I was recentely asked by a friend how I store my ribbons and paper. This took me back to the days where I was fast shopping, slow scrapping and slowly vanishing under the mountains of stash (oh what a woe!)
I do not have a spare room and if I did, I would turn it into a family room (Be gone mountains of toys)! So, having my very own room to craft in was sadly a distant dream. I decided to use the wall in my bedroom (with my partners kind permission) as my very own scrap space.
First I purchase a 5x5 Expedit from Ikea:
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00071356Expensive, but worth every penny. Actually.. I purchased it from Ebay for 40 pounds so look out for a bargain!
In hindsight, I wish I had gone all out and bought a whole set of matching boxes to fill the shelves. I didn't and now I have ended up with a mismatch of crazy storage.. but hey.. it works for me!
This is the room as a whole:
On the end of my Expedit I have a drawer tower which contains my latest stash so that I have it to hand and use it instead of storing it away.
Above this is a bathroom cabinet from Ikea which houses my husbands modelling things (I had to let him have some space too!)
I have these useful Pot on hooks hanging from there with my threads, pens and oddments.
Above my desk is a kitchen roll holder from Ikea which I have slotted all my reels of ribbons onto. This makes them much easier to access and I can see them all which inspires me colourwise to be more creative. I scrap on my desk into the late hous so a daylight lamp is essential for seeing the correct colours.
This is my tool caddy. It was 2.99 from WhSmith but I guess you could use a cutlery drainer or car caddy. I keep everything I use all of the time in here so that whenever I want to craft I just have to pick it up and it is all right there. Right now it needs a good clean out!
Scissors, Double Sided Tape, Foam Pads, Gems, Corner Rounder punch, Craft knife, Dymo, Brown Ink Pad, White paint, journalling pen and pencil, Ribbon offcuts, Diamond Glaze, Stapler ETC!!
Here is my section for stickers, clear stamps and rub-ons.
All of my peel off and cardmaking sticker sheets go into the blue drawers. All of my latest stickers that I have been too lazy to tidy away are above that :) I have a folder (or two) for sticker sheets, a folder for Rub-ons and a folder for clear stamps.
This is the sticker one. When I am lacking inspiration I just flick through here and I am usually inspired by a sticker to create a whole project. These are just cheap plastic wallets from Asda and serve their purpose well.
Here is my stamps folder. I took A4 sheets of acetate and placed all of my stamps onto them. They stick excellently and now I have all of my stamps right at my fingertips and stored so compactly. At the back I have stored all of the acetate backings the stamps were once on so that I can use the images.
I also have a whole TONNE of ink pads, rubber stamps and embossing powders. The ink pads are stacked neatly inside the basket along with everything else stamping related such as powders, pens, heat gun, acrylic blocks etc. The caddies of stamps stay at the front as they are easily moved and take too much room in the basket.
My scrapbooks used to be standing up but the pages were so heavy they began to sag and rip off their posts. Lying them down stops this but it means they are under pressure so the embellishments will indent the next page. Lesser of two evils.. your choice!
I have a black box there that is 12x12. When I have finished my layouts I pop them in there until I get a spare half hour to sort them all out into their correct albums.
At the moment we all have an album each (me and Lee have one as a couple) then I have one for wedding and one for our family.
This is my ribbon storage. It needs a good tidy but this is real life! I altered a lunch tin and bought some ribbon holders. You could just cut notches out of card. I have wrapped my ribbon around the holders and slotted them in so I can see at a glance what ribbons I have and they are all neat. O.K so the example here does not look too good but I have been naughty over christmas as I intend to rip it all out and start again.. organising into colour!
Here are my ribbons in packaging (My ribbon rack is full now!) and loose pieces. They are all neatly organised in a row but then I have all of my latest fads piled ontop to inspire me when I sit and look. Keep everything visual and not tucked away!!
This is how I store my paper. They are cardboard magazine holders, 2 taped end to end to make them 12x12 and very sturdy. I have to have them upright so that I can flick through them. I did the crazy thing of sorting them into three categorys - Black, white, cream and neutral. Blue, Greens and Purples. Red, Orange yellows. Then each one of these I sorted into A-Z of manufacturer. You may not want to do this but it helps me when I submit work for design teams and want to pull a big chunk of one paticular manufacturer out. Also, some brands match throughout their ranges so it is useful to have them all together.
This is my lettering. At the bottom I have all of my packaged letters ready to flick through. My boxed letters are left loose to grab. All of my loose letters go in a tub together (right) and my latest letters ready to put away are at the top. Anything too big is neatly placed to the left.
There is a pink desk organiser full of rub-on letters. This keeps them all together and safe. When I feel like using them I pull it out and prop it up on my desk.
Here I have 12x12 plastic wallets. These are absolutely brilliant for keeping all of your projects in. I also have one filled with halloween stash, One filed with christmas and another for all of my scraps of paper. If I buy a paticular range that I would like to keep together then it is here.
All vellums, acetates and speciality papers are also here.
This is the same as my loose ribbon storage but for flowers. Again, they are all lined up neatly at the bottom of the basket but towards the top I have just overflowed it with inspiration to look at. That is my excuse anyway..
This is a basket where I keep all of my fabrics and sewing patterns. To the right of this I have any notebooks or craft paperwork and an over door hanger so that when I sew, I can place any clothing on it.
This is the cutest wired pink cake stand in the world. I bought it from Argos and it holds all my embellishments. It is getting crazy full now but I can turn it around and look at everything easily. This goes right on my desk so that I have everything within reach and have more chance of using it!
This is the large storage box in the picture of my lettering earlier. Here are all my packets of lettering (mainly thickers *addict*) I love to flick through these and be inspired by all the different fonts and colours.
That is it for now.. I hope you found some ideas for storage.. I think I have RSI ;)
Today was a sad day because Logans Nursery 'teacher' left the school. She is the most wonderful woman in the world so it was very sad to see her go.
I am off to nans now to listen all about Emmerdale..
Mel xx
