It's been a year in the making but my room is finally done. Here I sit!!
I'll take you through the process of how I got it set up. I'm not completely finished organizing so as I do go through that proces, I'll document more information on here. I know how hard it is to think through organizing your stuff and doing it right the first time so help is always good! I hope some of this can help you out too in organizing no matter what your space. I used to have everything tucked in an Armoire but what I found was that when everything was tucked away, I spent half of my time pullling out and putting away.
THE ROOMThe room is an add-on we put on the house last year. It started when we decided that our old laundry room off the kitchen needed to get busted open to make way for a dining room adjacent to our kitchen. Picture below of this wall being knocked down! Now this was over a year ago.
Once we decided the laundry room was no longer, we needed somewhere to do laundry. Hence the add-on room in the back. I thought...'what a perfect opportunity to make that room 20% laundry...80% scrappin!! So the seed was planted. Here's the first concrete pour and wall to go up to that room (and Haley's toothless grin all excited with what was going on too!).
So now you have some historicals on the room, so now to the fun part! Oh yes wait, I had to hold on the room getting done for almost a year because we ran out of money and did not tile our floors as originally planned but last October we decided to just go for it and retile the house now so we could enjoy it fully! Once tiling was done, walls could be put up and joined for me to paint, etc, etc.
PAINT ME ORANGE
Of course the perfect color for me is some shade of orange, it's a brownish cooper/orange color and we had about 1/2 a gallon left from the living room so it made sense to continue the color through the house and use what we had left. And that works out fine by me! Orange is my color. Although I hear it makes you hungry! Not good! So here I am, excited to finally be painting the room.
Done! PAINTED and ready to clean and move into!
CRAFT TABLE
I purchased a nice tall bench height table so that I could sit or stand while scrapbooking. Sometimes if I want to do something quick, I like to stand and do that. This table is great because there is a long deep drawer to keep all the tools I use all the time, my camera and other essentials that I want to keep right there. It also has the table top that doubles in size. As shown it's got the leaves folded in, but it can expand out. Which is great if you have a project that's taking up lots of room or the kids want to join in but you don't want them taking up your space. The bench to match also sells to go with it. Staples, apethocary style craft table. I think it was about $250.
So I got my table in there, took all my supplies out and then freaked out. How to organize? Well, I tell you the best way was to start is to put it in piles of supply types. Glues and things to stick with, stamps and inks of all kinds, pens, paint and glitter. Once you have piles, then you know the storage size/type you'll need. The biggest mistake to make is buying storage BEFORE doing this. I did already have great boxes that my mom got me that hold art supplies and they hold all the small things. I sorted those and then labeled them (oh yes, make sure you have a label maker for this process!). So things like eyelets, staples and punches, ribbons and fibers.
Now I know if you scrap alot you accumulate letters of all kinds. Stickers, rub-ons, paper, chipboard, etc, etc. The list goes on and I have a bunch so I decided that I would use a 3 level 12x12 plastic storage container to sort 3 main things I use alot on pages: 1-letters 2-chipboard anything (including just blank chipboard paper to cut or use) 3-words and sentiments/phrases (I have lot of those in rub-on, sticker or just the vellum quotes packs). Here's the container organized, and of course labeled. The goal here being that IF YOUR HUSBAND CAN GO IN THE ROOM AND FIND ANYTHING TO MAKE A PAGE...YOU ARE ORGANIZED!
PAPER, PAPER, PAPER...
You never seem to think you have enough, but when you take stock...you have so much paper it's unreal! Between buying here and there for projects, getting gifts of big 'stacks' and other stuff...it all adds up. Start with plain colored cardstock, and get that organized. I put all of my neutrals into one container and the colors in another and tried to get them by 'rainbow' scheme. Don't put scraps with full paper pages, you'll end up never using your scraps. We'll get to those in a minute! Cropper Hopper makes upright vertical holders and I love those. I have 12x12, 8x8 and also 6x6. Now if you don't buy 6x6 card stock alot...the trick is to make the 6x6
in the cardstock with your scraps as you go so you build up an inventory. It's great for cards or also for the small 6x6 books which are nice and quick to make. I have two more of the vertical holders for patterned paper. This is not for kits of patterned paper but just miscellaenous pieces that I"ve bought here and there (you know, those 5 for a dollar sale deals or that one original piece of paper that is so cool looking!! So this was tricker, how to sort just a bunch of hodge podge of paper. I started by looking at them and sorting by 'feel' for them. I really had three main types of paper: 1-Earthy looking 2-Bright or Fresh and 3-Specialty (vellum, clear overlays, metallic, etc).
Paper kits are great too and I like to keep those together because they tend to have all the coordinating stickers, tags and embellishments or even letters. I have a whole other storage unit that I think works best for kits. It's an upright rack I bought from a scrapbook store that was closing. At the time I thought it would be great for all paper but I don't like keeping my cardstock and open pieces all on there. Kits are packaged and keeping them out this way lets' you see them easily. There is a bit of a dilemma with this rack though. It's veeeery long and tall, I don't tend to use the bottom portion and don't want to be bending over to look way down. So my plan for this is to cut this rack in half and then put both of them side by side UP higher mounted to the wall so they are all at eye level. That will free up the floor space too (and out of the kid's hands or Sophie the cat too--she's a litte devil sometimes).
SCRAPS? ISN'T THAT WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT?
Scrapbooking comes from using scraps to make books. Well one of the most challenging things I have found is actually using thsoe scraps because a big pile of mixed up colors and styles can be so overwhelming. I think I've got it! I found a very perfect sized rolling file cart that goes under my shelving but can pull out easily. I got a bunch of legal size file folders and labeled all of them. Scrap papers are sorted into colors so I can look towards blues, greens, neutrals, or even black/whites. And don't forget specialty paper. I liked how easy it was to sort things and reach for
them that I also put in here stickers by themes of holidays, nature, kids, and just misc. I also put my cricut mats and templates in there too. The rack had another layer of files I could hang and a bottom shelf. I'm choosing to use the bottom rack for storing stamp pads and box of projects in progress or project kits (non scrapbook page types). I even had a grey plastic bing that fits right in the top on teh side, but it could be used to hang letter size. This cart will hold both letter/legal and it was only $25 at Staples and it's metal and sturdy!
On top of the shelves I stained and had put onto the walls around the room behind me are the essential tools and gadgets. #1 -
my photo printer/scanner Epson Styl Pro. This is how I get started in custom printing my photos or my journaling. #2 -
My Cricut - now that I can connect to this from my laptop (Cricut Design Studio Rocks!!) this tool is quadruple the use for me #3 -
my mini and my large Zyron machines that turns anything into a sticker (for when I don't want to hand use tape on projects).
$5 BULLETIN BOARDHere's a quick project. Got one of those frames around the house that has no glass but just the backing? Go to Walmart and buy their tile corkboard, it's $5 for a pack of 4. I had this frame my friend gave to me that she did not want (to think I almost tossed it). I got those tiles and then just mounted them with the stickies it came with to the back board behind the frame and cut excess off the cork (keeping that for some small cork sections I can do. VOILA! You can probably do it without the frame too and just buy a large poster size foam board (they sell those at Walmart too for probably $2.)
OTHER ESSENTIALS
- Don't forget to have big garbage can under your desk for tossing as you go. Keeps the desk clean.
- If you have a cool shelf that you like that fits some stuff (I repurposed a CD holder we had that Taft wasn't using) - put out your embelishments that you like in jars or holders that you want to keep in sight to use. Those are fun.
- I bought a kitchen carousel utensil from Pampered Chef a few years ago and all the basic tools and pens are in there on my
desk within reach. I LOVE that carousel.
- Music!! I play it off my laptop but get a radio in there or something so you can groove to the tunes. :-)
- Treats - OK, sneak a few chocolates into your desk or something. For me it's dove, or black licorice. Yum!
- Most of all, relax, breath and have fun because if you cannot relax then you are just not as creative. If you are organized and efficient, it gives you more time to be doing things. And...you can get in and out of there to spend time doing other stuff too!
Now there's one more section of my crafts that I have not tackled yet. Ironically it's what got my started into scrapbooking...stamping. So I'm thinking through and looking at my stock of stamps and pads, ink so I can have the most effecient space for this because I want to keep that as part of my craft and scrapbooking process. I'll be back to this post to update when I get that tackled ladies (an any cool gents that do scrapbook - there are a rare few!!)
GETTING YOUR PRODUCTS OUT WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM
I decided after a few months of using my room that I still had alot of things that were in boxes, or bags that I was not seeing and not using. I especially had alot of stamps that I could not see that I wnated to have easy view and access to. I waited and went to Michaels to use my 50% coupon off of the Making Memories shelving unit. It is great and surprisingly holds alot more than I expected. I am going to go to Michaels this weekend to buy the little glass votives (for candles) to hold some of the buttons and other small things that I want to have on here and 'see' through. Perfect size! (PICTURE IS COMING!!)
PERSONALITY!
I decided to try out the vinyl from Cricut to make a wall quote in the room. I wanted to keep it simple, so I did the word CREATE from Printing Press. I was nervous to get this right but it did work out very easily! (PICTURE IS COMING!!)
OK got to liking that so much that I made another one for Haley's teacher. 
This was from a pattern that someone had created and shared online at 
