Crafty organizing and decluttering

I'm another one who keeps a container of containers. I have mine separated and stored in two places like joblackford suggested: ones I use specifically for scrapbooking (eg 4x6 Iris photo containers or zippered pouches that SC kits came in) are stored next to my empty albums and page protectors. More general containers that I might use in my scrap space but also use in other places throughout the house are in the top of a rarely used cupboard. As I only keep a couple of types in my scrap section I can easily lay my hands on them if I need one of those containers for a non-scrappy use.

BTT

I want to do another purge of my supplies! I know I have paper, etc I'll never use.

I will donate some, toss little bits, and take a look at the B sides to see if it might work in another "theme" or in my sorted by color file.

I save the plain white B sides. I want to play with my spray inks, so I should pull that paper out.

Anyone else in a purging mood?

Big Brothers Big Sisters sends a truck around monthly to collect donations. I try to sign up every month and at least get one bag of clothing or box of something out each time. This morning I hadn't remembered to do anything yesterday, so I went into the bin of sell/donate stuff in the craft room and pulled out all the books and magazines. Asked DH to go through the weird stacks of books on the sofa table to determine which ones were supposed to be donated. One box of books waiting for pickup!

I have this dim notion of maybe actually going through the scrapbook stuff in the craft room closet, figuring out what projects are in there that might someday get completed, and putting them into a bin in a cooler storage location, clearing that space for more of the things I'm actually using now. Maybe.

When it comes to packs of paper and embellishments that were probably card kits from long ago, I still have this stubborn steak that says I will make them into quick and easy cards to donate. I did work down a lot of it early this year -- after Christmas was done and leading up to the Cards for Cubs drive in particular.

Shakti - I think your gut is right on the blocks- donate the freebies and keep the good ones for now. If you never ever reach for them, revisit that in your next round of decluttering. As for the L-bracket - do you have wood-mounted stamps still? if so, do you use them? With the bracket?

Recycle the advertisements - they are designed to make you want to buy the needed bits and there's SO much inspiration online

I keep a 13 x 13 box for paper and a 2 gallon bag for embellishments. Both very easily accessible in my closet and I find myself adding even more these days. Dry embossing? I haven’t done any of that in years. So those will go as well. 

Shakti Do you use the acrylic blocks? If not, or not often I’d probably keep 2 or 3 in various sizes and donate the rest. The advertisements? Look and see if there is any inspiration you just love. LOVE. If so, take a pic and put it on your scrapbooking Pinterest board. Otherwise, into the recycling it goes. U less it’s a decent sized stack or you just don’t feel like looking through it. If that’s the case it goes straight to recycling. 

I’ve recently become interested in a new craft (mandala dot stones) so now I’m trying to decide where and how to store the supplies. I’m doing it with my sister for the first time this weekend so that should give me some ideas. And I know a lot will depend on how I use it. But do any of you do this or have any ideas for storage?

A year or so ago, I found some homemade photo-holding Christmas cards from a class I took in the early aughts -- one each of a few examples, one of which I selected and made a batch of for Christmas that year. My son must've been three-ish in the photo we used, so call it 2004. I don't send photo cards anymore, so I sort of dismantled them for parts and stuck them in with the Christmas stuff. Whence they emerged a few months ago and were ignored. I pitched most of it into the recycling bin yesterday along with a letter stencil -- the old-fashioned light weight chipboard kind where you outline the letter and make a little mark in to the right and line up the dot to the left of the next letter with the dot, etc. I don't really quite know where it came from. I had one like it as a kid...could that have been it? Who knows? Who cares?

My “artmoire” as DH calls it was built as a bar, we think. I got it a decade ago or so, while I wasn’t actively crafting, but hoping to get back to it. I had seen the dream boxes but couldn’t afford one, so I was searching consignment shops for something that could work. It does have a drop down work surface, but the only thing I ever do on it is paper cutting with my guillotine trimmer and maybe some scoring. It’s 20” deep and I’ve struggled to use that space effectively while not losing things.

I could probably afford a dream box now, but I kind of like having storage and work space separated. My tools are in organizers by activity (heat embossing, blending, die cutting, assembly), so the right one moves over to the desk when needed. Well, it’s not quite that simple during something like C&CD, but that’s the theory and it mostly works. If the dreambox folks still made a storage-only piece I’d probably be all over it. But they don’t.

So I’ve been looking at my favorite furniture consignment place, a kind of high end one, for something that would work better. A new hutch is arriving Friday — early birthday present. I measured my space. I measured all the interior spaces in the piece at the shop. I am nearly completely positive it’s going to work better, but I’m strangely nervous. The only downside I’m currently aware of is that the upper shelves inside depth is 11”, like an upper kitchen cabinet, rather than the 12” of the IKEA piece so many craft storage containers work with. But kitchen organizers should and there are also some open shelves above that should accommodate the handful is 12” long containers I have now. I don’t think that I really have cause for concern. I guess we’ll see….

I’m all for being prudent, doing non-destructive edits and all that, but the idea of getting rid of eleventy billion versions of the word STORY sounds very tempting to me! Having like items together could also help with knowing what to buy and not to buy. But I guess either system could achieve that.

The soon-to-be-ex artmoire:

My goodness there are some things here! I would say that I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought some of these things, but I do. I was thinking that I had no things and that I needed some things. I was thinking that kits and sales were good ways to get a bunch of things to try. I was thinking that so many new kinds of things were available compared to the last time I was actively crafty.

But now I have lots of things and have figured out more of what I like and don't like, both esthetically and technically. There are definitely some things that need to go. 

EtA: And I'm not even just talking about things I bought and never used or tried to use and hated. There are things I made cards with a year ago. I thought the cards were beautiful and so did the recipients. But I probably wouldn't buy them now and probably wouldn't really choose to use them again.

Here's the new...something. We have not found a clever new portmanteau for the China cupboard turned craft cabinet.



Mostly set up at this point. I was shocked to discover that what I REALLY have too much of is...paper.

I don't seem too overloaded on stamps/dies/stencils/embossing folders after all, especially since I ditched any of the Altenew storage pouches I'd been using.

I think it's more that I now have all the paper together on the left (including brands with 12x12 in the cupboard on the bottom) so that I can actually SEE how much there it....

I sort of had no idea.