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Post by ScrappyJac on Jan 12, 2015 15:39:08 GMT
My goal is to purge my supplies this year. My space is well organized, but I just have way more stuff than I need. I have shifted toward more digital and project life style scrapping. So, most of my paper supplies are sitting unused. We moved last year, so I did a big purge of all the stuff that was "easy" to let go. Now, I need to start taking a hard look at the rest. I am just in limbo on whether to try to sell or just donate to get rid of it.
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Post by gramasue on Jan 12, 2015 16:46:01 GMT
My goal is to purge papers by giving some to a couple of the crafty granddaughters! For Christmas, I made them each up a box full of crafting tools and supplies - a hot glue gun, stapler, hole punch, a sketch book, markers, coloured pencils, a pencil sharpener, scissors, ribbon, etc., along with a coupon for their choice of patterned papers and fabric. Now I'm waiting for the two of them to come and make their choices. [they are cousins and only get together about once every two weeks] I know that the papers I'm sick of looking at will seem brand new and exciting to them and the fact that they will take some home with them will clear a lot of my space out! Win-win.
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Post by cynipidae17 on Jan 12, 2015 17:17:45 GMT
I need to get motivated. I am not as worried about purging as getting my room somewhat organized. I think I moved 4 years ago, set up my cubes, filled the closet, had a baby and well haven't organized since. I have a mess of unused kits and my project life stuff is always unorganized. While a purge would be nice, I just would like to find a way to organize my embellishments so I have some idea where they are. I swear I buy items and never find them again.
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Deleted
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Nov 27, 2024 21:26:13 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 17:58:35 GMT
Just checking in to see how everyone was doing. So far, I've gone through all of my Christmas stuff and all of my stamps. I managed to get my xmas things (minus the stamps) down to 1 Iris container consisting of paper, chippies and flowers.
My stamps have been loosely arranged by category....what I mean be loosely is ya know how a predominately Happy Birthday set will also have flowers or butterflies, etc...I kept the set together but put it under Birthday Greetings.
Next up are my embellishment Art Bin containers....I have at least 20 of them to go through. I'm hoping to pare it down by half. I have things in those containers I'll never use....some of them I look at and think why??? why did I think those were a good idea at the time???
I still have the stickers, pp and tools to go through after that. I will also at some point go through all of my flowers...again, another thing I think why??? I mostly make my own flowers with dies and punches yet I cannot resist a pretty package of Prima flowers or vines.
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Post by pamc on Jan 12, 2015 19:04:20 GMT
I'm so happy! I bought the countertop (to use for a desk) and my husband cut it to fit. I repurposed a shelf from the other closet and it fits just above my desk now. My laptop, lamp, distress ink tool holder, brown & black inks and a little china bowl (holding ephemera to be used this month) all sit up on the shelf within easy reach. My Silhouette has room on my desk and with just a bit of purging, my Vagabond will fit inside the cabinet/desk. I'm a lazy scrapbooker. Only those things within easy reach get used.
Flypea1 - I hope you reach your goal! I went for a 50% purge last year and probably exceeded that goal. As my new kit arrives each month, I know I need to set another goal of purging 50% of what I still have. There are so many beautiful new products every year. If I was honest with myself, I would admit that if I was going to use it, I would have used it long ago. I refuse to say "no more shopping". For me, that's like saying I'll never have sugar or chocolate again. No point in depriving myself - if I try, then that's all I can think about. I need to say, "Use twice as much as what comes in the house until my stash is reasonable." FlyLady says, "You can't organize clutter." and "clutter" is what you don't love, don't use, and doesn't bless you or your family.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jan 17, 2015 5:35:11 GMT
Here is my studio update. I'm happy to report that there has been progress! The last two cabinets are in and all of the cabinets are set. Countertops and new table tops are here but not installed. The cabinet guy's apprentice/helper took the legs off of my old industrial banquet tables. I bought drawer pulls (28!!!) and knobs for the doors (8) but they didn't get them put on today. I was hoping they would have gotten a little more done this week than they did, but they are coming back tomorrow morning (Sat) to hopefully get the counters installed. It will be REALLY exciting to see all of that beautiful counter space down there, and I can *almost* imagine how cool it will be to have all of my stuff in the drawers and on shelves instead of in boxes!
I still need to find a ten tray, half height baker's bun rack on wheels for the corner but I haven't been able to find one with a solid top. I need to research it more but haven't had the time, plus I want to wait until some of this other mess is cleaned up before I start dragging more stuff down there.
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Post by flypea1 on Jan 19, 2015 0:37:25 GMT
All weekend I went in to try to purge my supplies. I just couldn't do it I get started sorting in piles and then decide no I might need that. It's crazy!! I really organized my room so everything has a place. But I have too much stuff...... Oh well I'm going tor try again next weekend. One good thing is I haven't shopped at all in 2015 other than my Noel Mignon monthly kit.
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Post by carolynhasacat on Jan 19, 2015 0:47:41 GMT
DH and I decided this weekend to switch my scrap room with DS's room this winter, which means I get a MUCH bigger room with a walk in closet! The room has 5 big windows and room for a TV, which I've always wanted in my scrap room.
I'm so excited to get to design my new room and get fresh start. My current room has never really worked for me since we moved into this house, and I think the change will be motivating to get some projects finished.
(DS is also excited - he's getting bunk beds and a 'cozy' room on the quiet side of the house. Good feels all around!)
So HELLO to organization this year!
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Post by Linda on Jan 20, 2015 13:19:24 GMT
I bought 3 cubes at Michaels last night and DH assembled them for me while I went on my evening walk. Now to do some purging and re-organising of my scrappy space.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jan 21, 2015 5:13:56 GMT
Cabinets are installed! Countertops are installed! Shelf guy has been contacted to get on his calendar for an estimate. But the walls were horribly crooked especially in the one corner, so they had to put in quarter round trim to make it work. Now I feel the need to paint it on the desk height side to match the beadboard and on the other side with the counter height cabinets to match the walls, and I have no wall paint left! And no masking tape. Now I need to go to the store to get paint and tape tomorrow. And now a question for my organizing peeps: Would you wait until the shelving is in before starting to drag out boxes of stuff that need to be gone through, or would you try to start going through things now even though it might make more sense for some of the stuff to go on the open shelves on the walls? I will be adding about 26' of open wall shelving, approx. 27" high (12' along one wall, 14' along the other wall, meeting at the corner of the room). Part of me wants to start digging right in, but another part of me doesn't want that mess spread all over when the shelf guys come. Thoughts?
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Jan 21, 2015 21:23:15 GMT
use what I have, but still buy stuff - but not impulse buys ^^^^^ this is my goal as well.
I pulled stuff out of their packaging and I put them away I recently did this, and it's amazing how much space I freed up in my 12x12 Iris containers! (I also took the die-cuts, stickers, etc. from the packages that I knew I would never use and put them immediately in my 'to trade / sell' box. I know I won't use some of them, so why take up my supply space with them? Plus, hopefully I will be more apt to actually use the materials if I don't have to open up the package to get to them.
I have a pile of new stuff to put away ^^^ I always seem to have a pile of new stuff to put away! (and yet I'm supposedly trying to cut back on shopping this year, lol!)
I plan on going through and selling my stamps that come in the category of - Why, and What Was I Thinking??? ^^^ this is a good goal- I started out stamping and card-making and have just about stopped stamping altogether, except for a few rare occasions. I don't like to re-use stamp sets over and over, so I really should donate or sell some of the older ones that no longer fit my style.I also plan on using my stuff - no more of saving for a special layout - all my layouts are going to be 'special' ^^^ this is a GREAT planl!!
my 2015 goals are already somewhat in process: all my layouts are currently in 12x12 Iris boxes, because I want to re-organize my albums... SO: 1) finish up the huge stack of un-finished, almost-finished layouts that only need journaling, need additional embellishments, need the date added, that sort of thing. 2) organize the completed layouts into albums similar to Stacy Julian's Library of Memories system: I think they will be Home & Family, Places We Go (AZ); Places We Go (back home in IL and WI); My Random Childhood Memories 3) move my albums downstairs into the Kallax bookshelf that I purchased specifically for them, so the albums will hopefully get looked at (right now they stay in my craft room). 4) come up with a schedule for ongoing cleaning / purging to continually get rid of no-longer-loved supplies, and a designated place to put them, before they take over my space. 5) Train myself to pick up my supplies after every crafting session so that I can start in again fresh without having to clean before I can craft. ( not sure if I can do this one, but it's the main thing that keeps me from crafting more often.) If I picked up after myself, the cats would be less likely to steal my crafting supplies, too! 6) re-organize my 'less-often-used-supplies' closet somehow-- it was built with of those extra shelves to make a second hanging rod for shirts (made of wood) so a set of full-size shelves will not fit in it. I need to come up with some other way of organizing inside the closet that takes advantage of more of the space.
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Post by epeanymous on Jan 21, 2015 21:47:39 GMT
I am purging and reorganizing. I had a craft room built five years ago, and haven't done anything really since to organize or send things out. So far, here is what I have done:
1. Taken everything off of my clip-it-up, which was wasting a lot of counter space for things I rarely used. I tossed some outdated things, gave some fine-but-not-me things to my tween (rub-ons, e.g.), and took the couple of things I could see myself using and put them in my collection. The clip-it-up is off to Goodwill.
2. Got rid of the old sweaters that I had planned to up cycle. I moved with them, I'm clearly not actually doing it, out they go (as I said, this is a craft room, so I am doing things other than just organizing scrapbooking things).
3. Got rid of two garbage bags full of ephemera (mostly cards) that if I were going to use by now, I would have used. I'm obviously not that attached to birthday cards from the 90s or they'd be in an album.
4. Moved the seasonal stamps (Halloween, Hanukkah, etc.) into their own bin and put the bin away. Those only come out during one time of year, so they don't need to be accessible at all times.
5. Got my fabric more or less organized, huzzah.
My big remaining project is to get the rest of the paper that is on my ancient 12*12 wire racks off of the racks and either put in the vertical storage I currently use or donated. I've had some of that stuff since 1998. The racks take up a ton of room. I'm going to put a glass cabinet (that I have in the garage) there for my yarn, because that is currently in opaque plastic bins and it is hard to see what I have so that I use it. I'm also going to figure out how to dispose of my old-school handled Sizzix machine (I have a Big Shot -- why did I keep that thing? Oh, right, because it is heavy and impossible to get rid of).
I've been tossing a fair amount of other stuff here and there.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jan 21, 2015 22:56:08 GMT
1. Taken everything off of my clip-it-up, which was wasting a lot of counter space for things I rarely used. I tossed some outdated things, gave some fine-but-not-me things to my tween (rub-ons, e.g.), and took the couple of things I could see myself using and put them in my collection. The clip-it-up is off to Goodwill. They don't make the Clip It Up anymore and the company is out of business. I bet if you listed it here on FSOT someone would be so happy to buy it from you! I like mine but I already have two, otherwise I'd be asking about it myself. One scrapper's trash is another scrapper's treasure!
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Post by ceciliacoleman on Jan 23, 2015 7:34:40 GMT
I think my space is pretty organized- my goal is to use all those leftover scraps from projects!! Oh, and *make* more time to be creative.
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Post by scrappinjudy on Jan 23, 2015 22:14:13 GMT
where is a good place to donate excess? especially papers? nursing homes??? schools???
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jan 23, 2015 22:56:29 GMT
where is a good place to donate excess? especially papers? nursing homes??? schools??? Many nursing homes have volunteers that come in to do crafts with the residents, and scrapbooking papers would be especially appreciated at places with memory care floors/wards. I donated a huge box of paper that I didn't want anymore to the place where my mom lived and they really loved having a selection of nice papers to use for their projects. Other ideas for places to donate would be: Churches with Sunday School programs Daycares Preschools Elementary schools Rec centers that have youth programs Ronald McDonald House Adoption agencies (for people who need to make a "life book") Women's shelters Charity/ fundraiser crops sometimes take useable stuff to sell on a "garage sale" table I'm sure there are others, this is just off the top of my head.
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Post by Linda on Jan 23, 2015 23:05:44 GMT
Girl Scout troops sometimes are interested also - either for making scrapbooks of their activities or for making cards for veterans etc... or just for craft projects (especially at the Daisy and Brownie levels)
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Post by metaldancer on Jan 24, 2015 14:11:52 GMT
Haven't read all of the replies to "where to donate supplies", but I have a suggestion. I work for Social Services and my ex is a theraputic foster care social worker. He asked me several years ago if I would "teach" a scrapbooking class to foster parents to help them with life books for the foster children in their care. I took some of my basic tools, a few basic albums I bought at Michaels, my sticker/die cut binder, etc. I also color copied several of my more simple layouts as examples and gave those out with a list of basic tools. (and instructions to sign up for those e-mail coupons!) It was a big hit. I know these folks would LOVE to have extra supplies that they can give the foster parents. Folks at DSS are always looking for donations for stuff like this, as there is really no budget for it.
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scrappington
Pearl Clutcher
in Canada
Posts: 3,139
Jun 26, 2014 14:43:10 GMT
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Post by scrappington on Jan 30, 2015 12:32:36 GMT
I sorted my stamps last night. My plan is to be in my scraproom at least 5 days a week. I'm making it part of my routine. Im doing some organizing and or kitting. Tonite I believe is tackling where to house all my Christmas Scrapbook stuff. Tomorrow I will scrapbook!!!
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Post by gmcwife1 on Jan 31, 2015 20:23:59 GMT
Boy do I need this! I barely crafted at all in 2014 because I can't get to my supplies. I went from having an entire extra bedroom in the pre-divorce house to renting a TINY little place for the kids and me. I need to downsize the stash to fit my current life. To complicate things, I also create portfolios for each of my students which is a completely separate set of materials to deal with and that's taking up all the my immediate work space. All my scrapping supplies are in boxes or a few Michaels storage units around the house. Really old supplies (Like Prima bottles, Club Scrap kits, and Making Memories metal embellishments circa 1998) are still boxed in the garage. I need to seriously purge and use the little space I do have in a better way or I might as well give up this hobby. I'm getting farther and farther behind and it's very frustrating. I spend all my time looking for what I need which leads to knee-jerk reorganizing and I rarely if ever actually create anything except my school portfolios. But new year, new plan! I'm going to work on one area at a time and try to get down to bare bones. First area: my workspace in the living room. Once I can clear that, I'll be rewarded with a place to start scrapping again which I hope will be the incentive to purge even more. The irony for me will be, the more I get rid of, the more I'll have to work with because I can actually get to what I need. I identify with so many posts but this one the most! I have hardly crafted in a couple of years now for these same reasons. I have to make something for 4-H, work or a specific holiday. I spend so much time digging around looking for things that by the time I'm done with that one thing I'm exhausted and don't clean up. Then I go in another time, try to organize, run out of time and it starts all over again <sigh> I have been trying harder lately and trying to do smaller amounts at a time. But I still struggle with the digging while looking for things and cleaning up after myself
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Post by myboysnme on Jan 31, 2015 21:36:39 GMT
I am kidding myself to even post on this thread, but ideally in this year I would love to get the scrapbook stuff out of my bedroom and into the scrapbook room, but it is overflowing into the bedroom because the scrapbook room is so crowded with disorganized stuff that there is no room. Update: Thus far I have dumped 3 large boxes of true crap in the trash from my scrapbook room. I am on the hunt for 4 photos from 1970. I have uncovered a large number of paper memorabilia that should be scrapbooked when I ever get to those photos, and some items that should have been scrapbooked when I scrapped the pictures that go with them. I have actually been movin stuff INTO my bedroom and onto the bed to force me to get enough space cleared in the scrapbook room to move it back out tonight or I'll be sleeping on the sofa! Little conversation with my college son: Son: I signed up for an outdoor adventure water trip this spring. Me: Is it canoeing? I have canoe paper. Son: I don't know if it's canoeing Me: Well I have kayak paper too. Son: Mom....
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Post by jameynz on Feb 1, 2015 1:06:16 GMT
UPDATE ON MY SCRAPPY ORGANISING:
I SOLD my SU cardstock - in one whole large container - 33x different colours ranging from brand new/unopened to opened with 2-3 pieces used to a baggie filled with well used with the scraps in. And then, I added another 3x colours that I found - sold the lot for $64.00 (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less than I paid for them!)
I cleared off 2x shelves of old scrappy mags - they went to a shop where I go on a monthly crop - so that people can help themselves or they go into the recycling. (I kept my simple scrapbook mags)
I have a bag of sticker and alpha stickers to go to kindy - I will do this during the week
I have still got some new stuff to put away - but I haven't brought any new stuff
I went through my patterned paper scraps - took a real good look at them - into a bag for kindy. I only kept a few 'special' pieces, or stuff I know I will use on my cards
I recycled a lot of old, old stamp catalogues (not my SU/CTMH or TAC catties though - still thinking about them) but I did get rid of the in-between catties for SU and they have gone
I recycled my old SU clam cases - I had them on a SU site but no one was interested - so they went
My plastic crate for storing my SU cardstock in now in the empty room - I can now walk in my scrap room
and then I went to monthly crop last nite, so all of yesterday I made kits up - so I travelled light, lol!
I still have some work to do - I started going through my stamp sets. I still want to go through my bazzill cardstock and the other brands - even though they are stored in a cupboard out of the bright sunlight, they have faded around the edges. There are also colours in there I don't think I would ever use again.
so that's my update - still a work in progress, but I can now walk into my room!
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Post by alissa103 on Feb 1, 2015 1:45:31 GMT
I'm glad to see so many of you are jumping in and getting into this!!! Great suggestions on where to donate. I'll add one if the above suggestions don't work for you. If you have a store (it's a chain) called ThriftSmart in your area, they accept craft supply donations. They have a little section with this stuff, scrapbooking, general crafting, yarn, etc. A little update on my progress… I ACTUALLY DESIGNED AND ORDERED MY CLOSET SHELVES FROM CONTAINER STORE THIS WEEK!!! YAY!!!! Now I need to paint the closet. Yuck. But dang it, I can't wait to be able to put stuff away in there and get it all off the floor. It's driving me crazy, crazy, CRAZY I also went to 4 Goodwill stores and 3-4 local thrift stores looking for a desk to paint to put in my scrap room. No luck I've been checking Craigslist and a local buy/sell page on Facebook too. They are all either laminate or too big or too small or someone beats me to it. UGH. Kind of frustrating. I need to make the thrift store round again as I know it takes just going over and over to stumble upon one, but I'm getting weary. In the meantime though I've found DS a ton of new toys at said thrift stores. Ha. Every time we go he has to check out the toy area and he has gotten a ton of new Little People sets for super cheap (he loves them). LOL! This week I'm hoping to figure out what color to paint my scrappy room so that I can buy paint and at least paint the closet. If not, I will just paint it white and be done with it!
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Post by Aheartfeltcard on Feb 2, 2015 20:35:10 GMT
I managed to sell a teeny bit on Ebay. LOL I give up. I'm going to use my stuff, effective immediately. I was more organized before I began "organizing" and now I'm just pissed. It's been 2 month since my last layout..how is that for a confession? The truth is, I will get fed up with being disorganized and it will happen. I need to craft and not overthink it.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 3, 2015 5:22:33 GMT
Another update for me. I got my trim painted, half had to be the wall color and the other half had to be the color of the beadboard or it would have looked weird. Got a power strip for the tv, and it's now plugged in! My shelves are being installed on the 11th! And they ended up being about $200 LESS than what I had anticipated they would cost too. I decided not to pull anything out until it's all done, and good thing, too because... I'm getting my main floor mud room / closet seating and shelving installed too at the same time! The estimate was much less than I expected, and DH said to go for it. I am SO excited about that, but now I have to figure out where the all the stuff that's supposed to be stored in there and the 25 boxes of miscellaneous scrap room junk that is currently holed up in there can go in the meantime... Let's just say it's going to be a BUSY week getting all that stuff shuffled around!
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 19, 2015 5:51:47 GMT
How is everyone doing this week? I hope you're making better progress than I am! I started going through boxes at the end of last week. It's slow going though because once again DD has another week off of school. Just when I get to the point where I think I can gain a little traction, the kid has a week off of school and is home with me full time. DD had a play date with some girls from school yesterday so I didn't work on it at all. Today, just to buy me some time, I gave her a big bag of scrap paper and a scissors and let her have at it. She said she was making thank you notes. For her birthday. Which is in three months!! Ha! My first goal is to get all the old shelves cleared off and moved into the utility room for now. I had moved them all away from the walls and out of the way of where the workers would be and had them stacked full of boxes or piles of stuff to get it out of the way too. I got through 2-3 of the shelf units today and made a huge mess sorting stuff out. It barely looks like I've made a dent after spending almost all day down there. The sorting is the worst because the stuff is all mixed up in different boxes, and when DH and his friend brought the boxes down they just threw everything together in a heap mixing up boxes of ancient old junk from the basement at the old house with boxes of brand new stuff from my studio. I think I have to just take a deep breath and keep plodding forward, but man, this is going to take forever at this rate! And LOL, I realized today when I was unpacking Sizzix dies that I'm missing an entire CD/DVD tower shelf unit that's 6' high when I found just the shelves for it in a box! How do you lose a whole SHELF? I don't know if I will have the room for it or will be able to use it or not, but now I'm just really curious what happened to it? It's just so weird!
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Post by alissa103 on Feb 19, 2015 15:10:25 GMT
DH painted my closet and DS's over Valentine's Day weekend love that man. Now just waiting for my installation next Friday! In the meantime, I need to move some stuff around in my scrap room to give the installers a bit more room to maneuver in there. I just want to push my desk against the wall and that's going to take some creative placement of some other storage baskets and things that are in there. I can't wait to have this part finished!
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 19, 2015 15:50:26 GMT
Alissa, I just LOVE the Container Store! I'm so glad they're all the way on the other side of the cities from me, or I'd be too tempted to spend a pile of money there on stuff just because it all looks so pretty! Same with IKEA. Close enough to go if I really *need* something but far enough away to be a deterrent to hanging out there. And that's a good thing!
What are you going to put on your shelves? I'm having a hard time figuring out what should be on the open wall shelves and what should go in the drawers, so for now I'm just using all the space for sorting as I unpack. I decided that the cabinets will be for the bigger, clunky stuff like my bigger Xyrons.
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Post by alissa103 on Feb 19, 2015 18:44:19 GMT
Alissa, I just LOVE the Container Store! I'm so glad they're all the way on the other side of the cities from me, or I'd be too tempted to spend a pile of money there on stuff just because it all looks so pretty! Same with IKEA. Close enough to go if I really *need* something but far enough away to be a deterrent to hanging out there. And that's a good thing! What are you going to put on your shelves? I'm having a hard time figuring out what should be on the open wall shelves and what should go in the drawers, so for now I'm just using all the space for sorting as I unpack. I decided that the cabinets will be for the bigger, clunky stuff like my bigger Xyrons. I know, it's a good thing that store is far from me, too! And we don't have an ikea. Whew! Ha. I'm having two drawer units put in there that make a countertop together. On that I'm putting my Cricut (which I don't use as much bc I have a Silhouette out on my desk that I use more) and a small laminator that I use pretty often but don't want it out on my scrappy desk. Then I want to put all of my embellishments sorted by color in there, excess albums, protectors, memorabilia, photos sorted by year... pretty much everything else I don't want "out" or don't have room for in or on my desk. I'm really hoping it'll all fit in there
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Post by alissa103 on Feb 28, 2015 15:54:30 GMT
A big update! My closets were installed yesterday! This weekend I'm going to put stuff away. Yay! I've already started on DS's bc he wanted to "help" but had to wait to get near mine so he wouldn't destroy my stuff. Ha, DH just left with him to have a daddy-DS morning and I'm about to start! Here's what it looks like now:
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