Organizing Embellishments

Organizing Embellishments

Embellishments are like the icing on the cake, adding certain flair to your layouts. It’s important to find a system that will help you store all your embellishments in a way that won’t overwhelm you and is visible enough that you don’t forget to use them.

As always, first you must bring all of your embellishments together, touch every piece that you have, and sort through them, determining what to purge and deciding how to sort them in a way that makes sense to you.

Some ideas for sorting your embellishments:

· By category (buttons, brads, alphabet charms, etc.)

· By color

· By manufacturer or lines within manufacturers

· By type (metal, acrylic, tin)

· By theme

For alphabet embellishments, there are different considerations.

· Separate your alphabets by letter and have an “A” section that will store your metal, button, tin, eyelet, and game board letters together.

· Sort each type of letter separately (i.e. your alphabet buttons in one place with each section devoted to a different letter).

· Sort each color separately and then separate the letters.

Most importantly, the organizational plan has to make sense to you and the way you would use your alphabets.

Now that you’ve decided how to sort your embellishments, the next step is deciding how to store them. Which embellishments do you find you use the most? Those should be the

closest and most easily accessible to you. Do you crop away from home often? If you do, your embellishment holders should be portable enough to be able to toss in your Cropper Hopper and go, without your having to stop and transfer them to another container.

Some ideas for storing your embellishments:

· Cropper Hopper Embellishment boxes

· Tackle Boxes

· Watch tins

· Spice jars

· Magnetic office supply containers

· Photo Boxes

· Stored in their original packaging in baskets, peg boards or small drawers

Don’t forget to label everything – labeling is the key for easy retrieval and clean-up! Whatever system of storage you choose, review it from time to time to make sure it’s still working for you. Is it still easy to find exactly what you need? Is it easy to clean up after a scrap session? Is it easy to put away new purchases? If you answer no to any of these questions, it may be time to tweak your system a bit. Remember, being able to maintain your system is one of the most important aspects to organization!