You know, when it's 95 degrees outside, you can come up with all kinds of projects to keep you from having to go out into the swelter!
I've had these binders for years, to hold various ideas I rip out of magazines, but they just had a printed strip of paper taped to the spine for a label. I decided to purty them up.
Here they are all neat on their shelf.
This is so much better than stacks and stacks of magazines sitting around, don't you think?
There's a phenomenon that happens once or twice a year in the scrapbooking world. A phenomenon that reduces otherwise normal women to the level of desperate junkies on the prowl for a fix.
Yes, Target has document boxes in the Dollar Spot again.
What is a document box, you ask? It's a shallow, transparent, hinged plastic box with a clasp, big enough to hold a small stack of 8.5x11 papers.
But that's not what scrappers use them for. It just so happens that document boxes are the perfect size to hold foam stamps, acrylic stamps, acrylic mounts, unmounted stamps, and...well, I don't know what-all other uses there are, since I just put stamps in mine. Often foam stamp sets, in particular, come in unwieldy packages that require jigsaw-puzzle skills to cram all the stamps back in. Document boxes store flat and you just pop one open, pick your stamp, use it, put it back and move on with your life. Convenient and cheap, is there any better combination?
So once or twice a year, Target puts these in their Dollar Spot and then the hysteria begins on the scrapbooking message boards. Which stores have them? Does X store have them yet? Has anybody spotted them in Cleveland yet? Or Grand Rapids?
They usually come out with the back-to-school stuff, but this year Target decided to put them out in the post-Easter products. Probably because some number-cruncher somewhere noticed that they fly out of the stores in the fall, so maybe they should put them out more often.
I noted with interest the first sighting of the boxes on the Two Peas board, a couple days ago, since I have several sets of stamps that I bought since the last time the boxes were out, and I could use some more boxes.
My friend Cheryl snapped into action, checking the Targets in Williamsburg and here in Newport News yesterday, but didn't have any luck. Today I had to go up to Williamsburg, and dropped by the Target, and--there they were. Fifteen left, and I bought 'em all.
Oh yes, that's what makes these buggers so elusive. Even if your store does get them in, you have to be there right after they hit the shelves, or someone will come in and buy them all, and then you're just out of luck. Like all the Williamsburg scrappers who will show up at Target today. Heh heh.
Many people buy them and sell 'em on Ebay at an inflated rate, which I find to be disgusting behavior. Me, I got five for me and ten for Cheryl. I'm generous like that!
Now I have thirty-one wonderful document boxes stacked neatly in the closet, with all my foam stamps tucked inside. And I can retire from the hunt, rest assured that my document box needs have been met until next time. Ahh.
I had lunch with my friend Cheryl today and bestowed upon her a 2-foot-tall stack of stamping and scrapbooking magazines that I had to clean out in my ongoing Purge of the Scraproom. And we laughed at how magazines take over your life and how we should never buy any more, and then I went to Barnes and Noble and bought two magazines.
However, they were home and garden magazines, which doesn't count, since my previous problem was with hobby magazines. Right?
Also, I don't hoard home mags the way I did hobby mags. So it's all good. Yep, I don't have a problem at all.
Anyway, one of the mags I got was Romantic Homes, which seems to have taken an interesting turn recently. I used to pick it up and flip through it, and it always seemed to be all big curtain swags and floral wallpaper, but I've gotten the last couple issues, and they are really wonderful and more updated and simple.
They have a French editor who writes very peculiarly-worded articles (she has a little essay on the page I linked that is much better written) , but the pictures are pure eye candy. So check it out!
The weather is so ideal this week--cool but sunny, very refreshing. I got all my hair chopped off last week--seriously, like six inches gone--and it feels great to have a light and airy head to go with the springtime breeze. It's been years since I had my hair so short, and it's very layered so I can pull out bits with hair putty and make it look sort of tousled. I have no feminine hair skills, but I can just about manage the hair putty thing.
Now I have to go empty out the living room and dining room so the carpet cleaners can work tomorrow. They're doing the LR, the DR, and the stairs. I've taken a solemn vow never, ever to buy a house from a dog owner again...the previous owner had several dogs, and being a guy, never cleaned up after them, and the spots where they would apparently sit and shed or pee or just emanate doggy odors are just...NASTY. When the air is dry and the windows are shut, the smell isn't too bad, but when the air gets moist and the windows and doors are open--ugh.
Ideally, we'd replace the carpet, but till we can come up with that chunk of change, I'm hoping the carpet guys can at least knock down the aroma a little. We had them cleaned before we moved in, but not realizing the extent of the pet odor problem, we didn't have them do a pet treatment. Tomorrow, I will.
This is part of the reason I have a less-than-warm attitude toward most canines and their owners. Not all, but most!
Off to move books and breakables, wish me luck.
This is so much better than stacks and stacks of magazines sitting around, don't you think?
