Questions post #2

Every year I say I am going to do less for the next birthday party…

Ahem

And yet every year I end up planning and cutting and making stuff for weeks and weeks before the big day. This year is no exception and we are well into the party planning here for Flynn’s 3rd birthday this Sunday.

More to share on this next week. But now onto some more FAQ’s

1. How do you organise toys – including storage, culling etc.

Argh toys… well I have a theory on how they are stored and I say theory as as soon as I clean the toy room we seem to have a play group or a party or a BBQ and LOTS of kids come over and trash the place. And so I have resigned that they will always be a certain amount of chaos in the playroom but we do try and have a few areas that are tidy.

The theory is that the Ikea Expedit has lots of cubes and they are mostly all labelled which certain toys in certain boxes eg: blocks, train tracks, cars, puzzles, musical instruments etc. At the moment the toy room although it looks tidy is a mess and ALL of the boxes need to be resorted and relabelled but we are waiting until after the influx of birthday presents to do this.

A few general rules-
*One box out at a time
*Good books and toys which need adult supervision go up the top of the unit out of reach
*No throwing toys
*The toy room is packed away a few times a day normally before lunch and then again before bed time.
*Toys stay in the toy room in this house- Flynn brings them out to play occasionally which is fine but we don’t like them strewn all over the house.

See HERE for my previous post and photos on toy storage. We have since done a huge clean out but after Flynn’s birthday I will re photograph this and do another post for you : )

2. oops i meant to include this question also. Where do you buy your scrapbook paper and embellishments from and what kind of style do you use? and do you do alot of journalling on them? I would love to see some recent scrapbook pages if you dont mind. I started scrapbooking 6 months ago and absolutely love it! xx

I buy a lot of my scrapbooking supplies online from the US. When the Australian dollar is good it works out a lot cheaper this way. When I buy online I buy from Two peas in a bucket or Scrapbook.com I have found both to be very reliable and have great customer service. Be warned though the sites are massive and I cannot be blamed for any over spending on your credit card ; )

Sure I can share a few recent pages for you, these are just a few I have chosen out of our family album that have been completed in the last 6 months.

Journalling is now really important to me since having Flynn I try to incorporate a simple message on each layout or for each event (if the event has multiple layouts I will normally on journal and title once) . I like to use the small journalling tear out pads they have available now as they look cute and you dont need to write too much.

The above layout is how I use up extra photos that I have left over that do not fit into any particular event. They are just snippets of our everyday life. I like to group them all together on a layout because it means they get used and journalled. I tend to keep the page pretty simple and I try to fit as many photos as I can onto the page.

This is a close up above of the tag

A summer layout from the pool in February-

And a close up of a small journalling sticker-

And this is an example of how I use hidden journalling-

If you just place double side tape on each end of your photo you will be able to slip in a journalling note underneath the photo- make sure you place it at the top of the page to you can easy pull it up to read it.

And a close up of the journaling

And one more option is to completely hide your journalling and extra photos- in a cute envelope-

Whew mega long post today, I am sure you are all sick of my blabbering so until tomorrow : )