April 2013

Go to this post if you’d like to see pictures of how my room was before.

The Move
I haven’t had much to share lately and to make a long story short, it’s because I have moved my scrapbook room – quite the feat!  Before I started, I thought I was moving to a larger room but in the end it seems smaller.  Must be the shape, I actually haven’t figured this out yet.  This wasn’t a completely bad situation.  It made me go through my supplies and get rid of what is just taking up space.  I have learned a lot in the past couple years as I have tried to buy less and work at using up my stash.  As a consultant, I still make regular Close to My Heart purchases but I know that this is what I love and use the most.  Much of the rest of my stash sits because I don’t make it much farther than what I have recently purchased.  Okay, so I still need to work on this!  My only regret with moving so far is that it was done in a rush and I was unable to paint the room before I moved into it.  I will probably live in the blue with animals for a long time before I build up enough energy to move everything and paint a more enjoyable color.  I do LOVE the window!

My desk is about the same, other than I have cleared off more space and have bottles of flowers on my desk now (less shelf space now and I do use these a lot).  That basket on the right of my desk contains necessary, commonly used supplies (ATG gun, adhesive, photo cutter, markers, acrylic blocks/stamp cleaner).  Since I am not able to always scrapbook in my room, this basket is easy to grab and go when I go to a friend’s or scrapbook downstairs.

These are my favorite storage items along this wall.  The stamp storage is no longer available but I like that it fits in a small area.  The 12×12 cubes are from Michael’s and they are great.  They tend to bow apart as you build them taller so I made the top and bottom open cubes and attached the sides instead of the top/bottom.  This seems to hold them in place better.  That tall cabinet I love to store all my paper.  I cannot believe that it has survived moves and holds all of my heavy paper so well (purchase many years ago at Shopko).

Here’s the inside of my closet as best I could get pictures.  It is a large walk-in so it is shared right now with my daughter’s clothes.  They may move out but I will need to use it for some other storage.

Maybe better from another angle:

I took out the curtain rods as was able to fit in perfectly these cube organizers from Target.  I really like these too but they don’t hold 12×12.  I have ribbon, metal embellishments, acrylic embellishments, and misc stickers/other embellishments stored in the baskets by theme.  On the right I have misc. 3D projects in the top cube, then more baskets, and the one that looks messy has photos and to-finish projects or to-use-right-now items.  You can also see clipboards slid into any open spaces.  I have run out of notebooks to alter so if I have a birthday coming up I will most likely whip up a clipboard (would be much easier to have done ahead of time!).  Clipboards are great gifts for kids and I pick them up cheap at garage sales.  It doesn’t matter if they are written on because I will cover it up anyway!

The bottom part here holds baskets with words, alphabets, gems/rhinestones.   Also idea books, card supplies, punches, and sewing.  The cubes to the right have CTMH business supplies and a 12×12 drawer unit from Michael’s which holds embossing supplies, glitter, chalk, colored pencils, etc.

My Supplies
Now, on to more specifics. Before, I had my supplies sorted in product categories (chipboard, metal, acrylic, stickers, etc.).  This really isn’t how I scrap and I wasn’t using those supplies.  I still have some of those and generals but anything that can be categorized by theme I have moved (birthday, Christmas, flowers, butterflies, words, letters, etc.)  This IS how I scrapbook and how I search for supplies.  I am have already been using more of my older stash with this new organizing.  I have gone through every single thing (with the exception of paper….still working on that) in my scrapbook room and have thought about if I will use it or not and if it is worth keeping.  I have added MUCH of my stash to my rummage sale pile and I feel good about it.  I’m sure I won’t miss any of it.

Ribbon Storage
Another realization is that I have A LOT of ribbon!  Not sure why but I haven’t been using ribbon much lately so that’s something I need to work on.  Part of the problem with my ribbon was that I had many different methods of storage and it was all over the place….ribbon spools, floss boxes, baskets, even a ribbon purse.  I left what was in the floss boxes because it is well organized and I like this method of storage.  My Pebbles Inc Ribbon Iron comes in handy with this storage and I love this little tool!  However, I had many more spools of ribbon that didn’t have a home and I didn’t want to invest in more supplies.

Here is my solution and really the best storage method that I have personally found.  It is inexpensive and you can put them away but they are still easy to access and view.  I taped and wrapped the ribbon on large recipe cards – ones that didn’t fit well in my recipe box (why do I even have these??)  You could also use index cards, cardboard, or cardstock.  Then I “file” the wrapped cards of ribbon in photo boxes.  As I was putting them on the cards, I tried to sort by color or coordinating ribbons for easier matching later.

So, there you have it.  I hope you have enjoyed the tour of my cozy scrapbook space and how I’ve organized my supplies.