Major Clean Up, De-clutter, Storage and Organize - Craft space & Photo Studio

I did decided I needed to do some major clean up and de-cluttering with the goal of having ALL card making supplies in the craft space.  This necessitated getting rid of a lot of supplies.  I have been mulling this over for several months.  

 

Finally, I decided to keep my Stamping Up supplies and cull the unrelated stuff for this reason. I have card stock, designer paper, ink, watercolor, chalks, ribbon, brads, and some stamps that all coordinate.  I have enough to last me the rest of my card making career.  I am keeping 110lb for photo cards too.

I started by removing all the non SU designer paper from my 8 color coded drawers.

Then, I took the 4 drawers of SU designer paper which were crammed to overflowing and sorted them into the 8 color coded drawers. It was a bit tough because SU paper comes in sets which are organized by color collections - Brights, Subtles, Regals, and Neutrals rather than colors.

Now, I had 4 empty drawers.

I then looked at the Iris cases in the bedroom that held 12x12 designer paper.  I kept the special papers like metallic, no shed glitter, and vellum pieces which translate well to Stampin Up.  That is what is in that bottom drawers.   Look 3 empty drawers!

I have a large box overflowing of designer paper to get rid of.  I will hold onto it for a couple of weeks in case I remember a few pieces I want to pull back.

 

 

The card stock cupboard needed to be addressed as well.  A while ago I had moved 8.5x11 Stampin Up card stock to this cupboard but now the 12x12 card stock had to be moved as well.

It was being stored in the dining room secretary along with table linens so it was time it moved.

The left is 8.5x11 card stock and the right is neutrals and 12x12 card stock on the bottom.

The middle shelf holds the boxes for my 2 projects - Compassion House and Cards for Seniors.

Here's the bottom shelves of the secretary in the dining room.  

I have added a few plastic containers to organize. The top shelf holds small vases, small bottles, charger plates, place mats, and a grey box of table runners and doilies.

The bottom shelf is a container of napkins and table cloths on the right hand side.

There is room for a few pieces if I decide something new in the future.

I now have 7 Iris cases that are EMPTY!

This is the photo studio area and you can see in the right hand photo that I have filled some of them with Macro Monday props. Clear cases which are well labels so I can quickly find what I need.  

I don't know what I will use the empty ones for just yet.  I can live with them empty for a while and get used to the space.  Having spend the time to empty them I will be sure to fill them with plenty of thought!   SO HAPPY!

Craft Space - Labels

I have now placed labels on my wooden drawers.  I color printed the words in black. I then punched them with the Stampin Up Decorative Label.  They are held in place with decorative bull clips which have the added bonus of providing a small handle to help pull the drawer open.  I rubbed wax from a candle to the bottoms corners of the drawers to facilitate the sliding on their wooden supports.  That has helped a lot. 
I'm glad to have my card stock half sheets close at hand which means they will get used instead of my reaching for a new full sheet.

New Storage - Drawers

I became aware of the Blog Hop - Where Bloggers Create 2013 hosted by Karen Valentine at My Desert Cottage through Maureen's Blog.  I checked out most of the links to see what bloggers were saying about where they create and what creative solutions were being used to store stuff.  Many creators were saying that they need to see the stuff to use it.  That struck a cord with me.  I was inspired to make changes in my space so it would be more functional. I decided drawers needed to replace boxes which keeps the space defined.  After some internet research, here's what I found to fill the bottom half of the shelf in my space.  They are by Sterilite - Modular Drawer system with clear drawers. They fit perfectly across the 32 inch shelf and stacked 2 high fill the shelf with a bit of space above of thin items side by side. 
I cut down my rubber stamp collection to 3 small drawers, the rest are gone.  I have punches organized by Border, Stampin Up, Martha Stewart, and Other.  I sent a lot of 3D accents and beads to the second hand store as I am concentrating on card making these days.  I have a drawer for Christmas card supplies which is over flowing, the All Occasion Card supplies drawer is a good fit.  A drawer holds jars of buttons, another small envelopes, another A2 envelopes, and another chalk and tools.  I feel better about my space. I'm tackling the table which is suppose to be where I work but is just storing stuff now. 

Cool Tool - 12x12 drawers - Paper Storage

I use these 12x12 drawer units for patterned paper storage. I have 2 units which gives me 8 drawers. One unit holds paper sorted by color. The other holds other paper like Christmas paper, Specialty paper like acetate, vellum, glitter etc, multicolored paper and one drawer for scraps of patterned paper.  It works for me because I can see the paper.  When the scraps drawer gets too full I go through it and purge.  I bought the units at Walmart.  The labelling is not too sophisticated and I should replace them with clear labels now that I have a label maker.  One day soon.