So many finished projects to share with you!!

If you recall back on October 1, I admitted to you that I am not a project finisher. I start all kinds of stuff and don’t finish it. Organizing, crafts, cleaning, you name it, I’ve probably got a half done version somewhere. But this week I am feeling quite victorious. I have conquered so many projects this week!! First of all, we had this photo wall that I mentioned way back in this post involving Krista Lund, Lisa Russo, and Martha Stewart, but I had 4 more pictures to add to it. So my husband and I added them and here’s a picture to share with you all. It’s mostly black and white pictures with a few color portraits of the kids.

Photo Wall -- Finished!!

Then while I had my husband Paul’s attention, I wrangled him into helping me with another project — re-covering our kitchen chairs. Two bar stools and 4 kitchen table chairs, all which started out with cream and navy plaid cushions and in short order became mottled brown stains with a few blue lines. Now they’re covered in heavy duty denim (from the clearance aisle at JoAnns.) I stretched the fabric while he ran the staple gun. Ah teamwork. Here’s the not so pretty underneath section:

chair recovering

and here’s a comparison of the before and after looks:

Recovered Chair next to Desperately Needs to be Recovered Chair

And there’s more folks! I was so inspired by Leah’s post on stashing your scrap, I not only put away all my recent purchases, I put away absolutely everything in my scrap space. That led me to completely re-organizing my cardstock. Once I again conned my husband into helping me and we trimmed my Cropper Hopper Vertical Storage Paper Holders by 1/2″ so they would fit into my Ikea Expedit shelf. And here’s the finished product: 2 shelves of vertical paper happiness.

Vertical Paper Storage

And I’m not done yet!! I was on such a roll, I kept going right into one of my worst challenges, photo sorting. This was, quite frankly, a complete disaster. I did not even take a before picture, it was that bad. However I did take a “during” shot — about half way through my major photo sorting session on Sunday:

photo sorting - during

yep that’s Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie there — I really deserved a mid sorting break! And the work continued this afternoon; the kids and I picked up 2 more Cropper Hopper Photo Storage Cases and I hauled them and all the remaining unsorted photos into the gym where they were playing basketball. We had the whole gym to ourselves so they played while I sorted. Is that dedication or what folks??

more photo sorting

and more photo sorting

And when I got home, I put it all together and here is the final result (well half of it, I didn’t take pics of the other 2 cases but they’re basically the same). Also each case has an opening on the back side and each one holds something different — heritage, enlargement, portrait and sports team photos.

photos sorted!

mish mash of containers that used to hold photos -- all empty now!

I can’t tell you how great this feels to have all these tasks off my list! And I earned my blinkie for the message board. Thanks everyone for all the inspiration, I never could have accomplished any of this without you!