Kit Storage

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. I had company all last week and... well, I wasn't able to sneak away up here and finish this off.  So here I go again now!

First, my last 2 months of kits are stored in empty Project Life page protector boxes.  This is a relatively newer system I'm working on.  You can see them there:

To the right of my Project Life stuff there are boxes with labels you can't read :)  I use a bit of washi tape on the ends and label them with the month and name of the kit that is in it.  These are my Sept and Oct Noel Mignon kits - which is my montly scrapbook kit and the only kit I get currently. These kits are HUGE and keep me more than going all month long for both layouts and Project Life spreads! 

So here's what is in these boxes:

Not so helpful but that's the view from the top.  I completely and TOTALLY stole this method from Tracey Banks (Mercy Tiara).  She hangs up her alphas and long sheets on a peg board while I leave it all in the box but otherwise, stolen from seeing her work in her You Tube process videos. And ironically, about 2 weeks after I started this, she did a video about her kit storage.  It was funny as I'd pieced it together first! (wish I'd been lazier and waited until after this video... but I didn't know she was doing it, LOL)

So the bottom of the box has my cardstock, then patterned paper (this kit is well used), then my alphas. This kit has a photo tucked in as I was messing with a layout and it all got shoved back into the box. The ENTIRE REASON I use this method.  Easy, fast clean up but it's all still right there when I am ready to pull the box down again.

So, the silver tray has the larger embellishments in it.

The crystal dish has the smaller embellishments in it. All easy to find and poke around in.  My very wonderful and thoughtful friend Sweet Scrapista bought me the tray and dish.  I had told her I started using this for kits and funnily enough so had she (and we hadn't even talked about it with each other!!).  So when she saw these, she bought them and sent them to me.  BEST SCRAPPY GIFT EVER!!

So there you have it, my kit trays.  Once I get the majority of the kit used up or am just ready to move on, I put all the stuff left into my stash and the next month's kit goes into the tray.

This method now means I don't need to store a lot of kits elsewhere but the few I do have from before are all in one of the blue cubes in my expedit:

Next post will be my new method for embellishments!  I hang them all on book rings.  It's new, I love it and I am USING UP so much stuff cause I can see it and it doesn't take me long to find anything.

Until then...

Jen

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

Jen's Studio - Project Life

I hope to share with you a series of posts all about my current organizational system for my studio. I say current as it is ever evolving as my needs change or I see/think of/find a better system.

I found this amazing quote today that sums me up pretty well:

" Arrange whatever pieces come your way."

Virginia Woolf

I find my life and my ability to cope with my life is really helped by being organized and having an "everything in it's place" attitude.  Not everyone is like that, hey, I know some people who find this really stressful! But for me, I am MORE stressed out when things are messy, out of place or not organized.  So I try to find ways to help myself be settled without taking too much time, energy or space.

Here is how I am organizing my Project Life supplies:

 First off, my PL core kits. I've never actually BOUGHT my own core or mini kit. I've only shared with someone else.  I have several different sets thanks to a friend being willing to share (Thanks Sweet Scrapista!). I put them all in a core kit box standing up and used scrap paper and a label punch to make finding what I want easy.  The quote cards (from Elisa Blaha's blog FREE) are also there so I don't forget and are in front of my lined PL 3x4 blank cards.  This system also cost me nothing. Bonus!

For all my non-Project Life brand stuff I am using these monthly kit boxes from Studio Calico.  I signed up for their monthly kit subscription in the summer but only ended up getting 2 kits.  It seemed to me (this is just MY opinion!!) that the quality and amount of product in the kit diminished around that time and living in Canada the shipping time was just not acceptable. I wasn't receiving my kits until AFTER the next reveal which was NO fun at all. I complained but was told unless I bought more stuff (!!!!!) that was that for shipping speed. I was not cool with that so I paid the cancellation fee and got out.  But the boxes they came in are perfect for storing stuff. So all the 3x4 cards go in one and all the 4x6 cards go in the other. These are cards from the kits, from cut apart sheets, journalling pads from other manufacturers (like Basic Grey's new line of pocket-style scrapping).

Lastly, these both go together in an empty PL page protector box on top of my Expedit 4x4 cube shelf.  This unit is in the closet in my studio (a 4th upstairs bedroom in our home that I use as office/studio).  We took the doors off the closet and this fit right in.  I can then easily lift it out to work on my PL spreads.  I plan to also add a portable bag with basics to the back of the box (see Mercy Tiara's blog post on Bag in Bag - hoping to use her idea for this! - a portable PL kit with markers, stamps, adhesive, etc that I can take to other areas of the house and work on while my kids do school work.  It was like she READ MY MIND!!! I had just finished saying to my FB scrappy buds I wanted to build a kit like this and was figuring out what might work and BAM, she posted this about 4 days later.  I was stoked!)

Tomorrow I am going to show you the REST of this 4x4 unit and also how I store my monthly scrapbook kits (hint, Mercy Tiara helped me out AGAIN). They are right behind this PL box on top of the unit!

Happy Scrapping!

Jen