5 things to organize

I love my time to work.  I have a 10 foot table that is usually piled high - about 1 foot deep for all 10 feet - and yet I know where everything is until I have to empty the table for family use and then it is chaos to find things again.  I am fairly organized on shelves but when I have a lot of projects going at once, I don't always get things back to their home spot.  Then when I want them again, I take a while to find them.

As you can see, all the shelves are full.  What you can't see is a very large plastic box at the end of the room that needs sorting.  So I am taking time to sort.

The 5 things I am taking time to organize before I start up projects again are:
inks
stamps
designs
paper
Bling and Embellishments

Inks:

I have the new ink pads in the ink cases Z6003 and the old inks still in their tower.  The even older inks I found a fishing tackle box that was the right size.  I keep the re-inkers together in a double box with the new ones on top and the older ones on the bottom.  I still have old paper so I keep the old inks and re-inker.  Just like they tell you to change your battery with the time change, I check the inks and reink them once or twice a year.  They have a place on the shelf when the table needs to be clear but when I am working they are on a small table for easy access.

Stamps:
At one time I scanned all my stamps and put the images in a binder.  I gave that up.  Close To My Heart has changed their group designations over the years.  I have gone to a different method.  I put the stamps in an Excel workbook with a sheet titled for each designation of CTMH as well as by the designation that I would look for it.  I color code each stamps and box with hole reinforcements and the  names on the box of the designation that is in there. When I put the stamps away, I don't put them by number or name, just by color. 

I use Avery Hole Reinforcements.  I get the white ones in 1,000 a pack and use permanent markers to color them a page at a time.  I have found colored ones and used them but there are more desingations than those colors. 

Before CTMH came out with My Acrylix organizer Z1038 or the My Acrylix mini organizer Z3106 or the double one that isn't available any more, I used Iris boxes - long and short.  I found them at Ace hardware.  I just take a stamp with me to see if it fits.  Most boxes don't.  They need to be about 7 x 14 to get the stamps into the box with a cover and I use a piece of cardboard to divide the box in half.  Last winter I took all the plastic snaps off and there was so much more room!

I put the M size stamps in the little boxes that they fit so well in.  I have all the stamps with thin cuts in their "season" like Winter, Christmas, Flowers etc but the generic thin cut that are just thin cuts are in the My Acrylix organizer and the generic stamps/thin cuts are in a box.

Designs:
I love all the How - To Books from CTMH .   I love that each paper packet project has always come with designs.  I have used them over and over with different papers and make slight adjustments for what I am doing.  I have put many in 3 ring binders and use the different see through an solid flags from the office store.  I prefer the solid as it is easier to read.

This time I have gone through my 3 ring binders and written each name of paper design that is in the book.  I have also put into 3 ring binders all the designs I have done over the year. I also ahve put other things that I have found useful to keep.   I am doing an Index binder with all the indexes of the books and so far I am up to 25 ring binders.  This is my current project. I can look at the index binder and narrow down which books I want to pull out and look for.

Paper:
I am still overwhelmed with this project.  I used to keep the cardstock in their old sections :Adventure, Enchantment, Whimsy, Basic etc but now the cardstock just by color.  I have tried looking at the color wheel and keeping them in families. 

I have at times kept the finished pages and the scraps together in their bag so that I could make more pages if I needed to.   I could never find the pages when I needed so I put finished pages in an album and kept the scraps together but it is overwhelming to find them at times. 

My sister gave me these shelving when the store she worked at closed.  

I have kept the scraps by color in the boxes on the right and stacked them.

This large tub keeps all the bags of scraps.

I try and put seasonal paper in the plastic boxes as well as paper and other things that are for projects I am doing.  I have a T-shirt that says "You can't get to heaven until you finish your scrapbooks".  In that case, I will be there for a long time.

Bling and embellishment:

Before CTMH came out with the Small Craft Organizer Z4205, I had some plastic cases that were too small for the stamps that I still use. The M Size stamp box is great for shimmer trim and ribbon.  There are still Accessory Rollup Z3121 from the website.  

Let me know what you use and if this has been helpful in your search for organizational bliss out of the chaos.  Have fun with your projects and take time to organize with free time now or in between projects.  

 

Technique of the week - getting designs

Where do you get your ideas to make things?  You can shop on my website to get Workshop on the Go's.  These are Close To My Heart kits that give you the paper, stamp, directions and "bling" to make pages or cards.  You can get the How To Program books.  Here you have the directions for pages or cards.  You can take what ever paper and bling you have and put things together.   It shows a basic design and then some variations that you can do. 

You can of course do what people call "scrap-lift" and get ideas from the Idea books or other websites.  You can also just use your imagination!   I decided rather than do a few designs for the vendor fair, to try and do as many designs as I could with the paper. 

I tried making some of the cards from the Artfully Sent Cricut collection.

I had the Confetti Wishes paper.  It was fun to see how different the paper looks with different designs.  After doing some of the Cricut cards, I tried doing some different designs with the same paper with stamps. 

I also tried to use the same design with different paper for the theme of Father's day. 

I did wet embossing on the typewriter and just regular ink on the other cards.  Some of the stamp sets I used were new and some were old.  You can find the new products on the website.  The new stamp sets are all together.  You will always be able to buy those stamps that match with the Cricut cartridges. The older products can be found at While Supplies Last.   Remember that for the month of April, the Deal of the Day will give you new and old products in a grab bag.  The offer changes every day at 3pm. 

Challenge yourself by getting out certain paper or a certain stamp or a certain design and see where it leads you.  Look through some old Idea books. I used to keep the old cards I had made.  I used these for ideas on new designs but have instead started taking photos of the cards and keeping the photos on file.  I also have made sketches on graph paper and keep them in a notebook.  I look through some of my old Workshop on the Go's and How To Programs and have fun coming up with new ideas.  There are many places to look for designs.  You need to develop a system so when you are going to do a project, you will have some place to go to get ideas.  If you don't, you will spend most of your time thinking up ideas instead of working on projects.  It is good to always look for designs as you don't know when an idea will hit you!  Happy scrapping!