interveined not encouraged Gretchen. The woman is under a terrble amount of stress which will undoubtedly impact how alcohol will effect her. I do not condone Gretchen's behavior but I have compassion for it. Did you ever consider how the fallout would affect Jeff? Gretchen has to live with the guilt and Jeff will surely be heart broken. That was NOT NICE! Ok -I had to get that off my chest.

Scrapbooking as a job???

Yes, that is correct. One of the services I provide through Jilliene Designs is scrapbooking for others. I also do photo archiving, photo art on canvas, jewelry (and other fabulous creations found at my shop on etsy), custom designed scrapbooking and card making kits, arts and crafts instruction and party hostessing, hand made cards and invitations, classroom, at-home and in-studio instruction and I offer website/ marketing / personal creative services. My favorite, favorite thing out of this laundry list of services is scrapbooking. It is such a delight to put together a treasured keepsake for another and to be invited into their memories.

I just am wrapping up with one of my most treasured clients. We put together 2 outstanding albums chronicling her son's childhood achievements. We were just going to do 30 pages but it quickly bloomed into a 50+ page project. I have had wonderful material to work with because her son is beautiful ( iwish you could see him but I've blurred the photos to protect their privacy)! I am handing off the albums this weekend and I am feeling sad because I will miss his adorable photos and working with my lovely client.

I am also assembling an 18 x 18 heritage album for another client which has been a really big challenge. There are photos dated as far as 1913 and several that may have been from even earlier. I handle everything with gloves and have to have lots of space to spread out. It is sort of like detective work in that I am trying to create a visual family tree from the bits and pieces tat are writen on the backs of the photographs. I have almost everyone identified but I'm now struggling with the order to put them in the album and the overall design of each page. When working with old photos, the corners are often broken off and they come in so many different sizes. Estetically you want the page to look orderly but that makes putting photos in chronological order or by subject matter a challenge. If I want the pages to look sharp and visually pleasing I will end up compromising the visual story, but if I put the photos in precise order the pages tend to look cluttered and less than well-thought-out. I know there is a way to make it work with larger mats and adding captions - I just have to work it out.

I love my job!

New Year - New Way

I am jazzed about 2009. I can feel the tingle of a kind of emotional molting. There are times when I WANT TO LET GO of the toxic feelings and beliefs that I accumulate over time but just WANTING to do something does not make it so. Today, i feel the RELEASE. It is as if a giant bird swept down and took my load right off of my shoulders. Of course I still have my habitual worries, issues, denial but I can navigate that stuff much easier now that I am not weighted down with all the waste of yesterday. Today, I walk with just the clothes on my back (OK, I am probably carrying a big purse with a few bits of "blah" I picked up over the weekend). I'm not sure if my metaphors are serving my point but as I write this I can see in my mind's eye what I feel in my heart which is a great way to BE.

We have been purging our garage and closets getting rid of the "things" that take up space. Each time I find something and think "but I might need this someday" I remember that I always have everything I need and that the most important thing to be prepared for is now. In my opinion, too much stuff gets in the way of now. Each "thing" is just one more thing to think about.

We had a garage sale this last weekend. It was a fabulous family activity and the weather was beautiful - FREEZING, but beautiful. I did not realize how vitamin B and K deprived I was until I was outside all weekend. I felt the sunlight feed my body. It was fun chatting with our neighbors and giving people incredible bargains. We were practically giving this stuff away. I love a great deal so I feel it is my duty to give great deals too. It can light up a person's day.

The kids went back to school yesterday and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to get back to our routine. We all do better when we are on a schedule. Tim has Monday's off due to this crappy housing market so he and I spent the day taking care of the business of life and it was a delight. The beauty of marriage is that you share a life and just being together in the quiet tasks can be remarkably intimate and comforting. I love that the little things have become my greatest joys.

Wow - 2009. I hope my BE way of living stays with me. It is an open door, an open heart, acceptance, trust, love, truth, safety, now, and mine, if I allow it.

2009 word

So last night the WASSIMA gals were emailing back and forth about their "word"s for 2009. I remembered reading about this exercise on Ali Edwards blog last year and decided this year, I would participate too. But to my surprise, I had a really hard time coming up with my word. I was stumped. I decided to approach the problem like I would in a professional setting by breaking down the issues and then exploring various solutions. In the process, I got really clear about what hasn't been working in my internal world these last 12 months and what it would look like if I felt the way I wanted to. I realized that I had accumulated some pretty negative messages and feelings. Semi-unconsciously, I felt inadequate, hungry for security and acceptance, inconsistent, lazy and unrealized. I was disturbed that all this noise was playing in the back of my mind and I became determined to have some peace and quiet (for Pete's sake!)

I made a list of words that communicated what I wanted my new year to embody but oddly there isn't a single word to express, steadfast, renewal, health, contentment, generosity and abundance. I was leaning towards "Moxie" when I went to sleep last night (mostly because I liked the playfulness of the word) but when I awoke this morning, I had something completely different engraved in my mind. BE. My husband lovingly said - "I don't get it;" I replied, "That's OK, I do" and for the sake of this challenge, that is what matters. Without actually thinking about it, I realized that all I really want is to settle into my skin. Just saying that quiets so much of the negativity that set up camp in my unconscious mind. Yes, my word is definitely "Be".