You know how sometimes when you start organizing one thing and it just kind of snowballs from there? You really only MEANT to do that one little area, but all of a sudden you find yourself pitching into everything you own with an idea for making it all better.
The first thing you need to know is that I rarely buy things meant for organizing craft stuff. Most of what I have is repurposed from other areas of my house, though there is the occasional thing I will buy for my stamp room, as you will see. My stamp room, you should also know, will never win "Most Beautiful Stamp Room." Ever. The World's Ugliest Tile Floor almost guarantees that, but the 70's panelling and the horrendous drop ceiling aren't winning awards anytime soon either. But it's better than cinderblock and cement any day.
It all started the other day. I had bought one of those wall mount Clip It Up!'s for storage...oh, almost a year ago, one of the few things I have ever bought that was made for scrapbook storage other than paper holders. And it sat here for that long because I have very little wall space and couldn't figure out where to put it up. I really only have two walls, the other side is formed from my storage units and quilts hung up to divide my half of the basement from my husband's half. As well, I have paneling down here on the walls I do have and would have to drill holes and put in anchors to hold the screws, which I had never done before. All of this kept me from putting the dang thing up, along with working and all that other stuff like family (they still like to be fed for some reason and they still haven't clued into the fact that they need to start doing all the housework so that when I am not working I can just have fun, why can't they see that?!?!?!)
I had finally figured out where to put it and how it had to be done, but then it took a while to get around to putting it up. There was always something else I would rather be doing or had to be doing. So it sat there.
I didn't plan on doing it. But one day, I just said, "I'm gonna do it NOW!" And so I did, even though my husband has a habit of hiding his tools in plain sight. It took me a while to find the drill (on the floor in front of one of his amplifiers.) Then it was a matter of finding the right drill bit. Finally it was done.
Then I started pulling stuff out to put on it. I was finding all of the little packages of things I had stashed here and there, most of which I had forgotten I had. I'm sure you know what I am talking about! I used to buy EVERYTHING I saw until I decided we simply didn't have the cash for me to do that anymore. Now I restrict myself to SU! and the occasional tool I can't get from SU!, plus obviously things to organize with, right?
Then I had a brilliant idea...why not hang up all those clear stamps that are still in their packages? I had a ton of these from back when I was on design teams and was buying stamps that I liked from (cough) other companies. It worked like a charm!
Once I had moved the packages of clear stamps out of the shoe organizer they were in, I could move the clear stamps that I had put in CD cases into their place. Which meant that I could get rid of one of my CD organizers...but it was a really nice one. So I ended up moving my audio CDs into that organizer and getting rid of the cheaper ones that I had those in. Which meant reorganzing the audio CDs. I have plans on ripping all of those up to my external drive on my computer, but that will also mean getting a good set of USB speakers to attach to it, since my sound card on my laptop sucks. Much better sound through the USB port. Once I do that, I can get rid of my boom box and put away all the CDs out of sight, but until then...
Then after I had put all the clear stamps on the Clip It Up! then there was no room for the embellishments and other stuff. So I ended up going out and buying the table top version of the Clip It Up! I had to, you can see that can't you? I wanted to get all this stuff that has been hidden away OUT where I can see it, with the hope and prayer that I would actually USE the stuff once it was staring me in the face. That's the idea, anyway.
So once I had gotten this thing home (bought at Archiver's with a coupon), I had to find a place for it. What I didn't realize was that it is HUGE. The thing has a huge footprint. So I had to move other stuff around to find a place for it. You can see the organization juggernaut is careening wildly down the hill at this point. There is no stopping it!
The marker holder had to move over to where I kept the glitter. That led to me taking my glitter and other stuff off the stair-type spice organizer I had it on which took up too much space. Luckily, I had bought a nice stainless steel lazy susan a long time ago that I had never put together (do you see a pattern here?) I proceeded to put it together and all of that stuff went on there.
Don't ask me where I got the marker display. I have tried to find it again and have failed. It's meant for selling markers, though, so you may be able to track one dwon if you are good at Google.
This should have been over, but it wasn't. I found myself thinking I should get rid of all those magazines I had been hoarding forever that were in the bookcase I had the lazy susan on. I had not looked at any of them in ate least 2 years, a clear sign that they should be GONE. Once I took all of those out of the bookcase they were in, I could put all of my SU! clear-mount stamps in their place! Yippee!
If you've never been OCD (which I have just the a touch of, though not as bad now that I am on thyroid meds for some reason), you won't understand how hard it is to get rid of stuff and in particular magazines. I still have to get to the knitting magazines...just can't go there yet. This was my second run at the papercrafting magazines. I had gotten rid of a bunch before, but this was the final round.
I took all the magazines and put them in the car to take to Will's school where there is a paper recycling bin. They have them all over the place here at schools and churches. The places that have them get part of the money from recycling the paper. So it was a win/win...I get them out of my house and the school gets some money. Plus I got a new place for the clear mount stamps to live.
You can see I've maxed this already. I am going to try to find another shelf I can put in this bookcase...there should be just enough room to get another row of stamps in. In the meantime, I have room on the other shelves to either put some retired rubber on or....? Hmmm...
Anyway, then I started thinking about all the old SU! catalogs I had in another bookcase. I had some from every year I have been a demo (2003). I usually put them out for sale at my open house, but I never sell very many. I decided they could also go to get recycled, so Dan and I hauled all of them upstairs and put them in the car, then quickly drove them over and pitched them in before I had a chance to change my mind. I also took all the pads of the stamp set samplers we used to buy to give out with specific stamp sets. All of this stuff was meant to be sold on Ebay, by the way, which is why I never got rid of them before. It just never happened. So out it all went.
That left the bookcase where they used to be quite empty. What could I put in there instead? I started thinking about all the stamps I had from before I became a demonstrator, the ones that are not stored in nice tidy boxes. Instead, I had been keeping them in one of those Target toy bins. My daughters had one in their room a long time ago that I ended up appropriating for rubber storage because all they ever had kept in it was trash and dirty clothes. But I have been dissatisfied with it for a while now. It would be much better to put my loose rubber stamps back into acyrlic box photo frames...the way I used to keep them back when I first got started and saw Carol Duvall show this method of storage on her show. I could then move the bookcase that used to hold the catalogs back in the corner where the toy bin was.
Of course, it's been a while since I last stored rubber stamps in acrylic frames. After I gathered the ones I used to use that had been repurprosed around my craft room, I found there weren't enough of them and so had to buy a few more (cough) frames to fit everything in. And even then, I had to put the larger stamps on top of the bookcase that is now the home of loose rubber. Oh my. That sounds so WRONG. LOL!
I moved the bookcase back into that corner and rearranged some more stuff. All my SU! embellishments are pretty much all in the same place now.
I used up all the clips for the new Clip It Up! table model and I think I will have to buy the upper tier next (I have another coupon for next week) since I have yet more stuff stashed away that needs to come out.
Once I get started doing this, it's hard for me to stop. It's like an itch on my back that I can't quite scratch well. I am sure it will take a little bit longer for me to get everything just the way I want it OR until I run out of steam. Until then, WATCH OUT!
Now that you've put up with my ranting about organization, I will show you a card.
Ingredients: Stamps - Beary Nice Wishes, Good Grid, School Lines; Paper - Crumb Cake, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Island Indigo, Whisper White, Early Espresso; Ink - Early Espresso, Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limade, Craft White; Other - 1/4" Whisper White grosgrain, Bear Bigz Die, Beary Essential Bigz die, 1" circle punch, Boho Blossoms punch, Early Espresso Baker's Twine, Snowflake punch, InColor Designer Printed brads, dimensionals, Early Espresso marker, Pennant Builder punch, Stripes Textured Impressions folder.
Stinkin' CUTE!!! (YILM!) This was one of the cards I had on my display board. The background was double embossed with the Stripes folder to make a plaid.
I have had these bear dies for a while now and have been...um...SAVING them for just the right card. Yeah. That's my story and I am STICKING to it!
Well, looks like work has finally landed on the server, so I must dash. I will be working on pricing rubbah for sale tonight for my open house on Sunday from 2 PM to 4 PM. Check out my events page for more deets, be there or be square! Ta!
