Jen's Studio - Expedit 4x4 unit - AKA the closet!

Welcome to Day 2 of my studio "tour".  Today I am going to show you the rest of my 4x4 Expedit unit that fits in the closet of my studio (see yesterday's post about my system for PL - BTW, watch this post for an explanation of how I store my PL page protectors!)

I am in the 4th upstairs bedroom on our house. As we are lucky enough to have spare room in the basement, I took over this room as my own. I could have taken the basement room but I wanted windows and light and to NOT be right there near the rec room and my kids.  They are 11 & 9 now and as they get older... they don't want their mom right there and I don't want to try to scrap while they are all screaming over video games :)

Here's the entire 4x4 unit.  See my Project Life stuff up there on the top L?  I have a ton of different things going on in this unit. The bottom blue bins have my kits, misc and a couple are actually empty now (I did a HUGE purge a few months ago).  The white boxes have stuff like extra embellishments, ribbon (which I rarely use but didn't want to get rid of) and one has all my envelopes and tags in it.  I also have my mini sewing machine and sewing kit in there, the green and purple kit (which I'll show a close up of later in the week!) is all small embellishments and then there is my paper.  See next picture!

Now, see the two red binders on the far right?  Those are my page protectors.  All my 12x12 are in one and my PL ones in the other.  I have an extra full box of Design A under all my core kit cards too (Michael's had a good sale! LOL) Makes it easy to grab and pull out what I need.  I mainly use Design A but occasionally use an insert of need a different orientation.

This is most of my paper.  I pared down to only 12x12 as I rarely do cardmaking anymore. Top is my cardstock sorted by colour.  Next down is all my patterned paper, also by colour.  I did a MAJOR purge on my pp too recently as I had so much I just was never going to use.  I also get a monthly kit so... it's all in a pile under my desk and I let the kids use it for projects.

Here's view of the top of my unit.  My PL stuff on the left.  The black and green cases are all prepped layout boxes.  Both full actually from my last crop as I did PL catch up and between that, classes and being sick... I never got to anything else :(

TOMORROW, I am going to show you the kits that are on top.  Those boxes are my Sept and Oct Noel Mignon kits and the 2nd on the right says "New Stuff". A catch all for new things I want to use (mostly pp).

Happy Scrapping!

Jen

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

My paper stash

I signed up for this new class called "Pretty Paper Party" over at Shimelle.com and the first message/ ice-breaker challenge is to take a picture of your paper.  Your stash or your favourite piece or a bin of scraps or whatever you want.  She also talks about "types" of paper people so after reading that I feel I could label myself as:

• a reformed Pattern Contender -used to not want to cut fav papers - now I say screw that!! Let's get pages DONE!!  Here's a good example of me perhaps finding a creative way to "save" a fav paper.  See that paper with "BE YOU."?  I loved it and didn't want to cover it up so I am mounting it on a 12x12 canvas and putting it up on the wall (love the nasty MESS on the floor).  I am painting the BE YOU. in in red as my room is all turquoise and red and the letters were hot pink.

• I'm also a reformed Collection Packer - used to buy the paper packs from  a few fav companies and only make pages using those papers.  In THAT pack.  With THOSE stickers.  hee hee...  How did I cure that affliction??  I started getting page kits from companies that mix up companies and papers and FORCED myself to use them.  haha... now I love it and almost all my papers are sorted by colour rather than company.  But I'll admit, there are exceptions to that rule for a few companies (Echo Park, Crate Paper, Basic Grey) but I have had pretty itchy fingers lately and a teeny tiny voice in my head saying "sort them out.... pull the stickers... use those papers sister!!"

 L to R: themes (only for "boys", "winter/Xmas", "travel" and "school" as I was having issues finding those), 2 paper holders sorted by colour, 2 paper holders sorted by manufacturer, {next row} 12x12 cardstock, blue bin full (FULL yay!!) of kits. {next row are all card making stuff and 8.5 x 11 cardstock}

• I AM a Paper Collector!  I love paper, it's really the cheapest part of scrapbooking if you only buy a few sheets but I have never had a conversation with a piece of paper before (that is a whole other level up from me... now my Thickers... pretty sure we've had several conversations!!)  You can see above my 4 shelves of paper (oh the shame!!!).  And okay, yes, it's actually 5 shelves of paper but the bottom one is 8.5x11 from when I used to be a Stampin' Up rep and did card classes.
• And I am a Scrap Sorter.  Cause I'm an anal kind of person!!  Do the words "let's organize" send a thrill down your spine?? They do to me and yet... I'm also a super visual person so those two tendencies can to collide sometimes.  {I'm working it out... sigh}  Here's my scraps file, sorted by colour (cardstock and pp together - but yes, the pp is all at the back and cardstock all at the front, that is my anal-ness showing again)

So there you have it. My pretty long winded accounting to myself and the world about my pretty paper habits :) I'm just glad she didn't ask us to account for our letter stickers... that is where this all gets downright embarassing!!  (case in point, very top picture of the crap all over my floor... I count 8 alpha minimum in that stack of stuff, LOL)

Take to time to do something scrappy today... (or just go buy some new paper!)

Jen