Thursday 18 February 2010

Journaling Junkie Mid February 2010 - Challenge 74



This is what you need to do if you want to win an awesome RAK here. Create a LO that celebrates one of your talents, journaling about it and how it affects the people in your life. I decided to take tonnes of photos especially for this challenge. As they were all pretty boring {showing our cupboards, etc, & how I organise our lives!} I decided to make an "inchie" collage with lotsa tiny photos. I was worried it would all look a bit boring but I'm happy with how it turned out & glad I got to document this OCD of mine!

I used a really old printed paper for the background {Provocraft - Rainbow Dots} but first I arranged all my elements onto black bazzill cardstock - into the dreaded GRID design. This is always SO DIFFICULT to get everything lined up straight & mine are never perfect but nonetheless it turned out okay...

I printed my own photos {Picasa Collage of course!} & also printed the title out onto photo paper {free font I picked up at Da Font} called "Capture It 2" then cut it up & positioned it beneath the photo. Printing out that vast amount of journaling took quite a bit of juggling to get everything to fit "perfectly" {not!} into the grid. I measured everything up first {based on the space left around my photo} - which I printed out "CD Cover" size in order to get that square. For each column of journaling & the panel beneath the title, I created separate text boxes in Word. I have done a tutorial on how to do this around October last year, but I'm sure all you clever peeps know how to do it already anyway!

I recommend printing out your journaling onto photo paper if there's a lot of it like this, or onto cardstock if you like {just cut down to A4 size unless you are lucky enough to have an A3 printer} as using regular bond/computer paper is a bit flimsy. I've done quite a few of these "loads to say" pages this year & have decided that printing each paragraph in a separate colour is easy on the eye & less monotonous design-wise. The l'il strips of stripey paper around the title are "October Afternoon" offcuts that never seem to run out lol! Note that I used the bling to dot the "i"s in my title, and for the apostrophe...

As it's difficult to see all the images clearly in the main photo I decided to give you a close up sneaky peeky!

The little heart you see above {& the little bird & most of the bling} come from a recent Making Memories embellishment set - very sweet...

All the buttons are Sassafrass & came ready-threaded & glued to thick foam pads, so thick in fact that I decided to pull them off {I saved them to the side of my desk of course!} & just use small flat glue dots instead as they were too raised & wiggling about unsteadily. The zigzag brad is ancient & represents the flower stem - the flower is a Prima basic that I folded into 4 (glue dotting as I did) to create more of a bud so as not to obscure my journaling. Then I spread the petals open a bit & added some Prima bling to the centre.

My advice to you for grids {not that I have vast experience...} is to measure up everything FIRST on a refill insert (the plain white paper that comes in your plastic album refill sleeves) then make all your text-boxes that EXACT SIZE & leave the outline in to use as a cutting line. I find using a paper trimmer with a point {as opposed to a rotary one} the best way to measure so accurately - & even then I can't manage lol...

I adjusted the size of my journaling as I went along, in order that it all fitted well & kinda matched up on either side. Always select the "blocking" option for this type of text (look on your tool bar for the straight lines one below the other & you want the ones that are all the same length) so that the spacing is adjusted in order for the words to start AND finish at the beginning/end of each line. The "Behind the Scenes" sticker is a new 7 Gypsies one from one of those packs with all the words & sentences on.

Here is the journaling, pasted from Word, so excuse the formatting!

I have this thing about organisation, storage especially. To me there is a right & a wrong way to EVERYTHING, from how to arrange the toiletries on the bathroom shelf to which way to fold the towels & how to make the beds{hospital corners no less...}I have even come up with the "Tilbury fold" for our clothes after they have been ironed. I'm not out to convert anyone else but all the systems I have instituted work for me & make my busy life just that little bit easier.

I have days for washing, days for kids to help me with dinner {"kitchen duty"} & Friday is the day I get my car refuelled & go through the carwash. These little things make me feel in control & like I am "on top" of things. Of course this OCD needs to be tempered at times & drives the rest of my family a little nuts, but they also appreciate that they can find anything whenever they need it {or should I say, I can find it for them!} because everything has a home & I always say "put it back where it lives".

I guess this sounds kinda sad to outsiders but I like it. I grew up in relative chaos so I really battled at first to get my life on track & read many books about organisation. Now I consider everything I buy & only keep things I love, that have special sentimental relevance or are just darn gorgeous & enrich my life. I tell my kids "Everything you buy you have a responsibility to for the rest of time – once it is yours you need to clean it & care for it, house it & dispose of it responsibly should you tire of it".

I regularly sort stuff out for repurposing or passing on. While I love to have a clear out I never fill up a black bag for the bin, like you see on the TV shows. Coming from Zimbabwe I have seen far too much poverty to even contemplate that & even spend hundreds of Rands sending my old stuff back there to Christopher, my gardener there {as we still rent out our home there}rather than getting my maid here to sell it for next to nothing. Once stuff is gone here it is difficult & expensive to replace so I always have a garden shed to house all those things I'm not willing to dispose of just yet...no attics or basements in homes here.

I hope I manage to instil some of my ideas in my kids. Chelsea is already totally "anti-tidy" but hopefully this is just teenage rebellion as she used to be a really good little helper when she was small. Jack is already Mr. Neat but has always been that way & poor old Bing-with his dyspraxia-is pretty much a lost cause.His policy on his wardrobe is "TFTT" {Take from the top} which always makes me chuckle. I actually love that he is so un-image conscious that he really doesn't care what he wears.Luckily he has a lovely wardrobe & also gets to share Jack's lovely "kit" {clothing}.

Jack is Mr. Stylish too & loves branded clothing, especially white, & always buys it himself with Christmas/birthday money & anything he manages to earn from his random entrepreneurial ventures. {He always seems to have a plan on how to make a buck...} He colour codes his wardrobe just like me-At least I have a protégée!Sharing a room has been challenging for these 2 boys but buying them each a couple of chests of drawers has gone a long way to helping them keep everything separate. Plastic wheelie boxes under their beds keep the rest of their "stuff" tidy & accessible too...

I find the best systems are custom-made, ie:- the ones that work for you. The same goes for storage. Always see what you have that needs housing then custom buy or make according to your specific requirements. Containers are my passion – I own them in all shapes, sizes & materials, from basketry to wirework, to clay pots, to wooden boxes, hand-carved or with intricate marquetry. Plastic containers are a positive addiction but the truth is, somehow I do use them all! The fridge gets an almost daily makeover & all the left-overs are decanted into the right sized container, preferably square so as not to waste precious fridge space!

I spend so much time keeping the lives of my loved ones organised that my scraproom is the last place I sort out! I am busy overhauling it at the moment - in anticipation of our house move - and am hoping that the floor to ceiling cupboards will make keeping a "neat look" easier to achieve. While I love scrapbooking I find the storage aspect of it all a bit of a nightmare, as my requirements are ever-changing & there is very little, if any, dedicated scrapbooking storage available here in South Africa. That said I already have a really cute selection of storage options, from cupcake containers to dressmakers forms {used to hang my ribbon off} & cute organza flower-embellished baskets, plus dozens of mini cookie-jars for buttons & other embellishments ;-D

Keeping track of the possessions of a big family is challenging it is rewarding too. Even Cami {definitely not the neatest kid on the block} "knows the rules" when it comes to putting stuff away etc & I think this already gives her an advantage in this mixed-up world we live in. Fortunately Shane shares my sentiments, to a degree, although he definitely wouldn't mind if I was slightly more chilled about it all. I just find it easier to keep at it as it does seem to be a never ending task & often my "just 15 minutes" turns into an hour or more. I like to think this "hobby" of mine has positive spin-offs all round though!


Hope you enjoyed taking a look & congratulations are in order if you actually read all that!!!




5 comments:

Jenny in Durbs said...

Loved your l/o really fab. My DH is our OCD everything in place etc - have to tell you it drives us all nuts LOL but we do know where everything is. It even spills ovr to travelling with him everything is in order & I normally upset things with my pop it in anywhere but they get sorted out again !! Have a good weekend.

Pearl said...

love the idea of your title printed on photo paper , Helen ! same with the colored journaling tip !

wow did you really pack it in here ! grid design & all ! ;) well done !

Jessy Christopher said...

You write the most beautiful journaling!! It is so precious to have all the words you expressed into a layout, that's what I call scrapping from the inside out!! Thanks for sharing. I love the layout... as always!! So inspiring!

topkatnz said...

Well done - you are doing so well with this jornalling junkie thing! I too live for an organised life - Ashlee is totally like me, Glen knows to do his best, while poor Mitch is just a boy!haha

tania said...

finally took the time to read all your journaling helen, it is very well done. maybe you should come and visit me, i have all the tins,bins,containers,BUT i gave up on being ORGANISED,while i am typing this{in my scraproom}i have a tower of boxes,with paper on top of it, i was looking for something,ribbon allover the place!LOL!! BUT that is me:)