how to make my scrap area look organized and not cluttered?

Unsure if this has been said or not?? If you are a person that goes to a lot of crops and scraps with friends outside of your home try to organize your space accordingly. I have all my buttons, ribbons, eyelets, brads, stickles, etc. in containers that are easily grab and go (jewlery organizer boxes, jars) It is so nice to have all my eyelets and brads in a few organized container. All my fiber organized and together, etc. It makes packing for a crop and leaving so much easier. Plus it helps keep my home space stay organized and tidy as well. I just posted my new scrap space earlier this week on a new thread (Yeah a space of my own-LOL) I know people that are unorganized that go to crops- come home, lay their stuff down, and then don't put it up because nothing really has a home. Then months later they have a pile from the last five crops they went to and an unorganized mess. Don't know where anything is- so they go buy more!! LOL (I would probably love to shop in their craft space!!) So if you need stuff to be portable, plan for it when you organize. Just my two cents since I crop outside of my craft room a lot. Good luck organizing your space
 
Okay...... I haven't looked at all of the replies yet, but I did see your pictures. oh my.

Without spending all night talking about this (as I could.... I LOVE organizing!!), here are the basic steps I would take.

1. Think long and hard about how you work and plan to organize your scrap supplies to work with your personal system. I NEVER do my pages by manufacturer.... so I would never sort my stuff that way. I need my stuff sorted by type.... rub-ons together, ribbons together, patterned paper together (and sorted by theme or primary color).

2. Take EVERYTHING out of your space and sort and purge. When you are done with this step, you should know how much space you need for each category (plus assume perhaps about 20% extra space for new stuff). NOTHING that isn't scrapping related should go back in this area (other than the business stuff in the file cabinet). I see lots of bags and totes and even some afghans and clothes in those pictures! Find another home for that stuff. I store my rolling scraptote in the attic, since I only use it about twice a year. It isn't effective storage for me, so I don't leave it in my scrap area.

3. If at all possible, find another home for completed scrapbooks. There really isn't any reason why they need to stay in the scrap space. Could you put them neatly in a nice bookcase in the formal living room or dining room??

4. Decide on a color scheme for that area. You have black metal, beige metal, wood tone, black plastic, all together. Personally, I would say stick with the woodtone with black accents... that way you don't need to repaint any of those bookcases.... although painting everything there a nice clean white or cream would make everything look more cohesive and neat.

5. Buy a label maker... you could use it! Every drawer and bin should have a nice neat label. Many scrappers prefer to make their own fancy labels, but I opt for clean and fast. I have a Brother P-Touch that I love, but the refill are expensive. But the labels stick well but also remove well (from plastic and such).

6. Buy some storage boxes, baskets, bins, drawers... (your choice) for your "stuff".... they should match fairly well to keep a neat look. I see you already have a bunch of green "marbled" photo boxes.... stick with that look if you prefer. Now FILL those storage boxes, etc, with all of your supplies. You may have to re-work the distribution as you go along.... some things will fit better in some places. And LABEL THEM!

7. Throw out excess packaging as you go along. That takes up a LOT of room.


8. Here are a few last assorted thoughts....

If you want to have some "pretty" storage (mason jars, colorful bowls, etc) put them on the baker's rack. They would look nice there.

Drawers work better than boxes stacked on boxes (looks like that is what you have on top of the file cabinets). If you are like most people, you won't want to move all of the top boxes to get to the bottom... so the stuff on the bottom goes to waste.

Repurpose stuff if you are on a tight budget. I found a bathroom medicine cabinet on the side of the road last year. I took it home, removed the mirrored doors and painted out the whole thing a light beige (matching my wall color in my scrapping space). I hung it on the wall above my Cricut and I store my cartridges in it. Plus I put some mason jars with buttons and ribbons for "pretty" storage. I'm not overly stressed for space, so I left my cricut carts in their original boxes, but if I were tight on space, I would remove the carts, keyboard overlays, and books and store them without the boxes (and either toss the boxes or put them in the attic in case I need them at another time).

I have also utilized the "Priority Mail" boxes for my solid color cardstock. I prefer that to be "open" storage right next to my scrap table, since I spend a lot of time going through it. These are light, easy, and free! If you want some upright paper storage, I highly recommend it (btw, before someone else mentions it, these should be USED boxes, not new boxes, since that is essentially "stealing" from the USPS... but if you ask at your PO, they may just tell you to take whatever you want).

Think VERTICAL space.... go higher, not wider. You could even put a narrow shelf up high on the wall and line it with boxes or baskets (I would prefer boxes with lids for dust purposes). If the shelf color and box/basket color was light, like the walls, it would blend in pretty well.


FWIW, the majority of my scrap storage is the 12 x 12 3 drawer Sterilite units from Target. On sale they are about $8 each. I have 18 of them plus two much larger 3 drawer units, 2 5-drawer units that are essentially the "legs" under one side of my table, and a small portable kitchen rolling rack that my Cricut sits on (but I hate it, so I am planning to replace it soon with more of the 12 x 12 3-drawer units). Most of the Sterilite drawers are stacked in two large stacks, but a few are on a bookcase that needs to find a new home.

I have some older pictures hanging around here on the DIS. I'll see if I can find them to share.


Hope this helps. Sorry if I rambled too much!! I LOVE organizing...... wish I could come help you in person!.................P
 
I agree with those who said take everything out and start fresh :) I did that last January, it took almost 2 weeks to go through and sort and categorize my stuff, but, it has stayed categorized and clean since. I can always find what I'm looking for :) Plus, I purged a lot of stuff that I would never use (have no clue why I bought it).

I have my scrap space in the family living area as well, so I need it to look nice when I'm not using it. My paper is sorted ROY G BIV, then white, black, gray (cardstock). My Patterned paper is sorted by pattern (Disney, fab 5, pooh, princess, flowers, music, etc). I use 5 shelf bookcases (I have 5) and the jet max cubes (I have 15) and I keep my extra albums, pages, and protectors in the garage until I need them.

I don't think I've ever posted pics of my scrapping space, maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
 
After seeing the photos, move 1 bookcase to each end of the walls. Hang a curtain between the 2 bookcases and hide everything vertically behind the curtain. You can hang the rod from the top of each bookcase.

You are left seeing 2 cleaned up bookcases for pretty display only, and a nice fresh curtain. Simply clean.
 

I saw another neat idea. Make your own version of a clip it up organizer instead of spending money buying the stand with the special clips. Put a tension rod or curtain rod up and put large binder clips on it or curtain rings, much more affordable. Then hang all items from the clips, of course it wasn't out of site. Unless you hid it behind the curtain between book shelves like the suggestion above which seems like a good idea? I considered doing that myself but was lacking the wall space so I used a vertical peg board with binder clips.
 
I've made my own clip-it-up as well, out of a curtain rod, and the clips that hold the curtains. Total cost about $10. You can see it below my shelf in this pic

jetmax.jpg
 
If anything in the space is metal use magnets. The magnetic spice holders work great for brads, glitter, etc.
 
My DH hates me putting tons of holes in the wall because I'm always moving stuff around and changing my mind. Use pegboard or slatwall. Both can be found cheap on craigslist with all the stores that are going out of business. Pegboard hooks can be used in slatwall. Hooks & fixtures can be found cheaper on craigslist or ebay.

I'm hoping to use slatwall.
 
If you put a tension rod between two book cases there would be no holes in the wall?
 
In looking thru all these post I have seen lots of white cubes that I think would work well in between the 2 bookcases I have. I have read both Jetmax and crop in style mentioned. Does anyone have any ideas/thoughts/experience with these. I would need SEVERAL...how expensive are they?
 
my white cubes I got on Target.com, the big rectangle ones where about $35 ea and the square ones about $22, they were having free shipping if over $50.00 total when I ordered them a couple weeks ago
 
I got mine at Michael's using coupons or 40-50% off sales. They go on sale a lot. ;)
 
The cheapest time to get the Jetmax at Michaels is during Thanksgiving/Black Friday. They go about 55% off. Although, buying them with a 50% off coupon or sale, is almost as good. They normally run about $30, so you can calculate what the sale price would be. My favorite is the 3 drawer one. Which is the bottom one 2nd from the right in my pick. BTW, the center section of my stack isn't Jetmax at all, just a white bookcase, that when I set everything up worked out perfectly.
 
For those interested in the Jetmax cubes...Michaels has them 40% off right now so the majority of them are 29.99 with 40% off are 17.99. I bought 8! Organization here I come!!! Thanks everyone for inspiring me!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
For those interested in the Jetmax cubes...Michaels has them 40% off right now so the majority of them are 29.99 with 40% off are 17.99. I bought 8! Organization here I come!!! Thanks everyone for inspiring me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!! good luck and have fun with the organizing!!!

we will want to see photos when you are done!
 
Out of curiosity, can you use one 40% coupon on more than one item? OR do you need a coupon for each item? Will they take more than 1 coupon during 1 visit or do you need to go inand out of store multiple times?

Thanks.
And where do you get multiple coupons if you need multiples?
 
Out of curiosity, can you use one 40% coupon on more than one item? OR do you need a coupon for each item? Will they take more than 1 coupon during 1 visit or do you need to go inand out of store multiple times?

Thanks.
And where do you get multiple coupons if you need multiples?

My Michaels is one coupon per person. Unlike JoAnns which will take multiple coupons as long as they have a different barcode. So I take DH and then can use two coupons. Now that they do most of their advertising online you can just print off multiple coupons. If you don't have it set up to receive Michaels emails, you can Google and a bunch of the scrapping blogs will have links.
 
Actually, Jet Max organizers are on sale at Michael's this week for 40% off. I have an entire wall of them - will post pix when this album for my dgd is finished - mess in progress right now.
 
















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