Organizing - Why do I enjoy it so much?

Yes, I am one of those weird people who LOVE to organize.  And after 37 years of living, I figured out why.  I just work better in a tidy environment.  When my studio is a mess, I can't function well. I feel less inspired, I get distracted and it plain bugs me.  So, I'm always looking for new ways to organize my scrappy supplies because I am also a "if I can't see it, I don't use it" type scrapbooker.  Can these two ways of being co-exist happily?  I am still working on it but I have found ways that they can.

First, I am lucky enough to have a small 4th bedroom that I can use as my scrap space.  I took the doors off the closet and put a 4x4 Expedit Ikea cube bookshelf in there and it is right beside my work space.  So... I have a lot of my supplies right in there so I can grab them.  But I was finding, even right there, I was struggling a bit with my paper. Why? Cause all my paper holders were overflowing and stuff was crammed in so tight... it was a pain to look through or get stuff out.  Today, I PURGED.  Here is my lovely new cubes of paper.  Top is cardstock (12x12) and bottom is my patterned paper.

Cardstock is organized by neutrals and then ROYPPBG.  haha. I know, not exactly in sync with nature but I just found it works for me that way :) My apologies to rainbows.

I am donating a HUGE stack of paper and scraps to a lady at Crop for Kids this weekend. She does a volunteer program and was looking for supplies.  She won't know what hit her!!

I also bought the below organizer at Michael's recently.  A friend (Sweet Scrapista) had one when she was here recently and it looks SO handy.  I always take way too much stuff to crops and usually all shoved into pockets and bins, etc making it super hard to find.  So... ta da!!!  LOVE :)

From Left to Right: 

Row 1: Stars and arrows from PP/Heidi Swapp, Kelly Purkey flair (as they larger!), flair, flair (yes I have a problem), cork arrows, um, more cork.Row 2: wood veneer chevrons, wood pieces, wood buttons, wood arrows, wood cameras, wood stars, wood heart (yes, I like wood veneer!)Row 3: Shaped paper clips, sequins, twine, speech bubbles, tabs and labels.Bottom row: mostly larger tags from Elle's Studio and PL kits as well as some larger wood words.

I'll be back again tomorrow to show a few more organizing things I've done recently in my studio.  I especially love my book ring system that I developed to hang on my Clip It Up.  Making finding stuff FAST!!

Keep Scrapping!!

Jen

A little "How-To"

I was watching the Glimmer Girl video over at 2Peas this week and the flat sticker she used (from the Ready Get Go collection by Amy Tangerine) inspired me to make a more 3D version!

Here is what it looks like:

I thought it looked a lot like circles of patterned paper with twine and a brad in the middle so set out to make my own :)  (they are on my Dance-Cleaning layout from 2 days ago!)  So I took a few pictures while making the second one for some friends and thought I'd share here.

Punch out a circle of patterned paper (I used three different sizes: 1 3/4", 1 3/8" and 1 1/4")

Punch a hole in approximately the middle (looks cool if slightly off centre too!) I used a 3/4" and 1/2" punch for the middles.

Wrap twine from the back around the circle through the hole.  I used some basic tape runner to hold the ends in place.  I used tone-on-tone twine but I'm sure it would look fine with any colour!  

Finish it off with a brad in the centre.  I'll be honest, my punched holes were slightly too big for my brads!  I just did this on the fly so should have checked my brads FIRST!  But, I'm nothing if not quick to fix or cover a mistake :)  So I punched a slightly larger circle from the same patterned paper, put the brad through that and adhered THAT to the back or front of the first circle.  Voila, can hardly tell I goofed :)

Here they are all done.  My blue brad was big enough to cover the hole so I put the red fix-it-circle behind and the yellow one in front so they were all just slightly different.  

I hand cut the leaves from some scrap green lined paper I had laying on the ground (no really!) and then bent them in half before I adhered them to give a bit of dimension.  And of course, I inked the edged of EVERYTHING cause I am NOT capable of NOT doing that :)  It's like naked buttons.  I can't do it.

Have a scrappy day!  Hope you enjoyed.

Jen

imagine. create. inspire.