Fun at the Cookie Exchange & Favorite Things Party!

 The annual Memory Bound staff cookie exchange party was held last weekend at Katie's house. A great time was had by all! In addition to sharing cookies, the group decided to do a "My Favorite Things" gift exchange, an idea from Heidi Swapp's blog. What a fun activity! More on that in a bit...

Here are a few pictures which Dawn took throughout the evening! Everyone brought an appetizer to share. As you can see, we had no shortage of food!

 

We shared a few funny stories (at least the ones we could remember!) which have taken place during the past year. We always have lots of laughs working at Memory Bound!

 

The evening also included a tour of Katie's brand new craft room! It's a beautiful space, and I hope we can share more pictures of it in a future post!

 

Here are Mindy, Jennifer, Diana, and Betsy enjoying a few snacks before the cookie exchange.

 

We had a beautiful array of yummy cookies! Everyone who brought cookies could take a nice assortment home.

 

 

 

The best part of the evening was the "My Favorite Things" gift exchange. There were 16 people participating, so each person brought 16 of one of their favorite items (it could be anything -- embellishments, Diet Coke, nail polish, etc.) to share with everyone else. Of course, the gifts were all beautifully wrapped! As each gift was opened, the person giving it explained a bit about why the item is her favorite thing.

 

 

 
 
  

 

 

Everyone loved the gift exchange, including Jana and her mom Diane!

 Katie set up a display so we could take a picture of all of the gifts together after they were opened. As you can see, the gifts included scrapbooking tools and supplies, food, beverages, music (yes, Maggie compiled a CD of her holiday favorites!), candles, and much, much more. Each gift was a unique reflection of the person giving it!

It was so much fun that the Memory Bound gals are already making plans to do another "My Favorite Things" gift exchange in the summer, because it's too long to wait until next Christmas! If you're looking for a fun idea for your next gathering, we know you'd enjoy it, too. If you give it a try, let us know! :)

Thanks to Katie for hosting the party and to everyone who made it so much fun!
Janet

We are Big NEWS!!!

Hello, Memory Bound friends!
Today's post is by Katie and details a very exciting event that took place at Memory Bound last week! :)
Janet  

UPDATE: Watch for Memory Bound on the news @ 9pm CST on May 6th! (Channel 13 news on channel 17-Fox)


The other day while working, I peered out the window and what to my wondering eyes should appear? 
A WHO TV 13 News SUV to interview me!
No, not me, actually she came to interview Dawn, but that didn't really rhyme with SUV.

Yep, a reporter, Jodi Whitworth from WHO, came to interview Dawn about Memory Bound, scrapbooking, and the craft/photography industry.

This is Jodi Whitworth. What a delightful person and so easy to talk with, which is a good trait when your job is in TV! Click here if you would like to know more about Jodi. (Yeah, we are on a first name basis!)

First, Jodi had to set up her camera. I got a bit of camera envy. 

Here's Dawn showing herself all hooked up!  

Jodi started her interview with Dawn. She shared some words of advice with Dawn, "Don't think about the camera. Just look at me and talk as if we are having a conversation."  Perfect encouragement for Dawn...she was off and did an excellent interview!  I get the feeling, for some reason, that Dawn talks with her hands.

Jodi said that she would edit the film she shot and let us know when it will air, which will be in about a month.  In return, WE will let you know when to watch WHO TV to see Dawn's fabulous interview!

Smiles!!
Katie

Scenes from Our January Staff Crop

Hello, Memory Bound friends! 

In today's post, we'll share photos from our recent Staff Crop. Several of the Memory Bound gals gathered in our store work room in late January for a day of fun! 

  Heidi brought lots of photos to scrapbook. She created some great pages for her husband's recent deployment (he is now safely home)! I love how she incorporated some special cards on the left page of this layout.

 

 Betsy worked on a beautiful project for our upcoming Wedding Showcase, scheduled for February 23-24. This is just one of many inspiring projects you'll see at this annual event!

 

Gloria was hard at work on Valentine's Day projects!

 

 

Here's Diana with her extensive collection of Copic markers! She uses the IRIS Photo Box to organize them. The markers fit perfectly and can be organized by color in the small boxes!

 

 The same boxes can be used for embellishment storage!
 

  Katie worked on her Disney album at the crop. She's using the WRMK photo sleeves, which makes it easy to put together a big album project in no time at all. (See the link later in this post for pictures of the photo sleeves in action!)

 

 Diana and Katie shared a table at the crop. Rumor has it that at past crops, Diana has had a tendency to "spread" into Katie's area, so this time Katie placed a line of masking tape across the table and down the floor to mark off the space! :) But every time Katie left the work room that day, Diana moved the tape...and by the end of the day, Katie had just a tiny spot left! Gotta love these gals! :)

 

Maggie made the cutest birdhouse ever! Watch for a post coming soon about these adorable little creations!

  

  Tess created this beautiful page for her daughter. Love the bling along the edge of the photo!

Bonnie created some great snow pages!

 Diane worked on her beautiful Hawaii album. Click HERE to see more photos of it!

 

 Here's a photo of many of the gals who cropped that day -- Katie, Betsy, Tess, Michele (back to visit!), Bonnie, and Maggie. What a great group of ladies we have at Memory Bound!

 

  

Our work room is almost always available for cropping, except for days when a big class or event is scheduled. If you'd like to spend a day cropping at Memory Bound, give us a call ahead of time to be sure space is available. It's a great way to make progress on your projects...and it's FREE! 

 

Thanks to Diane for sharing photos of a very fun day!

Janet

 

Memory Bound Crop Room Tour

 Hello, Memory Bound friends! 
I'm excited to share today's post with you! 
A few weeks ago, the Memory Bound staff toured three of our staff members' crop rooms. Of course, no such tour would be complete without FOOD, so the tour was also a progressive dinner! Pat organized the fun evening and was also the second stop on the tour. The gals touring brought all the food, so the hostesses didn't need to worry about a thing other than having their space available for touring! I hope you enjoy these great photos from the evening, mostly taken by Dawn.

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My craft room/office was the first stop on the tour. I was completely overwhelmed with the amount of fantastic FOOD everyone brought! We had planned to have appetizers at my house, so I expected they'd show up with a bag of chips and a plate of veggies which would have been great, but I should have known better! They swooped in with all kinds of appetizers, dips, and drinks...Michele even brought cappuccino with tiny cups, complete with whipped cream! I tell you the truth: THESE MB GALS CAN COOK! :) It was more tasty food than has EVER been in my kitchen at one time!  

Seriously, they thought of everything! And the amazing thing is that when we were done at my house, they scooped it all up and left NOT A TRACE!


Here are Diane and Tess at the start of this fun evening!

I took a few gals at a time upstairs to visit my craft room/office. I'm MUCH more at home there than the kitchen! My space is in the room above our garage, which was originally intended to be a bedroom but has always functioned as our home office and my crafting space. I've been updating it over the past year or so, finally finishing it this past summer.

 

  
I tried to be as economical as possible when working on my space. The cubes (which I use to store a lot of my smaller tools and supplies) came from Target as did the chair, ottoman, table, rug, and tree decal. My daughter sewed the pillows for me. The fabric served as my color inspiration for the room.

 

 Here are Tess, Kellie, Mindy, and Bonnie! It was so much fun to share the space with people who actually GET IT! LOL Although my husband is supportive, he just doesn't seem to get all that excited about ribbon and paper storage. :)

 

My favorite part of the room is the walk-in closet. Previously it was COMPLETELY FILLED with tubs of old school papers, and when you opened the door, it blocked one half of the closet. I moved all of the tubs to the basement so that I could use the space for my supplies, then I decided to remove the door and hang a curtain so that the closet would function more like a little alcove. 

 

Here are Heidi and Tess clowning around -- aren't they adorable? They are all welcome back any time, with or without food!

 Most of my closet containers are labeled, which makes it much more fun to put things away when I'm done working! The drawers at the right house my scraps of patterned paper and cardstock. The dots indicate the color family -- in rainbow order, of course! :)

Since the closet is now open to the room, I got the crazy notion that everything needed to be color coordinated, which meant I had to somehow transform my existing storage pieces. I had stored all of my books and magazines in inexpensive cardboard magazine holders, so I simply covered the front side of them in papers to match my color scheme. My daughter and I even spray painted some of my ugly photo boxes to match.

You can see more photos of my space on my blog here!

Our next stop was Pat's house, where we enjoyed a delicious main course of lasagna and salad! Here are Pat and Tess (notice how Tess is in almost EVERY PHOTO? LOL) getting things ready.

As you can see, there was no shortage of food at this stop, either!

Here's the whole group!

 After dinner, we all converged on Pat's room! Her wonderful space previously functioned as a bedroom. She has a great table which provides plenty of space for her projects!

 

Pat has an eye-catching red/black color scheme in her space. We all loved her black cubes from IKEA, which she has filled with containers in matching colors. The cubes hold an amazing amount of supplies!

 In this photo, you can see Pat's closet. It had some built-ins already in place, so Pat added additional stacking drawers on either side to expand her storage space. Closets are wonderful things!

Here are Pat's color-coordinated photo boxes!

 Our last stop was Diane's house, where we enjoyed a wonderful array of desserts before checking out her great space.

I couldn't decide which dessert to have, so I had some of each! :)

 Here's an "aerial" view of Diane's room from just outside the door. (Dawn must have stood on a chair to get this shot!) Diane's great space also used to be a bedroom.

 

 Her son-in-law made several custom desk pieces for her room, including the large table we all loved in the center of the room (shown below). Diane stands to work at the table, which also includes several storage shelves.

  Diane has done a great job creating beautiful wall art for her space, including lots of family photos and vintage pieces.

 You can see in the photo below that Diane has also made good use of the closet. She filled it with a cube storage unit and added stacking trays and drawers to maximize her storage. There is even room for her sewing machine in the closet!

 As a side note, I'll be teaching our Get Organized Challenge class again in January (watch for the date on our next calendar, due out in mid-December). Getting organized is one of my favorite topics, and I hope you'll join me to discuss LOTS of ideas for transforming your space! We have many storage pieces at Memory Bound for you to get started organizing your stash!

* * * * *

  We all got so many great ideas by touring these spaces! Although everyone's approach to organizing is different, I think we'd all agree that whatever kind of space you have -- whether it's a corner, a spare bedroom, a basement nook, or a closet -- it's worth the time and effort to make sure it's organized for how you work and think. It's also very important to make your space inspirational! You'll be far more productive if you feel good working in the space you have. 

 I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of our crafting spaces! It was so much fun that we hope to do another tour in the spring and visit some other staff crop rooms!

Happy crafting AND organizing!
Janet