Changing Seasons

Wow!  August seemed to go by QUICKLY!  Here in Seattle, we finally had our "heat wave" - getting up into the 90's - which, for here, is quite high.  Unfortunately, my craft room has no windows that open and - well, have you ever tried to use a fan around glitter?  <smile>   I tried spending time in there the first morning, but after about 10 minutes it was unbearable.  By the second day, the room had reached over 105 degrees and I had to shut down all the electrics for fear of a meltdown!

So - when the heat dissipated and I was able to resume crafting - what did I do?  I got out all my fall/winter/holiday stuff!  I happened to read a discussion thread on scrapbook.com, asking how often we clean our craft rooms.  What a great question!  I realized I had not really cleaned mine well since I had finished re-organizing it at the beginning of the year, so I got to work on that first.  As I put stuff away, I realized how much of it I wouldn't be using as I moved into the new season.  So, just like I do my clothes, I rotated!

I put away all the spring and summer papers, all the flower stamps and die cuts, the supply of butterflies I like to use on almost everything <smile>.  It was great to free up room on my immediate desk space!  Cleaning everything well felt good - and I freed up more space by putting away some things that didn't really need to be in that room at all.

Then, I got out all my fall/winter/holiday stuff:  all the snowflake punches, stamp sets, die  cuts, glitter papers (have you tried that stuff where the glitter does NOT come off?  Great!).  Found all the paper pads and loose sheets and organized those...  Then I inventoried my stashes; wow! Did I have a lot of stuff left over from last year!  I found more than a dozen kits I had never even opened, including every kind of supply you can think of: brads, ribbon, stickers, stamps, papers, die-cuts, alphas, journalling tags, glitter, distressing ink, embossing powders...<big grin>

How totally like a Christmas morning!

It was almost hard to know where to start, but I got it organized and decided to play with the beautiful fall papers and layered die-cuts I found.  I'll post more pics soon, but here is the first card I made for fall:

This was from a papercrafts kit - it got me inspired to work with fall leaves and their beautiful colors!

SO, now September is here and the pace always seems to quicken...  I hope to spend more time in my craft room over the upcoming weeks - like many of you, I am working on my stock for an upcoming holiday bazaar - they always sneak up on me!

Now, go embellish something!