Welcome to Part III!
First, an update as to how my reorganization is working. I am pleased to announce that it's working GREAT! I didn't expect that I would need both table tops, but I've been working on playing catch up with my weekly review (aka Life Documented) album and what I've done is used the table behind me to lay out all of my various kits and supplies in little piles. So, as I work and design on one table, I sift through and have access to all my kits spread out on the other table. This has worked brilliantly and I've used a large variety of new and old supplies! Gotta love a system that helps you use what you have. Here's an example using Simple Stories lines, Smarty Pants and 24/7. I even used a vintage 7 Gypsies roller stamp on this layout proving my point that if I can SEE it, I will USE it.
Today, I'm going to tackle kits and paper in general... I started subscribing and/or purchasing scrapbook kits since 2007. To say that I may have a large pile of kits would be an understatement. Though, I can proudly say that I don't have any older than 2 years. How do I know? Because one rule I've always held is that I give myself limited space to accumalate kits. In my old studio it looked like this:
And this goes with Small Space Solution #6: Limit Your Collections
My system was this... as a new kit arrived, I took the supplies and transferred them to a Cropper Hopper Page Planner. These are no longer available. If I were to buy them now, I'd either use the Page Arranger or the Envelope. If I had multiples of kits, I'd use the latter since it provides more depth.
Once I put the kit contents into the envelope, they would go into the wire basket shown above on the left (I'll talk about the one on the right in a moment). If the basket was full, and no more kits could fit, then I went through the basket and emptied one or more of the envelopes. This way, I never had more kits than what fit in the basket. This was a great system until I moved to my smaller space and I had nowhere to store the basket. Yet, I still like the system itself. I discovered the Cropper Hopper pockets fit perfectly in my Expedit. So, I devoted one full shelf to kits.
The shelf in the bottom right hand corner of the photo holds all my kits. Once the shelf is full, I empty a kit (some into my stash, but mostly to a donation). The photo above also shows how I store all my letter stickers and...
Small Space Solution #7: Sort General Supplies by Color
This I realize is not a new idea. But I can tell you that for supplies like my letter stickers, sorting by color is the only way to go. I can easily get my hand on any form of sticker from Thickers to my old KI Memories. Each color has a Cropper Hopper envelope (or in this case the Paper File). Then they are stored in the top right shelf shown above in "Rainbow Order."
Also stored in rainbow order is my cardstock. Remember I said we'd return to the right basket. Well, in that basket I store my 12x12 cardstock.
scraps worth saving are also stored here. They are slid into more page planner pockets and sit behind the coordinating color cardstock.
In a previous solution post I explained that I purged all my 8.5x11 paper. I went from having paper here (cardstock on the bottom, patterned paper on the top):
AND in the basket to just the cardstock above and here:
Which brings me to Small Space Solution #8: Keep Only What You Will USE, not what you love:
When I went through to purge my paper, I thought only about what kind of scrapping have I been doing lately? What colors, patterns, and themes are most likely to support my photos? I also considered age of the paper and if the company was still in business. But my number one question when downsizing was still, "will I use it?" Then I sort the patterned paper by manufacturer in the Cropper Hopper vertical storage. I did have to cut the storage containers so they would fit inside the Expedit. I recommend cutting first and then assembling if you are buying new. I also recommend using tin snips or some other heavy duty cutter as it was difficult with scissors.
Well, that's where we stand on paper and kits today... more details coming soon. Have a great Sunday as we eek out the last few days/weeks of summer.
I think when you are all done your scrap space you should come do mine ;) I wish I was as organized as you!
Posted by: KimberlyMarie | July 28, 2013 at 01:29 PM