Three days into vacation and I've had a couple of very productive days! Yesterday I sprayed my roses for aphids, fixed the fountain -it was running very sluggish because of too much water, I think - painted a wall in the studio and reorganized my studio - twice.

I had taken the measurments and drawn it out and on paper it looked fine, like everything would fit. Unfortunately when it came time to actually set it up the way I had drawn it, it just wasn't flowing - looked too disjointed and chunky! Does that even make sense? I 've had to set it up pretty much the way it was before except that I've gotten rid of one small desk, moved the chest of drawers and added 2 small bookcases that I scored on Freecycle. I like the way it turned out ! It feels good and is reasonably pleasing to the eye.

Today I worked on getting things on the shelves and reorganizing my stamps. I saw something on one of the lists about organizing your stamps in those big ziplock bags. I think it was a tip from Carole Duval. Prior to this I've had my stamps in drawers and boxes, stacked in layers and deposited all over the place. I tried putting them into the ziplock bags with a piece of cardboard in behind it for support - I absolutely love it! I've taken the bags and they are standing in a large rubbermaid container. I can fit about a dozen bags standing up in there and I can see at a glance exactly what I have. They're grouped by theme - birthday, wedding, hearts, things with wings, and so on. This is fabulous! By storing them this way, it solves a couple of problems. First off it organizes them in a way that they are clearly and easily seen and are all in one place. Secondly, now I have more drawere space because the stamps are stored elsewhere. I think this is going to work out really well !

My workroom still looks a little like a cyclone hit it but it is improving. Tomorrow after I get back from my paper run I'll work on it some more. I really want/need to get my work table cleaned off so I can get to work on some new cards. I've also committed myself to some more swaps, want to work on some tags and ATCs and my 3O minute collages.

This feels really good - like I've finally found a system that works and that I can keep up. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.