Getting organized!

I love the beginning of the school year - always have! And I always start the year so organized. Sometimes, this organized state even lasts until December! ;o) This year I read a great school organization tip in Northumberland Kids magazine - it's by the "15-Minute Mom", who always has awesome tips! She suggests getting clipboards for each child and hanging them somewhere central (the kitchen is always the hot spot in our house, as it is in most homes, I think!), and using them to organize your kids' important papers (school trips, school schedules, sport/activity schedules, etc.) Having three kids, I can tell you that keeping up with everything they need to do for school, Girl Guides, Beavers, blah blah blah, is a nightmare! Plus, my youngest is in Senior Kindergarten, which is an every-other-day kind of thing, which means that he also attends daycare every other day, which means he (ie. ME) has TWO school schedules to contend with! And he's only FIVE!! LOL!

So I went to Dollarama on Friday and picked up three clipboards (yes, for just a dollar each!) and altered them to make them purdy:

I used some of my leftover Jersey Shore Designer Paper, which was retired last week - again, gotta make room for the NEW stuff! :oD The paper was adhered to the clipboards using Mod Podge (remember that stuff? If you did collages in the late 70s, you used Mod Podge LOL) - I like the "Paper Mod Podge" as it doesn't cause the paper to ripple. You can also put a coat of Mod Podge on top of the paper to seal it and make it more durable, but I didn't bother with this project. I girl-ified my daughter's clipboard (with ribbon, scallops and a more flowery paper), and identified each with the kids' initials, stamped with the Big Deal Alphabet set. Aren't they fun? I think I will hang these near the dry-erase board that I also installed in my kitchen this week. And I still need to buy my More Time Moms Family Organizer - it's the best family calendar I have found. I have used it for the last 5 or 6 years. I love it! It's got nice big squares for each day, and stickers for quickly labeling important days. And here's MY tip for making it even more useful for a busy family: I colour code things like appointments, activites, etc. by assigning each family member his or her own colour (I bought gel pens at Micheal's in five different colours). Yeah, I know, I'm a dork LOL! But it does work!

OK, enough 'work' for one day. I think I'll try the Featured Stamper challenge for this week - the featured stamper's gallery is super yummy!

ETA: Here's my card for the Featured Stamper challenge:

I loved the clean look of Jessica's card! I sold my Garden Silhouettes stamp set to another demo so had to sub; I picked the bamboo image from Embrace Life. I also changed the colour scheme - love this combo! It's Old Olive and Chocolate Chip. the Chocolate Chip layer under the layered stamped panel was run through the Cuttlebug with the stylized flower embossing folder.

Happy Stampin'!

A-M