If you have a messy, disorganized, out-of-control house, what are the excuses you give yourself for not dealing with it?  There are a million different excuses for not tackling your household problems.  But for every excuse you come up with, there is someone else who had that same excuse and has managed to turn it around and create a successful lifestyle for themselves and their families.


Think about what you would tell a friend who had asked you for your help and gave you this excuse.  Would you call them on it?  Probably.  There are very few excuses that stand up to a good stiff dose of honest conversation with someone who cares about you.  

What would you tell your child if they were giving you this excuse about doing their homework or something important?  I don't know about you, but my kids try every excuse in the book - I'm too tired, too busy, I didn't understand it, it isn't that important, I needed to do this other thing instead, I don't know where to start, blah, blah, blah.  I don't accept very many excuses from my kids, but then again I'm a mean Mommy and they tell me that frequently (ha!).  But I'd rather be the mean Mommy with the kids who are passing their classes than the nice Mommy with kids who are dropping out.  


On the other hand, after I called my friend/child on their excuse, I would start trying to figure out some strategies to help them get past the problem.  The other day I busted my son because he kept forgetting to feed the cats.  I yelled and him and took his computer away for a day, but then I suggested that he leave the light on in the cat area, so he would see their bowl on the way to bed.  Then we moved the bag of food right outside his door, so he would see it every morning and evening.  A little creative thinking can be a big help, 

 So, now it's time for a little straight talk with yourself.  Take a piece of paper and write out all your excuses.  Then look at them from someone else's point of view and see what you can do about them.  Then let me know what works for you.


Come back every Monday for a fresh dose of Clutterbugs.  If you'd like to see past posts on the subject, click the label at the bottom of this post. 

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 Do You Commit Financial Infidelity?

Come back every Thursday for a fresh dose of Smart Money.  If you'd like to see past posts on the subject, click on the label at the bottom of this post for a complete list. 

  

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OK, I lied!  This isn't stamped at all, but I thought it was something cool you might enjoy.  I've been having all sorts of fun with these reverse tie-dyed shirts lately.



Materials needed:

100% cotton t-shirt in a dark color (poly cotton will work, but not as well)
Spray bottle full of bleach
Stick-on foam letters or shapes
Rubber bands
Cardboard to go inside the shirt
Vinegar solution (or washing machine)
Grocery bags to hold wet shirt



For our church youth group, they always make matching shirts for the kids to wear to events.  This year they did these bleached shirts.  I helped with them and I got a kick out of seeing how each shirt came out totally different. They had to have the name of the church spelled out somewhere on the shirt and most of them did their names, but they got very creative and it was a lot of fun for them. 

Making the shirts is pretty easy, but obviously you need to be super careful with the bleach.  A lot of the kids came home with bleach spotted shoes & jeans.

Step 1:  Take the shirt and set it up the way you want it.  You can stick on letters, shapes, or whatever designs you want, or you can take rubber bands to twist up sections that will look like flowers.  You can get a similar effect by folding sections of the shirt in different patterns.  Have fun with it.

Step 2:  Once you've got it the way you want it, slip in a piece of cardboard & pick a safe place to spray the bleach.  I used the bathtub, but at church, we just used a big tarp on the cement.  Then load up your spray bottle with bleach.  Bleach uses its potency after about 15 mins, so if you're making multiple shirts, refill w/fresh.  If you want a complete bleach job like mine, use a fine mist and saturate the shirt pretty thoroughly.  Or get a different effect by using a direct spray or even pulling the sprayer out and drizzling big drops around in patterns. You should see the effects almost immediately. 

Step 3:  Do front & back and be sure you get the sleeves and side seams.  Be careful about any drips or overspray that might be on the surface you are using.  If it touches your shirt, it will become part of your pattern.  Be careful not to shift your letters or shapes around too much, the sticky on them isn't every effective. 


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If you live in a house with other people, as most of my readers do, there are going to be times when you are going to have to deal with Other People’s Stuff (OPS). Unless you live with a herd of raging neatnicks, in which case I’m not sure why you’re reading my blog… Anyway, the OPS can range from towels on the bathroom floor, bookbags & briefcases left in the entryway, shoes (and socks – ew!) all OVER the house – my boys shed socks like a tree sheds leaves.


Anyway, you may not be aware of it, but you have a choice of how you want to deal with the OPS. You basically have three choices – ignore it, clean it up yourself, or somehow inspire them to pick it up themselves. My vote is for option 3 in most cases. Even very young children and very old husbands can be trained to pick up their things if you use the correct motivation.


The trick is to make it more inconvenient for them to continue in their bad habits than it is to just go along with the program and put their stuff away in the first place. It may take a few weeks to get them trained, but if you stick to your guns, your family will be self-cleaning in no time.


Step 1 – is to give them fair warning that something new is going on and lay down some ground rules. You can do it in person or just leave notes in strategic locations. Sometimes a note has even more impact than the spoken word. You want to say something to the effect of “Dear Family – I have implemented a zero tolerance policy for clutter in the following areas: Entry way, living room, front bathroom, and dining room. After today, anything found in these areas that does not belong there will be removed by the Management. Signed The Management (Mom)."


Step 2 – when the OPS appears, and trust me, it will appear almost immediately, what do you do? Well, naturally, you remove it. Where you remove it to, is entirely your choice. The one thing you shouldn’t do is remove it to any place where the OP wants it to be. To do that is to condemn yourself to a life of involuntary servitude. My only exception to this is for sick OP’s or OP’s who are in crisis (midterms, big work projects, holiday crunch time, etc.)


Step 3 - So where to put it? Be creative. Have a little fun. You could put it in the dog house, the garage, the bathtub, under the bed, in the hall closet, or you could hold it hostage in a laundry basket in your closet. Then when the desperate OP comes to you in search of the missing object, shrug and look vaguely around. “I don’t know, honey. Didn’t you put it away? You didn’t leave it in the front entryway did you?” pretending horror. If you’re feeling kind, you might give them a hint – “I think I put a load of OPS in the garage somewhere…” or if they aren’t terribly late for anything, let them look for it for a while, to the tune of friendly suggestions about putting their stuff away next time.


They are likely to get mad. That’s OK, let them. Remind them that you gave them fair warning and that you are not responsible for keeping track of OPS. It’s not your fault that they didn’t take you seriously, is it? Help them find their OPS, but gently remind them that they have a choice next time to put it away themselves.


As for the laundry basket hostage situation, feel free to demand bribes, extra chores, or extravagant promises for the return of valuable items, such as keys, iPods, and backpacks. For non-valuable items, use your own discretion. There is always the Goodwill pile.


I did this once when I found literally every pair of shoes my two sons owned lying around the house. I gathered up all the shoes and then insisted that they sing “I’m a Little Teapot” complete with arm movements to ransom them back. I found it very entertaining and next time I threatened to videotape it for Facebook. I haven’t found nearly as many shoes lying around since then…

Come back every Monday for a fresh dose of Clutterbugs.  If you'd like to see past posts on the subjects, just click on the label at the bottom of this post for a complete list. 
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Last weekend, we had a team meeting and we had a special guest at our meeting.  Jill Olson is one of the top demonstrators in our company and she was kind enough to share some of her recent projects with us.  She has been doing something I had not thought to do, she has been using our Big Shot tool with fabric to make a variety of wonderful projects.  Everything in the following pictures (except for the background panels) was cut out with our dies on the Big Shot.

 This is a table runner she made for Halloween using our pennant die.  The cool thing about this is that you can cut about eight layers of fabric at one time, so probably all the panels you see here were cut at the same time.  That saves a LOT of time if you are making a quilt or some other big project.


This is one of a dozen or so hairbows she brought to show us.  Some were made with our flower dies and some were made with our circle die that cuts four different sizes of circles.  I think these are SO gorgeous!



 I love this apron that she has embellished with these little die cut flowers.  I've got one of these too.  Maybe I'll get adventurous and decorate it up a bit.

 I wish I'd taken a better picture of this quilt.  It was in my favorite colors of black and white and pink and it's just gorgeous.  All she had to do was use our oval die to cut all the petals for each flower in one pass.


Look at these gorgeous quilts.  If you are a quilter, you know how cool it would be to have a tool like this to cut your pieces out for your projects.



If you are interested in any of these tools, let me know and I'll get you some pricing.  



 

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I don't know about you, but I LOVE to watch those home makeover shows on TV.  It's always such a thrill to see the "reveal" portion of the show and see how excited the people are when they see their "new" rooms.  My favorite ones are the ones that do it on a shoestring budget.


It's really amazing how much they can change the feel of a room just by a couple of quick and inexpensive changes.  I often wonder what some of these designers would do with my home?  However, it isn't likely that any of us are likely to be able to be on one of those shows, so what can we do?  


Well, if you've got a few extra bucks, you could just hire a decorator.  I don't know anyone who has done that, but someone has to keep these people in business.  If you can't afford a decorator, look around.  Which of your friends has the most gorgeous house?  Can you drop your pride for a moment and ask them for some advice?  Honestly, they'd probably be flattered to death to be asked for help and they might have ideas that wouldn't have occurred to you. 


If you can't afford a designer or have a talented friend, what could you do on your own?  Could you commit to at least one change in each room, even if it's just new pillows for the couch, or painting a wall.  Maybe it's getting rid of some old, dusty silk flowers and replacing them with a cool metal wall hanging?  Could you shift some furniture around, or get rid of a stack of books that's been sitting around for a while?  


The nice thing about updating a room is that not only does it give you a mental boost, but you're likely to be more motivated to keep it neater.  At least for a while, because it will feel like a whole new space until you get settled back into it.  Then you can always make some more changes....

I'm looking around the room where I'm sitting and there is a lot of simple things I could do to make it nicer.  I've always wanted to paint it, but just haven't been able to settle on a color.  Once I decide on that, I can paint and look at redoing the carpet, which is a nasty oatmeal color I've always hated.  My son's Coke can collection is on a shelf nearby.  I know he likes it, but it's pretty cheesy looking.  I could put it in his room and put something really pretty there instead.  I have some angels on my dresser that the cats keep knocking over.  They'd be safer up there.  


I could move the bookshelf full of movies into the guest room and put a pretty silk tree in that corner instead.  I bought one a few years back on sale for $25.  That's pretty affordable and it makes a room look so much more pulled together.  I have 8 pictures on the walls and all but one of them I've had for at least a decade.  Sounds like a rut to me and I could probably find some more up to date pieces without breaking the bank. 


So, for probably $300 and a little effort, I could give this room a nice freshening up.  What could you do with your home?  Try to look at it with different eyes.  What would Nate Berkus do with your room?  What would a real estate agent do?  What would Martha Stewart do?  Then give it a try.  If you don't like it, you can always change it back.


Come back every Monday for a fresh dose of Clutterbugs.  If you'd like to see past posts on the subject, click on the label below. 
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This last year or so, we've had something fun and new going on over at Stampin' Up! I love jewelry, so these Simply Adorned Charms are right up my alley.  I've been having a great time with them.  We have a bracelet with some small charms, but so far, I've been concentrating on collecting the necklace charms.  The reason I like them is that you can open them up and change out the accents to match different outfits, different holidays, or just use pics of the kids!  I think that is awesome. 


Aren't these cute?  The tiny one is on a string of pearls I happened to have.  The insert is from my digital scrapbooking program.  The medium one is done up for Valentine's Day with our Real Red Cardstock and a white rub-on, and the big one I just took fresh out of the box, so I haven't made any inserts for it yet.  The chain is the one Stampin' Up! sells, which I love because it's easy to get on and off!  I have long fingernails and those lobster claw clasps are a bugger! 


These are some of my inserts I have made using our My Digital Scrapbooking software.  They were surprisingly easy.  I made all of these, plus all the ones in the next picture on one page and then just cut them out.  I set up several different squares with different background papers and then just randomly added stamps and other embellishments and sized them to fit the 1" width.  That's what is sweet about the program because you can easily size the stamps up or down or alter the colors.  I wish you could see the one up in the top corner better.  It is really soft and pretty in a pale green with our Definition stamp that says Happy and a description of happy. 


I sized a couple of these down to fit my small 1" X 1" charm.  I wear a lot of black and white and black and pink, so these will get a lot of wear. 


These are some of my more traditional inserts that I've made.  Some of them are stamped, some are on patterned paper, and some are made with rub-ons.  I made this holder out of the scraps of cardstock so I could pick out a charm to match my outfit every morning.

Because I'm having so much fun with these, I am offering three sets of FREE digital inserts when you purchase a charm from me.  That will get you off to a good start on your own charms.  Please contact me for pricing if you are interested in buying some of these fabulous charms! 



 
 
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This is quick and easy digital page.  This is one of the templates that comes with the My Digital Studio program.  All I had to do was pop in a picture and add the title and I have a lovely page to memorialize our dog, Sasha.  

PS:  My browser isn't displaying this picture properly.  I'm not sure if it's a browser thing, or if it doesn't like the way I upsized the pic, but in real life, the fonts and patterns are perfectly crisp and clear! 





I thought I would take a minute to answer a few questions about our digital scrapbooking software.  

Mac or PC?  Both.  


Is it compatible with other software?  Yes.  The stamp sets, designer paper, embellishments, and designer kits can all be used with Photoshop, and most of the other popular programs used for digital scrapbooking.  


What comes in the program?  A ton of stuff.  The basic program includes probably 20 or so stamp sets (a stamp set contains about 4 to 8 individual stamps or brushes, more if it is an alphabet), all our basic punches, all our Stampin' Up! coordinating colors, dozens of patterned papers and embellishments, and enough pre-made templates to fill several scrapbooks.  Plus it has the software shell to create and edit your pages quickly and easily. 


What if I want some new stuff?  New digital downloads are coming available every week.  Prices start at .95 cents.  There are stamp sets, embellishments, digital papers, and designer kits.  


How to print my finished pages?  That is the most versatile part of this program.  You can print it on your own printer, send it out somewhere like Costco or Snapfish, or upload it to Stampin' Up!'s website for printing.  The pricing is very competitive, and the colors are guaranteed true to standard for hybrid scrapbooking (adding traditional embellishments to digital pages).  


How easy is the program to use?  Compared to a program like Photoshop, My Digital Studio is SO much easier to use.  I've used computers every day of my life, but I was totally baffled with Photoshop!  With MDS, I was up and running in about 20 minutes.  


I like traditional scrapbooking - why switch?  I have 3 basic reasons why I like digi-scrapping much better than traditional.  Everything is able to be resized and duplicated as many times as I need.  Plus I can do everything in whatever color scheme I want it in.  Traditional was so frustrating because I never had the right size, color, or amount of embellishments and pictures.  If I make a mistake in MDS, I can just hit Undo.  You can't do that with a traditional page!  Also, it's totally portable.  I have gone to so many crops where I hauled 50 lbs of stuff and still was missing that one thing I needed.  With digital scrapping, I can do it anywhere and all I have to have is my laptop and my pictures.  I've even scrapbooked in the car on long trips!  Can't do that with traditional either!   


What do you use for inspiration?  Stampin' Up! offers an entire website for MDS samples.  There's a ton of pages, cards, calendars, and journals out there to use for inspiration.  I also use traditional scrapbooking magazines for inspiration because I can duplicate almost anything they have.  


OK, how much is it?  The basic program is $79.99, but if you purchase it during Sale-a-bration, you'll be able to get a free CD that includes all of the Sale-a-bration stamp sets and images.  


Do you offer classes for MDS?  Funny you should ask.  I am just starting a new class this month.  Contact me for more info if you are in the Salt Lake area or if you're just interested in purchasing the program.  Or you can check out my business website - AdriansStampClub.stampinup.net.  


Come back every Tuesday for a fresh dose of Stamped Stuff.  If you'd like to see past posts on the subject, just click on the label at the bottom of this post. 
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