Thursday, March 31, 2011

New Toy!

Do you remember when you were a child, and a new toy came into your possession? Remember the excitement you felt and the anticipation you had before you had a chance to try it out?  I do!  One Christmas my Dad built stilts for us. Actually, I think they were for my brothers, but I didn't have a pair. Still, we shared pretty well...sometimes...and I looked forward to having a chance to try them.  I wasn't good at it, as it turned out, so I left them for Tom to play with alone. He had mastered them immediately!

The boys got pogo sticks on another Christmas. None of us could stay on those for long, but we had lots of fun trying.  Another year Dad built a go-cart for us, with a lawn mower engine and two real bucket seats from an old car, and a real steering wheel.  The first time I drove it, I tried to turn the wheel and hit the brake at the same time, but didn't quite do the trick. I ran it straight into the brambles and briars at the end of our cul de sac!  I sat there laughing so hard, until the boys came down the road to pull me out of the underbrush!

Thus far, I've spoken of the boys toys. I had plenty of my own new things too! One of my favorites was a gift from my father on my birthday. It was a 'doll making kit'.  It had little wooden heads with faces painted on, an assortment of plastic wigs that snapped into a hole at the top of the head, and a bunch of pipe cleaners to twist into bodies. Then there were scraps of fabric with which to make clothing for them. I had hours of fun with those.

I didn't mean to get into childhood toys!  I started this because I wanted to tell you about my new, grown up toys!  I'm as excited about them as I was as a child.  They are paper racks from a scrapbook store that closed!  I now have tons of proper space for my many scrapbook papers and card stock!  It took awhile to get the thing in place and bolted together, and we still have one  more to do today. But, oh! how wonderful and organized things will be once they are all in place! 

Yesterday, after the first one was put together, I began to load it. The hard part was to figure out how to place the papers, in color order. I want it to be easy to go to just the right pile for my project, so I've stacked the neutrals at the top, with piles of red, blue, green, etc beneath them. Some of the stack pack pads are left in tact, I can always get those free if  I can't find the perfect sheet in the rack.

My daughter will be so pleased!  So will I...finally I'm inspired to truly get that spot organized!