scrapbook organization

As I said in my LAST POST, now that the scrapbooking part of my office has been reorganized I’m going to do a series of blog posts showing the befores and afters and explaining how I organized.

From the whole room photo in my last post, you couldn’t even see this but it’s probably my favorite part of the room. It’s the wall made up of STORE IN STYLE CUBES and a variety of jars.

Here’s how the setup looked before my latest reorg project.

BEFORE

And here is the new and much improved version.

AFTER

So back to how it looked before:

*Disclaimer: I own so much MME paper because I bought a few of those huge packs that they sold at Costco years ago. I used the papers for goody bags when I held crops, sold them open stock, etc. There’s no way I’m EVAH going to use all that MME paper. But I have no plausible excuse for the rest of it.

In the past, I’d bought these cubes, assembled them, and put them in a good configuration for the room. I didn’t want to stack them too high because I need to be able to get to the jars spread across the top. {Otherwise – I love these stinkin’ cubes so much, I totally would stack them to the ceiling, lol}. In the past, I had also started using the CROPPER HOPPER VERTICAL FILES to store my paper and embellies by brand name.

I used a label maker to label each file with the brand name, then put in 12×12 papers along with embellishments. I like to store a lot of my things by manufacturer because when I go to scrap, I pull out that whole file and pretty much everything matches. I don’t have to rack my brain going, “Now, did I buy the matching letter stickers to go with this?” or “What paper would look great with this one?” Everything I need is right there.

So that organizing scheme worked out well but, as you can see, as I bought more items, instead of taking the time to pull the vertical file out and put the new things in their proper place, I just kinda’ shoved them on top. Hey, at least I got them in the right cube! But yeah, not the most effective way to find things later on and it sure started to look messy.

As you may know, my original plan to reorganize my scrap room/home office was to take 3 days really focusing on it, emptying everything out of the room, then put things back in an organized way, purging unwanted things as I went. {Details are HERE}. Needless to say, it didn’t much go to plan after Day 3 :)

But this photo is from Day 1 when I cleared most of the cubes out and moved all the paper files and other things to the dining room and living room.

I decided to keep some things where they were because their organization wasn’t going to change. The drawer jam-packed with adhesives and SNAPLOAD packs was left alone, as was my filer cube which has generic patterned papers filed by color.

Then it was time to install the doors on cubes that were still open.

I’d bought the doors months {gulp – or maybe even a year} ago but they’d just been sitting in boxes in my scrap room since then. I ain’t gonna’ lie … I absolutely HATE putting stuff like this together, even when it’s something this easy. I’d rather, like, go to the dentist or watch paint dry than assemble something. But I finally did it.

And leave it to a scrapbooker – when I couldn’t find any Elmer’s or white glue to install the magnets, I just used my trusty GLOSSY ACCENTS. Hey, same diff. It’s all sticky, right? And just think how glossy and shiny it is inside those tiny holes in the cubes. I bet they feel really special.

Okay, here’s some more things that didn’t get removed from the room because they were going to stay essentially the same.

These 4 gingerbread jars were chock full and had been organized already (journaling spots, flowers, and chipboard letters sorted into baggies). They didn’t need anything but a quick wipedown with Windex to get rid of some dust.

Speaking of cleaning …

Here are all the lids of the gingerbread jars laid out on the homework table drying. Yep, I washed everything with soap and water because I wanted to start over sparkly clean.

In the background of the photo, you can also see where I started to fill in the cubes. I decided to move the Vertical Paper Holders to another part of the room. Part of the reason was to prevent fading of my papers. Can you see the lightswitch to the top right of the photo? To the right of that is a sliding glass door that gets full sun for half of the day. I noticed that the edges of some of my Beloved BAZZILL was fading :( I know, right? We CANNOT have THAT. So even though doors were going on those cubes, I thought it would be a good idea to move all my papers away from the sliding glass door.

Here’s what the cubes looked like once I got all 7 doors installed.

It looks so much neater, doesn’t it? The Store in Style DOORS only cost $13 each which I think was a good investment for my space. Other than the fading issue, another important advantage is that now I can use the cubes to hide things I don’t feel are very attractive to look at: empty albums, pages/page protectors, projects, etc. Most of these items used to be kept on an open bookshelf and I just hated looking at them. They looked so sloppy not to mention uninspiring. Now they’re hidden {wink}.

Here’s a closer photo of some of the things that are now kept on top of the white cubes.

Jar, jars, and more jars! There are also a few decorative things that I’m starting to collect that are in my favorite colors ~ turquoise, ocean green, robin’s egg blue, and white. These are colors that remind me of my favorite place in the world: the ocean. The Ball canning jar on the left I got from an antique store in Seattle last year. The pretty vase on the right is from a nursery near the beach house we stay at each summer. {I know I should put something cute inside it but I like that grassy straw stuff it came with for some reason, lol}. The dish is from my mom who is an expert at collectable china and often gives me pretty things. I’m thinking I can use it as a holding area for pretty embellies or flowers until I put them away in the proper jars.

Speaking of all those jars … I don’t have a good picture of them all put together, do I? But I’ll go across from left to right and tell you what I have stored in them:

– Sport embellishments
– Making Memories embellishments
– K & Company embellishments
– Ink pens
– Bling
– MAMBI/KI Memories embellishments
– Mists
– Flowers
– Chipboard
– Ribbon
– Twine and jute
– Photo corners
– Chipboard letters
– Journaling spots
– My Minds Eye embellishments
– Misc. embellishments (2)
– Decorative river rocks
– Decorative glass shells
– Empty (1)

Yes, I actually have a small ginger jar that is empty. It’s one of the jars without a lid so it’s harder to think of things to put in those. Maybe that will be an “embellies to file” jar or something :)

So back to the final product.

AFTER

You can also see my travel art hanging on the wall above the cubes. As I mentioned before, I wanted to add some personal touches that WEREN’T about scrapbooking this time around. I love to travel although I don’t get to do it much, so I dream through pictures of other countries and reading books about them. My first love is Italy but I dream of traveling all throughout Western Europe someday. For now, I can look up from my desk, see images of Paris, Provence, and Tuscany, sigh, and be content with dreaming.

With each of these entries, I’m going to put a list at the end of products I’ve used and where I got them, so here goes…

STORE IN STYLE CUBES: I collected these over time by using 40% or 50% off coupons at MICHAELS. You can also get them from Oriental Trading (the link is above).

GINGER JARS: I got these ones AND MORE for $40 from a local candy store via CRAIGSLIST. I’ve seen these at BED BATH & BEYOND which seem to be the same thing. THESE are sure cute from Pier One; you can label them with chalk.

MASON JARS: I’ve had these for ages but I got them at Pier One. I can’t find them on their website but THESE ONES from Amazon.com are sure cute.

Thank you for checking out my “cubes and jars” wall in my scrapbook space and please let me know if you have any questions!