There are several websites and products to show you how to organize your scrapbooking supplies and to keep them organized. Here are some tips to get you started organizing your scrapbooking supplies to save you time, space and money.
How To Organize Your Scrapbook Supplies
Once you start getting any amount of supplies together for
scrapbooking, you will realize that you have to have some way
to keep everything organized. Things can quickly get out of
hand and more time will be spent just trying to find what you
need than actually putting scrap book page layouts together!
Since scrapping time is precious and often hard to come by, I
have come up with 5 inexpensive tips to keep everything in
order!
1. Invest in a good paper storage system. I have been using an
accordion file system for all my papers. I have them separated
by colors and by type, so all the red cardstock is in one file
and all the red patterned paper is in another file. This helps
reduce the amount of time I spend looking through paper! I also
have a smaller accordion file for all the scraps I have and
organize them by colors, too!
2. Eyelets and brads can be some of the most troublesome scrap
book supplies to keep in order. They often come in little
plastic bags that can’t be reused, so unless you like them
spilling all over everything, you have to get some containers
to organize them. Most craft stores sell small boxes with
dividers inside that make keeping colors and shapes apart very
simple. I also like some of the plastic screw top containers.
Or, if you are on a really tight budget, you can take small
baby food jars, spray paint the lids and use them to keep
everything nice and neat!
3. Ribbons, fibers and yarns can be such a pain in the neck to
keep from becoming one big tangled mess! Ribbon spools can be
thread onto small dowels or even pant hangers. These methods
are nice because you can see each ribbon and cut from the
spools easily. I know many people like to put short pieces of
fibers and ribbons in large canning jars. Not only is this a
good way to keep colors together, but it makes for a nice
display. One way I have used to store yarn on the skein is by
unwinding a small piece and putting the skein in a zipper
plastic bag with the unwound piece hanging out. This makes
finding the end to cut from much easier than trying to fish it
out every time.
4. Stamps can be a challenge, especially if they aren’t the new
acrylic stamps that can easily fit in binders and other small
spaces. Again, using storage boxes for wood mounted rubber
stamps and organizing by themes is a good way to keep them
organized. To make the process of finding a specific stamp
easier, just stamp each image on a piece of paper and adhere it
to the outside of the box.
5. If stickers have got you stuck, I have the best suggestion
I’ve found: the Crop in Style Paper Sticker Binder. Not only
does the binder keep all the stickers in a zipped up unit, but
it has divided pages and dividers to keep different sizes and
themes apart. Once I started using it, it not only helped keep
everything neat, but it makes it so much easier to actually use
the stickers I have! It saves you money by not buying more of
the same kinds of stickers!
I hope that these five tips can help you get a good handle on
all your supplies. All these tips are inexpensive tricks, but I
have also really enjoyed having large totes and bags to take
with me to crops. These products often have organizational
pieces integrated into themselves like bags, pen and scissor
organizers, etc.
Want a secret?? If you search some of the tool departments of
your local discount stores, you might just find a rolling
hardware tool box that will work beautifully for your scrap
book supplies. I found a great one for under $25 several years
ago and have loved it! It doesn’t have all the bells and
whistles that the ones specifically made for scrap booking do,
but it serves its purpose and I had some money left over to
invest in more scrap book supplies!
Just find a system that works well for you. You might go
through a couple systems before you find one that really works
for you, but don’t give up! The time you will save by keeping
all of your scrap book supplies in order will be worth all the
effort!
About the Author: Susan Whitehead has been scrapbooking since
the birth of her first child in 1998. Her love for the craft
has grown exponentially since then and has resulted in her
becoming a scrapbook instructor with her own online scrapbook
business. Her website is http://www.BarefootMemories.net and
her blog is http://www.scrapbookbarefoot.blogspot.com
