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!

this month in my scrap room | may 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 I've been dreaming lots of big things and taking lots of little baby steps in my scrapping space. Mostly I'm dreaming of building this big crafting table (though with this modification to make an even bigger work surface) with plans by Ana White. I also want to put the whole thing on cool looking casters. Did you know that there's an entire web site that sells nothing but cool casters? True story- www.coolcasters.com!

Image Credit: Ana White

It'll mean switching away from the Madison Trestle desk that I've been using for years (Mom says she'll give it a good home :) ), but I'm wanting to do more of my scrapping work while standing and have space to really spread things out (especially with the DIY FRED getting so much use now), so I think the change will be good for me!

I'd also like to move my computer off of my main scrapbooking surface and onto a very narrow desk across the room so that it a) isn't a distraction causing me to surf message boards when I really want to be scrapping and b) doesn't continue to get splattered with paint as I play. I think that a narrow desk like the one below (again, plans by Ana White) will work perfectly!

Image Credit: Ana White

I'd like to position the desk in a spot where I currently have two tall bookcases full of stamps and projects-in-progress, so I'm working on clearing those bookcases off (the revamped stamp organization I talked about last month is really helping with that) so that they can be moved out and the new desk installed. I'm taking it slowly and doing just little bits here and there for all of it so I don't get overwhelmed by it all. I'm currently going through old projects and deciding what I really will finish and what I need to just give up on.

Many of the concrete changes in my scrapbooking space this month are brought to you by the wonder that is the embroidery floss organizer box. Amy Tan showed how she was using a similar box to organize her veneers in one of her Project Life videos, and I love having all of these out of their packaging and easy to rummage through!

I'm also using embroidery floss boxes to organize...embroidery floss! Imagine that! Like many other scrappers I find that I've recently been bitten by the hand-stitching bug, so I dug out my old boxes of DMC floss (plus a bag of random J&P Coats that someone once gave to me) and organized them all by color instead of the numerical order that I put them in oh-so-many years ago. I was an avid cross-stitcher when I was a kid and all throughout my teenage years, so I had quite the collection already without having to add a single new purchase. It was kind of like an insta-stash just waiting for me in my attic. :)

There are also two more boxes in this collection, but you get the idea. :)

One of the best things about the floss organizer boxes is that I didn't have to add any extra shelf space for them. I'm able to fit two of them into the dead space on top of my small embellishment color drawers- I'm pretty pleased with that!


Speaking of the small embellishment drawers, that's an area that's getting slow-and-steady progress. Every once in a while I'll take 15 minutes and sit down with a few packages of embellishments, take the items out of the packages, and sort them into these drawers. I love how easy it is to find something that's pink or orange or aqua when I need it without having to continually flip through and open packages of mixed color embellishments. I absolutely detest opening and re-sealing packages, and it's amazing how much space is saved by simply tossing the packaging out!

My stamp and paper reorganization (I talked about those last month, too) are on a similar slow-track. Now that I have systems set up for both, I take just a few minutes every now and then to process a handful of paper or a few packages of stamps and am in no huge hurry to finish either task quickly. Little changes like that can totally happen slowly- I find that I stay more sane that way anyway! :)

There was of course some DIY FRED'ing and a little mixing of old and new stash going on around here, too, and I'm also curious to know what organizational tasks you've been up to lately! Chime in with a comment if you feel inspired- I'd love to hear about it!