I thought I'd share how I organize my scrap stuff. First, this system works for me because of the way I scrap. When I'm working on a layout, I think in terms of color. If you think in terms of manufacturer or type of product, then my system probably won't work for you. I think it's important to know how you scrapbook before tackling an organization project in your space. When I'm working on a layout, I think about the colors and so, if I'm working on a page that uses orange and green, I'm able to pull down my orange and green totes and everything I need for my page is right there and easy for me to see and use. I used to organize by type of product (rub-ons, chipboard, stickers, etc) and I never remembered what I had. When I switched to organizing by color, I found that I was using up my stash and I rediscovered things I had forgotten about. I've been using this system for about a year now and I still love it.
I got this idea from designer Celeste Smith. She posted this and it just made so much sense to me. I had already decided to sort by color because of Stacy Julian and her philosophy, but seeing how someone had actually done it made all the difference.
I bought these red canvas totes from Target for super cheap. I got the floss boxes/with ribbon cards at a Joanne's type store for super cheap. I went to Office Max and got page protectors, 4x6 photo page protectors (2 4x6 slots per page), baseball card page protectors, and binder rings. I have 12 totes. One for bare chipboard, one for metal stuff and one for each color; red, orange, green, blue, yellow, black, brown, pink, white, and purple. I literally put everything in my color tote, except for paper. For the things that are multicolored, I have those on my clip-it-up and not in a tote. As I said earlier, what I love about this system is that when I'm working on a layout with say orange and green, I just pull down my orange and green totes and everything is there that I could possibly need.
I keep my totes on my wall. I think I remember Celeste saying she had her totes in her Ikea shelves. Each tote has a flower on it that tells me what color is in the tote. Following this is an example on exactly what is in each tote. I just throw my flowers, fabric, buttons (I have too many to put into the floss boxes otherwise that's where they would go), alphas in ziplocks and put those in the tote, as well. My cardstock is in lipless Display Dynamic trays. I have a tall work desk with shelves on the sides from Target . I love my desk like crazy. I have my cardstock on one side of the desk. The rest of the shelves are filled with my idea books. I have my patterned paper in Cropper Hopper Vertical Holders that are stored on their sides, so I can easily pull out the paper without having to take the Holder off the shelf. I keep my patterned paper on a shelf in my closet. I have it organized by manufacturer, but will probably change to color. The multicolored stuff will be by theme, flowers, stripes, Halloween, Christmas, etc. One day I'll tackle that project! I really thought this would take me forever to do, but it was actually fairly quick. I didn't over think it. If something was blue and green, but primarily blue, it went into the blue tote. If I had a package of products, say a ribbon card from Making Memories, I just cut each ribbon out and sorted it by color. If that freaks you out because you might forget who the product is by (for the getting published gals), then just keep the card intact and put it wherever you plan to keep your multicolored stuff. I bought all the organization stuff before I started doing anything. I opened up each tote, added the flower to designate color, then I put them all on the floor. I started with one drawer in my room (rub-ons) and then just sorted them into the totes. I didn't do any organizing. I just filled the totes with the stuff by color. I even just tossed all my buttons and eyelets and brads into a ziplock for ease. When all the sorting was done, I organized one tote per evening until I was done. I spent between and hour and an hour and half in front of the tv putting things into the page protectors and into the floss boxes. What took me the longest was putting all my ribbons onto the ribbon cards, but that went pretty quick, once I started. I just worked on one tote a night until I was done. That's pretty much it.
