Organization

Good morning everyone, today I thought I'd share with you a goal I've been working towards for a while now {but only seriously for maybe 2 weeks}.  The goal is for me to clear out the clutter, in my scrap stash! 

Now in all honesty, I think I'd rather have teeth pulled, but thus is the reason that I have an over abundance of supplies.  I have been doing crafting of some sort my entire life, on the scrap side for 10+ years, and well as you can most likely imagine - things start to add up.  After listening over & over again to the Paperclipping Roundtable Podcast {episode#6 - how to deal with all that stuff} I decided it was high time I made a few major changes within my own system of doing things, I especially like the idea of not having to wade through all the extra crap to get to the good stuff, so on with my mission.  Below I have some photos of my craft closet, this is the one I tackled last Sunday and I wish I had thought to take a before and after picture because you're probably gonna wonder why I didn't clean it out - the fact is: I did!  This is what my closet now looks like and so far I am very happy with it.  Most of my shelves have a specific product on it.  In this top photo I have my stamp shelf, all lined up nice and neat so that when I am looking for a certain set I will be able to find it quickly and not waste precious time.

In this next photo I have my embellishments shelf, with everything from archival spray, to adhesives, to glimmer mists, to buttons, and of course my paper towels, and toilet paper.  This shelf is kinda where I keep all my 'go to' products, and of course the ones I have entirely too many of {buttons - I mean come on - 4 cans of buttons - crazy - and what's worse that's not all of them - shame - I know}

On this shelf I have all of my over flow of paper, some card stock, some patterned, lots of 8x8 stacks, and then themed packs.  I think I have a couple of Christmas packs in here {Christmas is about the only holiday themed paper pack I will buy other wise it just goes to waste}.

On this shelf I have my over flow of punches in the drawers and then all of my stickers in the white binders.  I know there are a lot of different ways to store stickers, I've even toyed with the idea of re-doing mine, but the fact is that the binders work just fine.  I do have them broken down into categories: one is just for letters & numbers, then another one has everything to do with family, parents, kids, pets, etc., and then the last one has travel, and holidays, and then just borders & corners.  Yes sometimes it does suck to have to dig through the entire binder to find what I'm looking for, but then I think about what it'll cost me to re-do the system, ahhh NO, I'd rather spend that else where.

On this shelf I have all my miscellaneous items, raw chipboard, printable fabric, photo negatives, mini envelops, and a few other odds & ins that probably aren't even related to scrapbooking; but hey what's a girl to do?  I gotta have my 'lighthouse' coloring book stored somewhere!  : )

This is the last of the individual shelves, and on this one I have my extra 12x12 albums that I hope to fill one day, I also have in the boxes lots & lots of mini albums just waiting for the right story to be told in them.  Those particular boxes I do have categorized as well:  one box is all chip board minis - including their pages, another box is just minis with pages already in them, another box has acrylic albums only, and then the last box is all tins that will be used for a mini someday.

These last two photos will give you a better look into my closet; I wasn't kidding when I had an excess of stuff, I still have an excess of stuff but hopefully over time I can get this stash back down to a more manageable size.  The top shelf of my closet is where I decided to put all of my tools, now there are a few tools I kept even though I haven't used them in a very long time, but that was one thing I decided not to get rid of just yet.  Who knows when that one thing you do get rid of could be the next big thing again, so tools - I'll keep and store them for a while longer before I toss 'em, just to be sure.

As you can plainly see, I have a lot of stuff to use; this is not even all of it and that's why I desperately needed to do this, so as the weeks go by and I continue to go through my stash I will keep you updated on the latest re-organization goal/process, it's more for me to keep me in check but what's the harm in sharing then maybe you can give me a nudge when I need it.

Hope everyone has enjoyed this little peek into my scrap world, hopefully I have a new post for you all this coming week; I finally got a major project done and will be taking photos tomorrow for it - stay tuned and have a great rest of the weekend!

Just B ...... organized!!!!! 

I will be organized I will get organized I will be organized I will get organized I will be organized I will get organized