Sharing a Space: The Art of Concealing a Mess

I am a messy person by nature and I will be the first to admit it! For most of my scrapping career, I've had my own room to live in, with my own desk/scrap space, so I've never had to worry about keeping it neat for anyone else. I could leave unfinished projects on my desk, and clutter my entire room with supplies, and no one cared! Now that I'm getting married and have moved my scrapping stuff into a tiny one-bedroom apartment with my fiancé (who likes to keep things neat and tidy), I actually have to clean up my scrap stuff when I'm done scrapping for the day and make sure the one desk that we share is usable for him too.

The first thing I did was to go to Target and get some cubes to hold my supplies. They look like the Store in Style cubes, but slightly smaller and much more in my price range ($25 per cube). I love these things! They give others the impression that I am an extremely organized person, when in reality I can just dump my supplies in the drawers and not have to organize them at all!

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out a good system to store my foam stamps, patterned paper, ribbon, alphabets, embellishments, QuicKutz dies, tools, stickers and rub-ons, and pictures in a semi-organized but not too time consuming way to stay organized (I hate it when you spend more time organizing than scrapping), and this is what I have come up with so far.

Foam Stamps:

I have so many alpha stamps, and I never use them because it's almost impossible to find the letter I want when I want it! By the time I find all the letters for the title that I want, I've wasted 20 minutes of my scrapping time! I found these plastic boxes by Marvy Uchida at my local scrapbook store and velcroed all my alphas in order. That way I can store them away when I'm not using them but can find any letter very easily when I need it! Any paint that gets on the Velcro washes off easily and I can just put it back in the plastic box while it's wet and let them air dry (without the lid of course). The lid also serves as a double storage area as I can Velcro more stamps on there too. I can fit four to five alphabet stamp sets in one box.

Rubber Stamps:

I currently own only unmounted stamps so they are all stored in CD cases. The small drawers in my cubes are perfect for storage and easy to find!

Cardstock/Patterned Paper:

I've been using the 12" x 12" Cropper Hopper paper holders, but dislike them because they are pretty flimsy and fall over. The cubes are perfect for these because there are four slots in each, which are big enough for the paper holders so I can slide them in and out to find the paper that I'm looking for but not have the whole thing fall over. I organize my patterned paper by brand and coordinated sets. I organize my cardstock loosely by color (same color families, but not necessarily lightest to darkest). My 12" x 12" cardstock and 8.5" x 11" cardstock each have their own Cropper Hopper holders.

Alphas:

Over the past three years I've accumulated massive amounts of alphas- metal, chipboard, wood, acrylic, you name it! It seems that I always run out of the vowels, no matter how many they give me to begin with, and I can never make a complete word or title with what I have! I've solved this problem by sorting all my alphabets by letter (instead of by type) in the magnetic metal tins from the $1 spot at Target and displaying them on the magnetic boards from IKEA. That way I can see exactly which letters I have in what style, and mix and match easily. I used the Making Memories rub-ons on the lids of the containers so I can see which letter I'm looking for. I also keep frequently-used embellishments in those metal tins on the board, and my Sakura pens in the pen holders. I had some extra space on my board so I put a picture or layout that I like in that space.

Ribbon:

My ribbon organization has left much to be desired, but here's what I have so far. I keep most of my loose ribbon in plastic containers, wrapped around a clothespin. These aren't sorted in any particular manner. The rest of my ribbon is just dumped in one of the black drawers in the cubes. This keeps them out of sight, but handy when I need them.

Embellishments:

As I said before, frequently used embellishments are in tins on my magnetic board. The rest are stored in two drawers. They are sorted generally by brand, unless I know that I will use them for cards (ie. baby, birthday, thank you). I don't have anything nicely labeled, but I know my stash well enough to find what I need in there.

Tools:

For my bridal shower present, my cousin got me the Pottery Barn lazy susan that everyone has been raving about. I love this thing! I can store tons in here, and it's all within easy reach. My smaller tools are here- eyelet setters, scissors, adhesives, foam brushes, distressing inks, ruler, etc. My larger tools (Xyron, notch tool, Heidi Swapp iron, punches) are in another drawer in my scrap cubes.

QuicKutz:

I've accumulated many more alphabets than I thought I would have due to the massive 50% off QuicKutz sales that have been going on the past few months. I keep all my QuicKutz in a plastic container, separated by alphabet. I like this system much more than the QK binders because I don't have to deal with getting the dies in and out of those plastic pockets and getting the foam stuck on those protector pages. I have my QK tool sitting on top of my cubes.

Stickers/Rub-ons:

I don't have a great system for stickers either, but I can find what I need pretty easily. Most of my stickers sit in this blue leather box that I got at Marshalls. I can thumb through them pretty fast to find the sticker that I need to match my layout. My rub-ons are in the Pottery Barn lazy susan, within quick and easy reach.

Paints:

I generally only use my paints for my foam stamps, and maybe on the edges of a layout. I keep my paints stored separately in an art bin to avoid any potential leaks or spills. I only take them out when I want to get messy.

Unfinished Layouts/Projects:

The thing I hate most is having to put away an unfinished layout. I love these drawers because they are large enough to just toss a whole project in there: any pictures, papers, and embellishments that I'm working on can go in there and they don't get mixed up with any other projects. That way I don't have to really put anything "away" and next time I want to work on that project I just pull the whole drawer out and everything is right where I left it.

So there it is, my shared scrap space. My own desk would never look this clean all the time, but because of my fiancé, I had to learn to change just a little bit in this area. My fiancé is happy because he can work at the desk when he needs to without clearing up a space for himself, and I'm happy because all my supplies are just an arms length away. We've always done a good job compromising with each other and I don't think my scrap space will be the end of it!

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