My Clean Rubber Room

Thanks for all the encouragement and suggestions to help me organize my stampin' space. I spent the better part of my weekend down there and it's just about done now...it sure feels good! I thought I'd share my progress with you today. Look!...I can actually sit and work at my desk now! My desk is not that attractive...mostly because the previous owner decided to do a faux wood grain technique over most of the nice oak finish. Some day I plan to strip it back to it's original glory. It might not be attractive, but it certainly serves it purpose...it's heavy-duty oak with lots of storage and slide outs. To the right of where I sit there is a nice slide out surface perfect for my stampin' scrub. I removed the black hanging pocket bag that was under my pegboard, which had accumulated mostly odds and ends I didn't know what to do with. Anything I wanted to save from there either went onto the pegboard or into the metal buckets which I hung from hooks along the bottom.Sitting directly behind my desk is a solid oak filing cabinet which I found at a yard sale for only $5! I keep mostly my faux finishing and other painting supplies stored in there. On top of this cabinet I have two smaller cabinets with drawers. The old oak one on the left used to belong to my Grandfather. He also worked as a painter and guess what he did in his spare time as a hobby and to make a little extra cash? He made rubber stamps! The ones he made were all business oriented stamps- return address and things like that. He would have been amazed to see how rubber stamps have evolved! When my Grandma gave me the tool box she said that he used it in his painting, but being that the drawers are all so shallow, I suspect he used it to store his dies for his rubber stamps. Anyways...I use it to store my colored pencils, markers, etc...from my pre- SU! days. The close up photo here shows how I store most of my embellishments. This little storage unit started it's life as a jewelry box...which I picked up at a garage sale for a buck!

As you can see, I like to be organized, but I don't necessarily want to spend a bunch of money doing it. (I'd rather save those $$$ for my craft supplies!) The way I store my patterned paper is one of my most creative recycled storage units. This glass shelved unit which is on wheels started out as a stereo cabinet. I simply removed the middle shelves, and replaced them with a wire cube with 10 slots to store patterned paper according to color. (wire cubes can be purchased at Target, and I used zip ties to add shelves inside the cube) Below that, I have a couple Iris 12x12 containers that I store my SU! patterned papers, and above the wire cube I have my 12x12 craft keepers with layouts in progress. (note to self: start using the patterned paper instead of hoarding it!)

Next to the glass cabinet is a DVD storage unit (also a garage sale find) that I store most of my backgrounds, alphabets and greetings. The rest of my collection is stored in the same manner on a couple more larger DVD shelving units in my closet.

On the other side of the room I did a little bit or re-arranging. I have a wire rack used to store my SU! card stock ~ 12x12 on the left and 8-1/2 x 11 on the right. I keep a few different colors on each shelf - each color family gets 3 slots. My drafting table is cleaned off also and ready for when I start working on some scrapbooking pages (I like to spread out when I work!) You can also see how I store my paper scraps...which is what always gets out of control first.

Many of you gave me some great suggestions on how to keep track of my scraps. Funny thing is I already have a system...I just get lazy on actually using it! Here is a close up of how I store my scraps. Each Color Family, In Colors & Neutrals has an expanding file folder with tabs. Each pocket stores 2 colors. Then I have a small bin which I throw small scraps into that are easy to grab when I want to use my punches. See the stacked empty bins in the back of the photo? Most of those were filled with scraps that had to be sorted and filed.

The good news is I got my things put back into place and made room to be able to sit and stamp at my desk. The bad news is...when I sit down and look ahead, this is what I saw:
To be continued....