I just moved in the fall and then I had the Stampin Up convention, the holidays, a death in the family and making about 1000 (yes a thousand) cards between the September through the end of January. I am just now getting caught up on organizing my craft room or maybe it is the New Year or maybe it is the spring like weather we are having in February - either way - yay! Clean craft room! As I was tidying up I thought about my organization tips & wanted to share them with you!
~Enjoy
~Enjoy
I used to be a hard core scrapbooker. Guys, I have been scrapbooking since I was 15 and I am now a grandma. As I got a little older & the books kept piling up more & more and the digital world got bigger & bigger, I lost a little interest in the art form & found card making. Needless to say, organizing items for cards is a lot different than organizing for 12x12 scrapbooks.
One of the first things I did when I reorganized was take my milk crate full of file folders of card scraps up to 8 1/2 x 11 pieces & cut them down. I allowed about 3 different sizes of scraps. A2 card base 5 1/2 x 4 1/4, 2 x 3 and a few strips of 5 1/2 x 2. If it was not that size it went - believe me - I am a hoarder of small scrap pieces - but it was extremely liberating getting rid of all those leftovers. I was so proud of myself - I kept sending pictures of my trash can to my friends!
I have some Ikea style furniture that I bought back in 1986 from Target (even before Michael's started carrying this style (trendsetter - who knew?). I have a 16 x 16 cube that has 2 drawers. I removed the bottom drawer & the runners & I got some Really Useful Boxes for DVDs/VHS tapes. I just stacked all of the cardstock in rainbow fashion in them from front to back & it fits perfectly!
One of the first things I did when I reorganized was take my milk crate full of file folders of card scraps up to 8 1/2 x 11 pieces & cut them down. I allowed about 3 different sizes of scraps. A2 card base 5 1/2 x 4 1/4, 2 x 3 and a few strips of 5 1/2 x 2. If it was not that size it went - believe me - I am a hoarder of small scrap pieces - but it was extremely liberating getting rid of all those leftovers. I was so proud of myself - I kept sending pictures of my trash can to my friends!
I have some Ikea style furniture that I bought back in 1986 from Target (even before Michael's started carrying this style (trendsetter - who knew?). I have a 16 x 16 cube that has 2 drawers. I removed the bottom drawer & the runners & I got some Really Useful Boxes for DVDs/VHS tapes. I just stacked all of the cardstock in rainbow fashion in them from front to back & it fits perfectly!
In 2017, my friend Shannon Cole started to post a color challenge and I needed to grab specific colors quickly so this morphed into a little more organizing. I used the folders that the dies come in and cut down one piece of cardstock of each color. Now I am not so picky with those little tiny scraps because they are not free floating in a giant box. I added some labels sorted them by color & they still fit in my box & in my furniture and are very handy on the fly!
My friend Tracy Marie Lewis was over at my house one day & saw the folders and thought it would work for her as well - since she is full time retired traveler, she need things compact so she can pack up her goodies for every move and store them in very small places..
My friend Tracy Marie Lewis was over at my house one day & saw the folders and thought it would work for her as well - since she is full time retired traveler, she need things compact so she can pack up her goodies for every move and store them in very small places..
As the colors come & go, I move the retired colors to another box & add a paper reinforcement at the top right in case they get mixed up with the new folders I know right away they are retired colors
While Tracy & I were crafting one day at a retreat - we decided that we needed a color swatch in a somewhat larger size to use for Shannon's Color challenges. We decided that half a card front size would do the trick - this is back when the Color Coach was not available. So Tracy "borrowed" one of each color card front size piece of paper from our friend Sue Dudgeon Campbell and split them between us. She also wrote on each the color, the color family & the year of the catalog. This worked surprisingly well for our color challenges. We found that they fit perfectly in a 5 x 3 1/2 stamp case and that little case sits right at the front of my Really Useful Box filled with all of the color die sleeves! See the first picture.
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