The March kits went up for sale over at Citrus Twist this morning, and I thought this would be a great time to share the new "working kit" storage that I've been trying out this month.

About a year and a half ago I wrote a post about how I was using some super cute trays from Target's summer dishware collection to keep my current kits corralled. A couple of months ago I started to realize that being able to quickly and easily put something away was just as important to my organization as being able to quickly get it out and work with it. The trays were wonderful to use with my kits while they were out, but putting them away when I needed to work on a different project? Not so much. There were just too many loose pieces that needed to be stacked and balanced.

Enter this Iris Organizer Tray, which fits neatly into any one of the many 12x12 Iris cases I already own. You can find them here on Amazon, though they are ridiculously priced through that link. I bought mine at Michaels when their storage items were 40% off, and they were offering a coupon for 25% off on top of that. I bought two for less than $9.00 total- one for my current Citrus Twist kit, and one for either a project kit or for a past kit that I've pulled out to scraplift my way through (long story short- I've decided to kill old kits by scraplifting anything from the design team gallery for that kit that I like).

The trays are already molded with the vertical (top to bottom) dividers in place, and they come with quite a few of the smaller horizontal pieces that you can use to make your own compartments in the tray. In the photos above you can see mine configured to work with the smaller pieces of the Citrus Twist March Kits, right before I started working with them. I loved having the kit in this box- it was so easy to pull out the tray and set it to the site, revealing the paper underneath...

...and also the alphabets, paper pad, and larger sticker sheets that didn't fit into the smaller spaces above.

The only warning I have about this tray is that unless you have the area in the box under it completely stuffed with paper, the tray doesn't make contact with the lid. It's not a huge deal, but it does mean that you need to store the box flat to keep the small items from shifting to other compartments or even slipping out of the tray entirely.

Wondering what will become of those lovely Target trays? They're actually already being repurposed, which is what happens with most of the organize-y things that I buy that turn out to not be as awesome for their intended use as I thought they would be. I have a little spot in the attic, right at the top of the pull-down staircase, where I stack all of these items, and it's the first place I check when I need a container or bin. Items shuffle in and out of the area constantly, and almost everything finds a new home eventually. These trays didn't even make it to the storage area, though- they're already destined for use in our camper this summer!

Workspace Wednesday - Wrangling Kit Washi

Welcome to another Workspace Wednesday! This week I have a little tip for storing the washi tape that comes in scrapbooking kits.

Normally I store my kits in 2.5 gallon zip-top bags once I've done scrapbooking my first round of layouts with them so I can pull them out later when I'm ready to use them again. I'm actually considering splitting most of my older kits up into my stash, but I haven't completely made up my mind about it yet.

One thing I'm not storing with the kits any longer? The washi tape that comes with them.

Washi tape is one part of a kit that I know I will never use up before I've completely killed a kit- there's just so much on a single roll! The rolls are also bulky and take up extra room in my kit storage baskets, so now, instead of storing them with the kits, I'm storing them on my pegboard with the rest of my tapes.

I do want to remember which washi tapes were sent with each kit, though, so, before separating them, I tear a little bit of tape off of each roll and adhere it to a shipping tag (I bought these in bulk from Amazon long ago) that I place in the bag with the kit. That way, when I pull the kit back out to use again, I can easily find the matching tapes in my washi stash. In the meantime, the rolls are out where they can be seen and used (and hopefully eventually used up) on other projects.

Workspace Wednesdays are inspired by Marcy Penner's post series, where she shares glimpses into her creative space and invites other crafters to do the same.

Workspace Wednesday - Project Life Card Dividers

I think I'm going to like Workspace Wednesdays- they'll give me a weekly kick in the pants to get moving on some of those little projects I've been wanting to do in my scrap room!

This week I decided to tackle making dividers for my Project Life card storage. I mostly sort cards by color (there are a few sub-categories, but I'll share that another week when I finally have them all sorted), and up until now they were all lined up in Atonius inserts from IKEA with one color group running into the next and nothing between them.

At first my plan was to cut dividers from cardstock on my Silhouette, but then I had a better idea- make them out of wood!- which is a job best left to my laser cutter. It was also a chance for me to make something for myself with it for a change! I was so excited when I first bought it because it meant that, along with doing cuts for others, I could cut anything I wanted out of wood, but can you guess how many things I've made for myself before this project? That would be a big, fat zero. Time to fix that!

I used the tab card from this cut file set by Elle's Studio as my base and edited the SVG to remove the text and make the dividers just a bit taller so they'd stand up above the 3x4 cards. Yes, I can cut pretty much any SVG file that works with the Silhouette on the laser. :)

I'll probably do something similar for the 4x6 cards, eventually, but for now I'm just happy to be getting the 3x4s in order. It's much less overwhelming (not to mention faster) for me to find the cards I need when they're sorted like this.

Workspace Wednesdays are inspired by Marcy Penner's post series, where she shares glimpses into her creative space and invites other crafters to do the same. 

This Month in My Scrap Room : December 2013

This Month in My Scrap Room is based a regular series of posts by Sue Althouse, who graciously allowed me to use her idea on my own blog. Each month you'll find me documenting the little (and big) things that I'm working on to make my scrapbooking space more efficient so I can spend less time looking for things and more time playing with paper!

After last month's adventures in tearing my scrap room apart and building a massive new work table, I was happy to settle in and just use the room for a while. I did take some time, though, with Darren's help, to get my pegboard set up!

I've looked at tons of washi tape storage solutions including the Washi Wheel and using a thread spool rack. Nothing looked as easy and as space-saving, though, as the dowel solution I ran across on Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom. I already had a piece of pegboard that we moved with us from our old house, so it was a fairly cost-effective install, too.

Darren picked up some 1/2" dowels from Home Depot and used a drill press to bore holes in the end of the dowels so they'd attach nicely to the 2" straight hooks that I picked up at Harbor Freight. The rods can be easily removed if needed, though it's pretty easy to just pull a length off of the roll right on the rack!

I have a few tape spools with narrower centers, including my American Crafts Glitter Tape and the little tape spools that come in the Citrus Twist Pocket Life Kits. To mount those, Darren picked up some narrower dowels and then cut small pieces of the larger diameter to use as end pieces to hold them in place. He's a genius with the drill press!

I hadn't originally planned to store my baker's twine on the pegboard, but the narrow little dowels are also perfect for stringing up a row of the little shipping tags that I wrap my twine around.

I'm still hanging things up on my new/old pegboard (and wondering why I have so much pink washi!), but I'm already finding that I'm using the tape more now that it's out and visible. And since it's on the back of the scrap room door, it's not really taking up any extra room- win-win!

I don't have any major plans for January in the scrap room. CHA will be taking up a lot of my time, but I am looking forward to consolidating some things. For the past year I've had to keep two separate stashes- my normal supplies, and then the supplies that were still in stock at Two Peas. Having to separate the two took up some extra space and made it difficult to find items, and I'm looking forward to streamlining everything now that my term with them is complete.

What about you guys? Any big plans for your scrapping space in the new year?

This Month in My Scrap Room - November 2013

This Month in My Scrap Room is based a regular series of posts by Sue Althouse, who graciously allowed me to use her idea on my own blog. Each month you'll find me documenting the little (and big) things that I'm working on to make my scrapbooking space more efficient so I can spend less time looking for things and more time playing with paper!

This month (actually, this past Sunday) I made an absolute wreck out of my scrap room- and I couldn't be happier!

In last month's scrap room post I listed out a few projects that I have planned for the winter months, and this weekend my parents drove down to visit, take my little niece Sophie to the Galaxy of Lights, and help me build a monstrously huge Frankentable that, believe it or not, gives me more floor space along with more working space in my scrap room.

Here's a look at the current progress- I still need to paint the top and add horizontal shelves...

...and here's a look at Frankentable as he was being built. As you can already tell, I don't have a perfectly organized, totally photogenic scrap space. I really make a mess in this room and have it set up more for function than looks.

It all started with two bookcases that we've had for over a decade. We bought them soon after we were married (you know, the Wal-Mart style build your own type that are so cheap) and used them for years for clothing storage in our bedroom. A few years ago when I bought a pair of 5x5 Expedits to use in their place, they started getting moved to other rooms in the house, and eventually I actually thought about just letting them go.

Then one day I mentioned getting rid of them to Darren, and I was totally shocked when he got this nostalgic look on his face and said, "I remember when we bought those." It's not like him to be sentimental about things, so I decided that I'd find some way to make them useful again and keep them around.

I've actually wanted a stand-up scrapbooking table for a while (I sit at work all day and am kind of tired of it by the time I get home), and I've considered building one using these plans from Ana White, and I also love how Christine Newman's desk came together and thought about going that route. And then one day while surfing Pinterest for craft table ideas I came across this post on IKEA Hackers showing a pair of 2x4 Expedits used horizontally as supports and storage for a huge craft table. Synapses fired, neurons connected, and I quickly hatched a plot to use our two old bookcases as the basis for the crafting table of my dreams.

We started by clearing everything off of my old scrapping desk, which Mom took home to use as a new sewing table, and then we carried a bunch of stuff out of the room to make space for the big build. We set the two bookcases on their sides (if you're wondering what I'm going to do about shelving with them laying horizontally, I have an idea as how to fix that after reading about this Billy bookcase hack) and measured out how much space to leave between them to accommodate my existing Antonius and Raskog carts. This is definitely one custom build!

I already knew that my top was going to be 48" x 76"- the same as the Ana White desk I almost built and had already measured the room for, so I knew it was a perfect size. We made sure to leave enough space between the bookcases for my carts while still letting the top overhang each edge by a few inches.

The white board that you see spanning between the bookcases is a small piece of MDF (an off-cut from Lowe's after they cut my table top for me) that we included to help stabilize the bottom and prevent the entire desk from trying to rock back and forth. Obviously at this point we were working on the desk upside down, and the next task was to attach casters. Since my scrap room is also the guest room, I want to be able to roll this behemoth into the corner when we have company!

We used six casters total (they were on sale at Harbor Freight- woohoo!) and used carriage bolts to attach them and two more layers of MDF (in the form of small blocks) to the new "bottoms" of the bookcases. The extra MDF was to the raise the height of the table up since I wanted it to be about 36" tall, and Darren suggested the use of carriage bolts both for stability and because it would make it easier to disassemble the table should we ever need to move it out of the room.

Once the casters were on, Dad and Darren flipped the assembly over and settled the MDF top over it, securing it with metal corner braces in several spots. And with that, my new Frankentable was ready to be used!

The photo above is what it looks like after I've been working on it for a few days. Please excuse the power cords hanging down from the ceiling- they're a side effect of the studio lighting I use for filming vidoes. I considered clearing everything off of it and making it pretty but, really, this is what it will look like most of the time (though, like I said earlier, I do plan on painting the top and adding some long shelves). I have lots of room to spread out, and you can see that I have stacks for lots of ongoing projects out right now, including three years' worth of Christmas journals that I'm working on (yes, all at once) along with a Christmas layout for Two Peas, my most recent vacation album, and the December kits from Citrus Twist. I'm so happy to have space to have multiple projects out at once!

I also love that I finally have room to use my tripod to shoot video- it's more stable and more portable than some of the other solutions that I've been using, and I'm much less likely to get my head in the picture this way.

The Raskog and Antonius carts fit very nicely in each end, and I have easy access to their contents now.

There's even a bit of storage space in the middle for some smaller, lighter boxes! It's like the TARDIS table...bigger on the inside. :)

I'm so pleased with how much floor space this has opened up, and it really is easy to roll around. And I'm totally happy that all I had to purchase were casters, some hardware, and a sheet of MDF!

In the course of building the table we also stumbled across my old pegboard! Dad was moving one of the white bookcases away from the wall and I heard something shift behind it, and when I looked, there it was! I'd been searching the house for it for weeks- I knew we'd brought it with us when we moved from our old home, but for the life of me I couldn't recall what "safe" spot I'd put it in. It's now hanging on the back of the scrap room door, and I'm thinking that I'll use it for washi tape storage (similar to this idea).

Last month I listed out my project plans for the scrap room this winter, and so far this is how it stands:

• Build a new stand-up scrapping table using two bookcases and a sheet of MDF (that I already have!). Just need to paint the top and fix the shelves!
• Build a dedicated computer desk separate from my scrapping table (no more mist splatters on the iMac screen!).
• Install pegboard on the back of the scrap room door to hold washi tape, markers, and other items. Pegboard installed, now to hang stuff up!
• Clear out all the "decorative" items, including the tissue paper pom poms (you can see those here) to freshen up the look of the whole space.
• New paint, mist, Distress Stain, and embossing powder storage (also using existing stuff- yeah, baby!).

I'm also doing a fair amount of getting rid of stuff (mostly giving it away to friends and family) as I go, and I'm already down one Alex cart and one bookcase, with still more to go. I'm finding things that I bought before I really understood what kinds of supplies that I like to use, and I'm happy to find new homes for items that I know I won't use.

I'm so grateful that my family all pitched in and helped make Frankentable a reality. I know I'm going to love using this desk for years to come!

This Month In My Scrap Room - October 2013

This Month in My Scrap Room is based a regular series of posts by Sue Althouse, who graciously allowed me to use her idea on my own blog. Each month you'll find me documenting the little (and big) things that I'm working on to make my scrapbooking space more efficient so I can spend less time looking for things and more time playing with paper!

It's Halloween and my scrap room is looking just a bit...spooky.

Seriously, guys, it is a big scary mess, and not just because of the Christmas album festivities that have been going on here this week (by the way, the Simple Stories Sn@p album giveaway is still open). I really haven't been doing much beyond basic cleaning between projects (oh, so, so many projects!) in my office lately, which is why July was the last time I posted one of these scrap room updates. There were a few things that just couldn't wait any longer, though, so I've launched into a few organizational tasks that'll be ongoing here for the next little while.

This month most of my projects centered around the two Alex carts that are currently behind my scrapping desk. I used to store punches and washi tape in them, but apparently the weight of the items in the drawers was more than they could take and, well, this happened...

The drawers look a little sad, don't they? I think they'll be easy to repair, but first I had to get those heavy punches out of them (the washi will move when I've finished making its new home) and into something that was a little more sturdy. I researched punch storage ideas on Pinterest and considered everything from an over-the-door shoe holder to curtain rods on the wall before deciding on something super easy- 12x12 plastic Iris cases in a set of wire mesh cubes that I picked up at Target.

I already had the Iris cases on hand and had been meaning to clean some old product out of them anyway, so except for the wire cubes (about $25), I didn't have to buy anything new to do this! The wire cubes now live in my scrap room closet (the Antonius and Raskog carts that were in there are destined for a new home in my scrap room as soon as I finish another construction project I have planned, also with existing items), and the punches are sorted roughly by theme- animals, basic shapes, holidays, etc. The other Iris cases hold either design team product that I have to keep separate from the rest of my supplies or unfinished projects.

One of my two Alex carts (the one that didn't end up with broken drawers) is destined for my Mom's scrap room as soon as I've cleared it out, and I'm going to use the remaining one to hold lighter items for die cutting. I've already filled one drawer with 6"x9" felt (I love this sampler pack from Benzie's on Etsy) and foam sheets, and a couple of other drawers hold dies, other die-cutable mediums like glitter and cork pads from DCWV, and Silhouette mats and tools.

I was also super inspired by this ink storage post by Jennifer McGuire, especially the part where she showed all of her ink pads "filed" in the drawer of an Alex cart. I don't have nearly the collection that Jen does- it's her job after all!- so all of my ink pads fit into one of the deeper Alex drawers with room to spare.

I'm also slowly adding labels to the side of my ink pads showing the color of each, and every once in a while I'll turn on an episode of Stargate, pick up some ink pads and labels, and get a stack of them labeled in a super low-key and no-hurry fashion.

I also tweaked my video setup this month. For most things the Nikon D5100 is great, but for kit videos where the focus changes constantly it was making some viewers a little seasick. There's not enough light in the room (even with the softboxes) to set the f-stop high enough to have everything from the top of the desk up to the lens in focus, so I've had to add my iPhone (which for some reason is better about that than the DSLR!) back into the mix. I'll still be using the D5100 for process videos where everything is flat on the desk (it has more storage space than my iPhone, which is why I switched in the first place), but I've got an extra mounting arm in place now so that I can use the iPhone when needed and rotate the mounting arm out of the way when I need to use the D5100.

The setup here is super simple- a Manfrotto Super Clamp attached to the D5100's monopod, a Manfrotto Heavy Duty Flex Arm that attaches to the Super Clamp, and then an iPhone tripod mount that attaches to the flex arm. I've already filmed two kit videos with it and it works great, so hopefully this will be a good solution.

During the summer I was alternately scrapping up a storm in my office or spending time outside, but now that it's getting colder I'll be working on a little more organization. I have several other projects on the radar for the winter months, including:

• Build a new stand-up scrapping table using two bookcases and a sheet of MDF (that I already have!).
• Build a dedicated computer desk separate from my scrapping table (no more mist splatters on the iMac screen!).
• Install pegboard on the back of the scrap room door to hold washi tape, markers, and other items.
• Clear out all the "decorative" items, including the tissue paper pom poms (you can see those here) to freshen up the look of the whole space.
• New paint, mist, Distress Stain, and embossing powder storage (also using existing stuff- yeah, baby!).

I'll have details and some in-progress photos to share for these items in future scrap room posts, so stay tuned!

This Month in My Scrap Room | July 2013

This Month in My Scrap Room is based a regular series of posts by Sue Althouse, who graciously allowed me to use her idea on my own blog. Each month you'll find me documenting the little (and big) things that I'm working on to make my scrapbooking space more efficient so I can spend less time looking for things and more time playing with paper!

Most of the changes in my scrap room this month are thanks to Darren, who installed and built some custom pieces to make it easier for me to shoot videos. And while I know that filming videos isn't exactly related to the scrapbooking process itself, it's something I have to do on a semi-regular basis, so these changes make it faster for me to get through the video setup part and on to the actual scrapping.

First, my lighting softboxes got ceiling mounted! This was a big deal for me since they were previously on tripods that I was continually tripping over. It turned out that the perfect place to set them up for shooting was also directly in my walking path in two areas of my scrap space, and having them in the way made me cranky. Cranky + trying to shoot videos is not a pretty combination, so I'm happy to have them overhead now!

The mounts were built using about $10 worth of plumbing supplies from Home Depot and a little solder to hold it all together. The cords kind of hang down randomly in the middle of the room right now, but Darren has something in mind to fix that down the road. For now, it's awesome!

The second change to my video setup is the camera + mount.

Previously I'd been filming on my iPhone using quickly thrown together mount that Darren built for me last fall, but then my iPhone's memory started to get filled up with apps and music. I had a choice between continually pausing shooting to clear off the iPhone memory (a pain), upgrading to a new iPhone with larger storage (or buying an iPod Touch to film on), or using a different type of video camera altogether. I wavered back and forth between those last two options for a couple of months before finding a factory refurbished Nikon D5100 for a steal at Cameta Camera, and I decided that a DSLR capable of HD video for the same price as an iPod Touch was a great buy and went that route. It's taken a little getting used to since the D5100 works a little differently than my iPhone in terms of setting the exposure and the autofocus system, but we've finally come to an understanding, and it's been a great little camera to use!

The camera mount is quite the piece of engineering, and Darren did a great job on it! We'll be making one change to it before too long, though (and I'll probably paint it at some point, too). Right now the camera is attached to the center pole of my tripod, but I'd like to reassemble my tripod soon so I'll be using a monopod in the mount instead. It's here in the scrap room and ready to use, but I was waiting for Darren to get back from his trip to South Africa last week to install it.

Oh, and one other fun addition to the video setup? A new microphone!

When I switched away from using my iPhone, I also switched over from using the iPhone's headphones + mic for filming to a Blue Yeti microphone, and I love everything about it. The sound is awesome, and I think it looks pretty cool, too.

One last thing I did in my scrap room this month was to put about 40 layouts into albums! These had been laying in a pile on the copy stand, and I had to move them every time I needed to photograph a new page. I finally sat down one day, sorted them all out by year (I don't scrap chronologically, but I do file my layouts that way), and then slipped them into the proper places in their albums. It's nice to have that job done, and I'm going to try to not let them pile up like that again.

That's it for the changes in my scrap room this month! The next few weeks are busy scrapping-wise, and I'd much rather scrap than organize, so August's changes may be a bit light. We'll see how it goes, though- if something in my current storage system starts to really bug me I might just have to stop and fix it!

Note: I've drawn a winner for last week's Two Peas giveaway! Congrats to Kelly O! Please check this post for details on getting in touch with me to claim your prize.

this month in my scrap room | june 2013

This Month in My Scrap Room is based a regular series of posts by Sue Althouse, who graciously allowed me to use her idea on my own blog. Each month you'll find me documenting the little (and big) things that I'm working on to make my scrapbooking space more efficient so I can spend less time looking for things and more time playing with paper!

This month has been a quiet one for scrappy organization around here, but I have worked on a few little projects that have made some supplies and finished projects so much easier to find, use, and enjoy!

Finally, almost two years after ordering these binder spine labels from Amazon, I finally took the time to finish labeling all of my albums. I use American Crafts 12x12 D-Ring binders for my layouts, and these little black tabs fit perfectly (and snugly, so no falling off!) over the edges. I didn't use the paper tabs that came with the labels and printed my own out instead so I could use my favorite Traveling Typewriter font.

Most of my albums are labeled by year with a few special albums- vacations, holidays, etc.- thrown in the mix.

After falling in love with Heidi Swapp's new masks at Michaels, I found myself in need of a way to organize all of my stencils and templates to make them easy to look through. Previously I'd been just throwing them in a drawer in one of my IKEA Alex carts, but they were getting tangled up and torn (not to mention they were a pain to look through, meaning I rarely used them), so I went searching for another solution.

This post on Cocoa Daisy's blog turned out to be the perfect solution for me since I already had large binder rings, some old 12x12 post-bound page protectors, and 8.5x11 sleeves on hand. I did buy a package of We R Memory Keepers pages designed to hold four 6x6 layouts on a 12x12 page, though, since I had so many 6x6 templates.

I'm not quite sure what I want to do with the cover yet, so for now it's just a sheet of plain chipboard (also just laying around the scrap room) tucked inside another of the post-bound page protectors. I'm sure I'll deck it out sometime when I'm feeling inspired, but for now I'm just enjoying having all of my misting masks so easily accessible!

My washi tape also got moved to a new location. Previously I had it in my spinner rack from Harbor Freight, but the way the rolls were stacked on top of each other made them hard to look through, and I constantly had rolls falling out because it was just too full. I moved the inks that used to inhabit two IKEA Alex drawers to the spinner instead (where they're also much easier to find) and am now using those drawers as my new washi storage.

These small plastic containers were purchased at Target years ago and were sitting empty in our attic, and I was very happy to have yet another storage solution that didn't require any new purchases!

That's it for the moving, sorting, and storing projects this month! None of these took very long to complete, and they've all made it much easier to find my supplies (or in the case of the albums the right one I need to file a layout away). That's my favorite kind of organization- the kind that helps me actually locate and use my stash!