Oh Scrap!

Well - just how do you keep track of all your scraps?  I thought my last system was pretty organised - two tubs one plains, the other patterns, all in plastic bags by colour scheme - but you know what?  It didn't take long for me to make a mess out of that system.  I didn't put things away properly (too much of a hurry) and getting it in and out was a pain so I eventually started SHOVING!  Pretty soon I didn't use my system cos it was almost unrecognisable!!!

Revamping my craft room is making me think twice about what goes back in, where it goes, how I store and organise it so I thought I might share.  I have collected some really useful and pretty looking baskets over the years that take 12 x 12 easily so I've decided they will be allowed to 'sit out' and be made good use of.  Much as I would LOVE to have EVERYTHING out of sight and neatly housed somewhere I can't avoid that some things NEED to be out and at hand - I'm coming round to the idea - just slowly!

This is one such basket.  In fact this one matches several of the other baskets on show on shelves and under the desk plus it has a divider which will let me keep 'most used' items in front and handy to grab.  These were actually baskets I treated myself to when I first created my craft room but I never made better use of all of them.  All that's gonna change tho.  It should look quite neat and everything 'upright' once it's full.

I'm also making good use of the equipment I've had for some time now.  This is a tag punch from StampinUp! that I use a lot.  Most everything in my room will be labeled in one way or another so I thought this punch would be perfect for creating tabs to organise my scraps.  One advantage of making your own tabs and labels is that you can change them any time you like.

I'm making good use of my computer too by creating text for my many labels.  To begin with I am using masking tape to write on and then once I know what I need I make up a sheet ready for punching out.  I used a simple word document set on the narrowest margins, inserted a table with 4 columns and made them 5.5 cm in height (just in case you have this punch and wondered about positioning).  I used a size 14 font 'Calibri' I think and placed my text at the bottom of each cell.  I then added 3 lines below each text to raise it just where I needed it.

I created several labels including one for class.  I bring supplies home from YTOC for working on class projects and I like to keep these seperate from my own stash.  I also thought it was useful to create some blank ones in case I think of anything later that I missed.  I can always replace these with printed ones once I'm done.

And finally I stapled my tabs to large 12 x 12 pieces of card to create sturdy dividers.  I chose to staple my tabs rather than stick them because I can simply remove a staple and easily replace a tab if I need to at some point.  I need my system to be flexible as well as neat and tidy and user friendly. 

This will be my second attempt at trying to keep my larger scraps organised.  Most of these scraps are left over from pages and projects and I often get in the mood for certain papers or colours so I hope to make good use of this storage system.  I'm planning to reduce some smaller papers to uniform 6 x 6 and also 8 x 8 sizes and store those slightly differently but I haven't got that far yet!