SHARON'S INKIE FINGERS: Organizing my Craft Room!!

Monday, April 24, 2017

Organizing my Craft Room!!

I have been trying to get my stamp room into shape. I need to get it organized so I can bring in my new goodies and know where they are! I told Sonny Saturday morning that I was going to work on my room and pull the vacuum out and clean it up. Well, after almost all day Saturday and all day Sunday, he poked his head in and couldn't tell that I had done anything except make a bigger mess! You know how when you clean or rearrange, everything has to come out before you can figure out how to arrange it all again! Most of that time was spent trying to organize my 12x12 DSP. I had one whole unit of non Stampin' Up paper - some of it probably 12-15 years old. I threw out a bunch of scraps or pieces that I knew I wouldn't use. So I organized all that paper into another rack by colors (reds, orange, purple, neutral, etc.), put tags on the unit to identify the colors and put the larger scraps that are usable into baggies. These are some wire racks that I got several years ago at WalMart. I use plastic ties to locate the shelves where I need them.

Next I tackled my Stampin' Up DSP that I had in various places in my room! My goal ~~was~~ is to have it all in one place so I can find it when I want it. I have made a good start with that but I still have a ways to go. I actually thought I was done until I discovered I had another drawer full of DSP that I hadn't sorted through! My plan is to find some kind of 12x12 plastic like envelopes to put the packs of DSP together when I order it so I will know which pieces go together and what card stock colors match. I found some of the envelopes on Amazon. They were pretty cheap - about $3.50 for a packet of 3 but they were not sold by Amazon but someone else through Amazon. I put 7 of the packs in my shopping bag to see how much it would come to with shipping. Well, they wanted $25 for shipping!!! I promptly emptied my shopping bag and will be going to Staples this week to look for something I can use. Here is the shelving for my DSP in a few plastic envelopes I already had. They are a little too wide for the shelves so I will be looking for others. The DSP in them is some that is current (as of now but not much longer). Below in the small rack is the DSP that is retired. I have separated it into colors. At the top, is a small file box that I have 6x6 paper in (for now!)

I also found a good use for my Paper Pumpkin boxes! If you turn them inside out, they are these kraft colored boxes and you can write on them, decorate them, etc. For my use, I am storing different items in them and labeling them so I'll know where these things are!

I have a lot more Paper Pumpkin boxes to work with as you can see here -

I also worked on organizing my thinlits last week. I'm still not sure about this method. I am going to try it out for a while and see what I think. I have always put the thinlits onto a magnetic sheet and slid them back in their plastic envelope. I kept my thinlits and dies in their plastic envelope with the name of the die written with a Sharpie at the top in a rectangle basket (and how many dies were in the packet) and I would just flip through them to pick out the one I wanted. But I don't always remember what dies are in the packets. Sooooo, I had an old photo album and slid the magnetic sheets into the plastic pages. That way, I can look through the album to see all my dies/thinlits. The only problem is my album is really bulging and a few of the thinlits won't fit in the pages. I just have them in a small basket beside this album.