The Pile and a Layout

I enjoyed quite the productive weekend . . . due in part to the inspiration provided by the Stashbuster class I'm taking; which is sadly (and too quickly) over.  It officially runs through tomorrow, but the last challenge has been posted.  I caught up on the challenges over the weekend; so just have #11 and #12 to do.  #11 is taunting me.  It's gonna be a tricky one.

Anyway, being inspired to create pretty continually has it's own challenges.  Besides the whole wanting to play and forgo anything that is domestic in nature, like cleaning, cooking, picking kids up from school, the other downside is this. . .

A work space that becomes cluttered.  Not a bad thing to have really, but at some point clawing through the piles becomes less productive and inspiring the longer my mojo is working - I'm not a person who can work in clutter for long.  Eventually, if I want to keep going, I have to address it.  Since I'd caught myself up on challenges to that point - #11 was hanging over my head.  The "I need to clean-up" excuse seemed as good as any to put off Challenge #11, plus I told myself I was looking for the product to complete it.  Note:  I'm still looking.

I went through both piles -and sorted them back out into what was waiting to be worked with and what was just leftover stuff.  After finishing that, I looked over and saw this.

AKA:  The Pile.  This pile lives across from my work table on top of my cubes.  As horizontal surfaces go, I'd say this one is doing its job (as in collecting everything) in spectacular fashion.  It seems to be a perpetual pile, as well.  In the past, I have no sooner cleaned it off than it begins collecting again.  So, I just stopped trying.  Seemed the most logical thing.  But looking at that is totally inspiration-sucking.  And I'm looking for Challenge #11 product.  It could be in The Pile.

So the search begins.  I pulled and sorted everything from the top, which naturally creates more piles.  Like this one that needs further sorting - unbagged kits (which are different than a bagged kit) that have been partially used that I need to decide if am I going to use them more.  Odds and ends of embellishment packs from kits that may or may not already be in this pile.  Unfinished layouts.  Things I'd removed from my Clip It Up.  I had to take a side road to sort through my Clip It Up because I went to hang something on it and discovered a bunch of. . .well . . .crap.  

Amongst the collection in The Pile, I found several bagged kits.  These were what I grabbed and took to crops.  Some are barely touched and some are totally untouched.  Some have been paired with photos.  If that was the case - they had photos - I pulled those and added them to the above "more sorting necessary" pile.  Then I simply stowed these away in my Expedit (which I hear goes by some new name.)  At some point I'll have to sort through the kits in there.  

As I cleared off both my work table and sorted through The Pile, I had a box for giveaway at my feet.  This box holds paper scraps typically larger than 6x12", sticker sheets I know I won't use any more (including alphas) and pretty much any other type of embellie I don't see me using.  I typically keep brads, buttons, ribbon that is over 12" (if not, buh-bye), journaling cards and chipboard.  I took another detour, to the left into my vertical storage cube, and sorted through papers I'd stashed away during my last purge several years ago (I looked for my posts about it, but couldn't find them.)  What I found was that most of those items didn't speak my language; chances are they never did and I could have let them ago then.  To the giveaway box they went.  The Kindergartners are gonna have some nice paper to chop into bits next year.

The Pile contained way too much kid-school stuff; most of it produced by our Kindergartner.  I'm better than I was with his siblings at tossing the insignificant things.  It's the projects, handwriting and drawings that are harder to part with.  I keep most of their things in the cube drawers (which is markedly easier as they get older and produce less) but this much stuff isn't going to fit.  I may have to get a banker's box (my solution for his siblings' early years' projects) and put it in the crawl space until such a time when sentiment isn't flowing as strong.

Caution - if you are squeamish, look away or skip down to the next paragraph.  For some, the following may induce a nervous twitch.  Ready?

This was my throw away pile.  Most of it was on my Clip It Up, and a large portion of it is alphabets.  There are some other stickers down there, but yeah...this went in the trash.  There were a couple sheets that sucked when they were new to get stickers off of in one piece.  See ya.  There were some where there was 1) no discernible working adhesive left and 2) not enough letters to make coherent use of (I'm not a mix-it-up ransom-style title maker.)  Sorry fellas.  There were some odd sentiment sheets that wouldn't work for the kinds of cards I use, and I didn't see 5 year olds having a use for them either.  Gone.  There was paper that went in the trash, but to show that in a photo seemed too much for some to handle.

The best part is this...clean and clear.  The two albums.  Ah. . .the red one was from my One Little Word  class and is basically empty.  I will probably hang the cards up in my studio, above my desk as a reminder and re-purpose the album for Day in the Life or December Daily.  The Teal album. . .I have no clue.  I don't buy albums without a purpose, so I'm not sure what I got that for?  30 Days of Thankful?  Maybe.

This is what remains from my "sort further" pile.  I bagged up the kits I was most likely to use more of and set them with other kits waiting to be used.  I pulled out the papers that I wanted one more playtime with and will be making cards with them (already have one.)  I sorted out the embellies I would most likely use and put them away.  This pile will live on my work table for the next week as I work through the PageMaps U card class to use it up.

I mentioned way up at the top that I was creatively productive over the weekend, too.  This is from Challenge #6.  It was to make a frame using a mix of embellishments.

I tried to make a frame around one or two photos to draw the eye, but there are too many and they are too close together.  I opted instead to use eyelets along the edges of a few select photos.  I coordinated colors (heaven knows I have plenty) with the papers that are from the April Bigger than a Breadbox October Afternoon All Boy line.  

After working with those little buggers again, I know now why I stopped.  They are a stinkin' pain!  It took blowing through my paper twice with the setter to realize I needed a stable platform underneath.  I was at my work table which is plastic.  I had to move to my desk to set them.  Then they set like butter.  It was fighting to get them to stay in the holes as I flipped over the paper that became my foe then.  I will use them again.  It may take another 6 years, but I'll be back.  They won't defeat me.  The rest I may have to leave in my will.

Happy Tuesday,