My {current} Scrap Space

First let me preface this by saying I had intended my desk would be a little cleaner! But as I was taking pictures, my pink ribbon/Studio G stamp shelf decided to take that opportunity to fall off the wall. Since it was after 11, and everyone else in my family was asleep, I didn't put it back. I'll take care of that this weekend. So everything that was hanging from the hooks is on the desk {and conveniently hiding the messy newspaper that is covering the desk!} Also, this is a really LONG post..

Ok, that out of the way.. LOL. I have been getting several questions from a couple of places about how I keep my supplies, and organize things. I am NOT the most organized person on the planet. My scrap space will NOT win any awards {unless there is one for the most scrap stuff crammed into the smallest space!} But it seems to work for me - at least I can get a lot done here! This is actually my "secondary" space.. LOL I have been migrating into the living room as we have to redo the wiring in my scrap area {which hopefully my brother will have done in the next month! woohoo!}

This is my messy space. {You can see the offending shelf on my chair, and the studio G's cluttering the desk!} In the lower left corner, you can see just a bit of the computer desk. In the lower right corner is the corner of the CD holder I use for holding my stamps. The whole space is about 3 feet wide from the edge of the table to the Wall of Drawers. At the end of that little aisle is the bedroom/scraproom that needs the rewiring. On the other side of the Wall of Drawers is the rest of the living room, with boring stuff, like the sofa, coffee table, piano, tv, and about a million DVDs. {Ok, maybe only half a million}

The next photo shows {most of} my stamps - I have unmounted most of them, and moved them into CD cases. They take up SO MUCH LESS space, that it isn't even funny. I picked up these two CD shelves at the Salvation Army for a grand total of 8 bucks. Nice. The bottom one had a velvet covered divider on each shelf.. I ripped that out so I could put more cases in there. The top shelf has card type stamps. The top two shelves on the bottom set has my alphabet stamps. Yep. Last time I counted I had 75 alphabet sets. { That was about 6 months ago. }

This next picture shows the Wall of Drawers, as my kids call it. I bought these at WalMart - they are 12x12, and each unit has 3 drawers. They run about $10 a pop, and I picked them up 1 or 2 at a time over several months. I sort most of my embellishments {including stickers, rubons, etc} first by theme, then by color. So I have drawers of Girl Stuff, Tae Kwan Do stuff, Boy stuff, Princess, Travel, Happy Birthday, Friends, Summer, Halloween, etc. Each holiday/season has at least one drawer which holds my kits/embellishments, etc. Christmas and Halloween are my favorite holidays, and they both somehow ended up with three drawers each! The colored embellishment drawers are {obviously} sorted by color - red, green, blue, etc. These hold the bigger embellishments. I keep the tiny ones in tic tac boxes {photo later} and the small ones in floss boxes {that photo later too}. Exceptions to this pattern are for a few companies that I want to keep together - like Basic Grey - I have 4 drawers for Basic Grey embellishments and scraps. Also We R Memory Keepers White Out line, MME Bohemia, MME Magnolia, etc. I also have a drawer for Fancy Pants Chipboard, and Glitz bling {though several other types of bling have jumped in there as well!}

One of the reasons I sorted my stuff this way is I don't always know what I want to use {I want something green.. hey that looks cool... I would never have thought of using that!}. Also by keeping all my beach stuff in one place.. if I want to do a beachy page, I just grab that drawer, and I'm good. {Makes it a lot easier than going here for ribbon and here for stickers, and here for brads and over there for paper.}

This is where I keep my acrylic shapes and letters. Sorted to make them easy to find. Other acrylic shapes {buttons, mostly} are in little jars on the desk.

This is the cool iron whatchcallit I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby... it is GREAT for holding flowers. I like to buy the artificial flowers at Joann's and Ben Franklin {cos they are always on sale} take them apart, and add them to my albums and cards.

This is a new TV stand I bought, originally to put totes in, but it wanted other stuff instead. It is between the drawers and the wall {mainly because the original plan was to get three of them}. it holds stamps that need EZ Mount, blank cards, embellishment jars, Cropper Hopper with 8x8 pages, larger Inque Boutique sets, current photos, and punches. The totes on top mainlyhave things like chipboard and ribbon... because I am a chipboard and ribbon junkie, and I just can't get enough of them! {I still need to actually go through these and reorganize them.. a couple have new stuff that I just tossed into them to get it out of the way}. In between the totes and the drawers was enough space to stuff my wicker tote that holds kits, and my Technique Tuesday binder which holds larger stamp sets.

Tucked between the computer desk and the scrap desk are a couple of smaller drawer sets that hold pens and markers and stuff like that. I always keep my cup holder out, and stick my Crop-A-Dile in the nifty little space where the trash bag ring fits in. Makes it easy to reach, but out of the way. I just hung the paint can there, and will probably be filling it with flowers or something. Haven't figured that out yet.

Under the desk I have a wire cube with a small amount of paper. Most of my paper is in the old room, and I just pull out what I need depending on the project I'm working on. But I keep some cardstock under here, plus all my Basic Grey sets, some stacks, things like that. The silver case holds my dremel, which adds a fun effect to acrylic. The small boxes hold Cuttlebug and QuicKutz dies. The open one has a chipboard alphabet in it. There is a similar box that is a little larger that sits behind these - it holds my Cuttlbug embossing folders.

Next to that I have 2 more sets of 12x12 drawers that hold things like adhesive, flowers, my 7 Gypsies stamps, etc. Plus my Cuttlebug, Crop-A-Dile II, and a stash of M&M's.

Messy desk time. I like to have a lot of embellishments and tools within easy reach, which makes this desk cluttered. But I usually have a nice open space in the center. I have a small metal/wire shelf system (on the left side) that has a bunch of little baskets with stamps, embellishments, chipboard, and most used punches. The striped basket has chipboard letters. I also have a couple of hole punches and my atc punch stuck in the rack there {love that about the wire rack}. I have also hung a clear paint can there which holds all my ribbon snippets. If it is long enough to fold over and staple to something, I keep it. That way it isn't wasted. Oh, and my lamp. Next to that is an over-the-sink shelf. Beneath the shelf are some smaller papers {most are 5.5x8 Bazzill packs}, some CTMH stamp sets, and jars with acrylic buttons, regular buttons, and flowers. On top of the shelf are my StazOn, Nick Bantock, and Tim Holtz inks, my atc holder, a metal hand that holds rings for albums, a ribbon roll holder that now holds rolls of glue dots, primas, scissors, and a jar with new ribbons and laces that haven't been sorted yet.

The little hardware drawers hold a ton of little embellishments - some chipboard, miscellaneous flowers, brads, metal rings, clips, tags, etc.

The big empty space on the wall is where the pink shelf is supposed to be. Gr. I'll have to find a better way to keep it up there... it was probably too heavy with all the Studio G's on it! To the left are corkboard squares, which mainly hold memoribilia, flowers, jewelry/beads, a couple of address, etc. The little basket under the light hold addresses - I tear them off the envelopes people have sent me and toss them in there. I really don't need to do that for the AMR girls since Kelli keeps the list updated, but now it is a habit, and I can't help it. The other little basket {on the other side of the striped one} holds atc cards and sleeves. To the right is my spice rack that holds paints, cleaners, diamond glaze, my poseable art guy, walnut ink, and my ever-expanding stickles collection. There is a small cafe rod beneath it that holds small rolls of ribbon. On the other side of the spice rack is a small key rack that holds metal frames, rings, and a partial set of larger monogram stamps.

These little cubes hold binding tape, rubons, pop dots, etc. Also my current "go to" stamp sets {which rotate, depending on what I am working on}. Tucked between them and the kitchen shelf is a really cute wire container intended to hold mail.. which I keep my Making Memories and Scrapworks rubon alphas in. The blue basket holds current scraps.. I need to sort them and stick them into the scrap folders. The white basket holds acrylic blocks.. i usually keep them in a CTMH case, but I get tired of having to get them out of there all the time. The basket is a little bit easier.
This is the shelf that fell - I love it because it is pink, and wire, and it works pretty well to hold some of the larger ribbon rolls that I use a lot. But it isn't cooperating today.

On the other side of the desk is a small CD shelf which holds my CTMH and SU inks, and my tic tac boxes of tiny embellishments. On the top are 4 ribbon organizers for spools of ribbon {which holds a FRACTION of what I have!}, a GORGEOUS tin that was sent to me as a birthday gift, some wooden buttons and my letter J.

This storage container is full of rubons. Yep. Rubon Junkie too. The drawers hold some Basic Grey chipboard and giant books plates that I got a SWEET deal on at Big Lots, my Clear Scraps acrylic albums, and my mailing supplies. It sits in front of the closet door, which is not a problem in the summer, but was kind of a pain in the winter, when we needed out coats. {We call this the Harry Potter Closet, since it is under the stairs and has a slanted ceiling.}

Sitting right next to the table is another set of wire shelves, which has border and corner punches and a couple of other things I don't remember right now. LOL. Not stuff I use all the time, obviously.

These are my ribbon jars - they sit on top of the piano. Which is great, unless someone is watching TV, then they get mad if I try to stand in front of them and get some ribbon. LOL.

This bookshelf also sits on the other side of the living room and holds the rest of my CTMH stamp sets, my floss boxes with embellishments, and my Cricut and cartridges. The Cricut hides on the bottom, behind closed doors, so my DD doesn't play with it. Which is great, but it is kind of a pain to get out. I want to have it set out somewhere so I will be more inclined to use it.

So that is my space. Yep, it's cluttered, but I can usually find what I need, and I like that everything is within easy reach.