And it begins. the fun and excitement of finally working with all of the new products that we saw, ordered, drooled thinking about ever since winter CHA in February. There are still products we are waiting for, lines and collections that are being released in bits and pieces, or not yet available. but playing with those things we can get our hands on.... what fun! I love piles of new papers. I love to just stack it up, tap it on its edges to make it all square and tidy. touch it. smell it. weigh it in my hands. love stacks of paper. I have been having fun looking at all the new papers as I have been pulling orders for the last couple of weeks. heaven. New products always seem to spur on new projects, new artistic runs, new spurts of creativity. There is that need to play with it, with make something new with it as soon as possible. I am not someone who needs to have it first, there is not an intense need for me to have it in my hands before anyone else, or even in the first run. but have it eventually I must. I tend to go to that new stack of papers and other products before I go onto other places to find stuff to work with. Maybe its because I am notoriously bad about putting my new stuff away. I tend to have piles all over my office. Boxes and packages I have brought home from work. I even have bags with products still in them from the local Archivers, that every now and then I dig through when I am looking for soemthing to inspire me. I usually have a stack of letter stickers on my desk that I have to use for weeks----lately it has been the Mumbo Jumbos. I love those things. Lisa McGarvey said it so perfectly---it is the rounded edges. the a's. love them! what would I do without these letter stickers?

Oh, the love of products.

I love seeing all the new products show up in the Creating Garden. I love to see the Garden Girls use new things, in their own way. It is always so cool to see how a paper can look so different in each of the Garden Girl's styles.

Round is so in! Rounded corners, circle shapes on layouts, curved edges or pieces....

We decided on this theme last fall, when it was appearing as rounded things were really making a style trend come-back. Like Ki Memories holiday collections---the papers with lots of circles intersecting. the papers with the large circles all over the edges of the papers. and the rounded rectangler shapes within shapes. very round.

I love how the Garden Girls take things to new levels though. Sometimes they will ask me for better clarification on a theme. I try to leave the definition of the theme as wide as I can. I want to see what they will do with it. this one was no different. I love how some of them took the round term to also include brads, eyelets or other embellishments like that. They started to take it down to another level, away from the large round shapes like the photos or edges or whatever. Love how each of their minds work.

I recently moved and had to set up a scrap space again. So this time I made sure I had enough room to store all my stuff! :) I create this storage/desk from misc things from Ikea. The bottom two pieces came with doors, I just chose not to put them on. The desk is just a table top that I picked up in the "As-Is" section. The top side pieces have 6 pull out drawers each which I use to store embellishments, etc. The top board is just a piece of shelving I picked up at the hardware store. My husband bolted it all together for me.

2nd picture: I borrowed Renee's idea of the letter trays standing on end. I taped them up and they work great. I put the 12x12 pieces of cardboard (from my 2peas orders!) between each manufacturer to help divide them up.

3rd picture: I organize all my 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock in a mail organizer from an office supply store.

4th picture: A close up shot of the drawer units. I labeled each one so they would be easy to find and organize my little things in.
5th picture: Just keeping it real here. lol My letter stickers are such a mess, but it seems to work for me. I have them all in a magazine holder.

6th picture: I store things I use less often in the Iris carts. I have drawers for extra adhesives, acrylics, stickers, buttons, transparencies, card making/envelopes, misc embellishments, etc. Each one is labeled so I can find things quicker.

7th picture: I store some of my most used ribbon in these little jars, this way I can see them. :)

8th picture: This is actually one of the doors from the bottom units on my desk. I painted it and decorated it so I would have something to look at while sitting at my desk. I just cut up some old jeans for their pockets (which are a fun way to keep items you use a lot. I plan on putting my scissors and hermafix in them.) A little stamping and rubs on and it's ready to go.