I finally took some time today, well actually took the WHOLE day... to begin the daunting task of organizing my craft room. Last week I ordered some supplies that would help store the variety of paper that I have on hand. The picture below is a 15 section cardboard paper organizer, marketed for schools to store construction paper in. The openings are 9 x 12 inches, so the standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheets fit great.
Below is my new system for organizing paper scraps. One of my new toys was a Brother
labeler, so I was able to neatly label the files by color or category (i.e. brown, scratch paper, vellum, etc.). I am all in to
repurposing things, so when I received my card candy from a recent swap and figured that it fit perfectly in a square
kleenex box, well, Voila! That's what you see in front of the files on the right. On the left are a couple of Tupperware tall square rounds holding a variety of stickers (the kind that come free in the mail along with address labels), water color pencils, note pads, and so on. The glass jar was my great antique store find full of four different colors of buttons that are great for scrapping and card making.
This is my partially organized bookcase. I'm afraid it will be a work in progress for some time to come because I keep changing my mind about how to arrange things. Even though you certainly can't tell from looking at my pictures, I really DO like to have things in order and categorized so they're easy to find. It just hasn't come together yet... There are two cardboard boxes holding my rubber stamps and a
cd rack holding my small acrylic stamps and paper embellishments. The shoebox holds various sizes of
cardstock and blank note cards along with some miscellaneous embellishments. I think I'll cover the box with pretty paper or else paint it a neutral color.
Below is something I'm rather proud of and really hoping it turns out to be as handy as expected. The two white wire racks were something my daughter had in her locker in school a long time ago I think. Not wanting to take up precious desk space, time or money on one of those spinning racks; and not really having that much that needed to be hung up, I decided to
repurpose some white plastic coated paperclips and hang stuff from the wire rack. Then using an idea I saw someone else use, I put my
stickles upside down through the holes. I heard that it would make the stuff come out easier and I keep having to stick a pin in the hole every time I try to use it, so it's worth a shot!
Take a good, LONG look at this empty desk surface because it probably wont' appear again for another year.... er decade...
Finally, the finished wire rack system! Thanks to some of the ladies in an online scrapbook room discussion group I was able to figure out how to make shelves for my 12 x 12 paper by using zip ties. I had to take the backs off because I couldn't find the extra shelves that I KNOW are around the house, garage or shed somewhere, but hey, when they surface I'll just add more paper shelves! I did find two old cooling racks (which I called cookie racks, sending my
dh on an
unsuccessfull journey trying to find them) that were the perfect width, so managed to get two extra shelves out of those. I still have a long way to go before this project is complete, but today gave me a sense of accomplishment and may give me the incentive I need to finish.
Below is my new system for organizing paper scraps. One of my new toys was a Brother labeler, so I was able to neatly label the files by color or category (i.e. brown, scratch paper, vellum, etc.). I am all in to repurposing things, so when I received my card candy from a recent swap and figured that it fit perfectly in a square kleenex box, well, Voila! That's what you see in front of the files on the right. On the left are a couple of Tupperware tall square rounds holding a variety of stickers (the kind that come free in the mail along with address labels), water color pencils, note pads, and so on. The glass jar was my great antique store find full of four different colors of buttons that are great for scrapping and card making.
This is my partially organized bookcase. I'm afraid it will be a work in progress for some time to come because I keep changing my mind about how to arrange things. Even though you certainly can't tell from looking at my pictures, I really DO like to have things in order and categorized so they're easy to find. It just hasn't come together yet... There are two cardboard boxes holding my rubber stamps and a cd rack holding my small acrylic stamps and paper embellishments. The shoebox holds various sizes of cardstock and blank note cards along with some miscellaneous embellishments. I think I'll cover the box with pretty paper or else paint it a neutral color.
Below is something I'm rather proud of and really hoping it turns out to be as handy as expected. The two white wire racks were something my daughter had in her locker in school a long time ago I think. Not wanting to take up precious desk space, time or money on one of those spinning racks; and not really having that much that needed to be hung up, I decided to repurpose some white plastic coated paperclips and hang stuff from the wire rack. Then using an idea I saw someone else use, I put my stickles upside down through the holes. I heard that it would make the stuff come out easier and I keep having to stick a pin in the hole every time I try to use it, so it's worth a shot!
Take a good, LONG look at this empty desk surface because it probably wont' appear again for another year.... er decade...
Finally, the finished wire rack system! Thanks to some of the ladies in an online scrapbook room discussion group I was able to figure out how to make shelves for my 12 x 12 paper by using zip ties. I had to take the backs off because I couldn't find the extra shelves that I KNOW are around the house, garage or shed somewhere, but hey, when they surface I'll just add more paper shelves! I did find two old cooling racks (which I called cookie racks, sending my dh on an unsuccessfull journey trying to find them) that were the perfect width, so managed to get two extra shelves out of those. I still have a long way to go before this project is complete, but today gave me a sense of accomplishment and may give me the incentive I need to finish. 
