2024 Craft Space Organization Challenge #5

 Challenge #5 - Stickers, die cuts, rub ons, and swaps 

Stickers, die cuts, and rub-ons are some of the hardest things to organize because the different sizes and shapes pose many challenges. Rub-ons present their own challenges because if they aren't stored properly, they stick to each other and then they are useless. 

It's time to make S.P.A.C.E. 

SORT: 

Time to be ruthless. Consider if you are really going to use these items. If you bought a whole sheet of die cuts just to use one or two tags, why are you hanging on to the whole sheet? Those stickers you bought in 1999 were adorable then, but definitely not your style now, are they? So, sort into piles: TRASH, SELL, DONATE, TO KEEP 

PURGE: 

Throw out the TRASH pile. Bag up, and assign a price and your initials to the SELL pile and put them directly into the garage sale box. Make immediate arrangements to rid yourself of the DONATE items. 

ASSIGN: 

The KEEP items need to be divided into categories that make sense to you: by colour, by manufacturer, theme, size, or type. 

CONTAINERIZE: 

Here is an article about storing stickers, die cuts and rub-ons: 

EQUALIZE: 

Take a few minutes at the end of each scrap session and whenever you return from a crop or a shopping trip to put your stickers, rub-ons and die cuts where they belong. 

SWAPS

While you are busy sorting your stickers you should also sort any swaps you’ve been holding on to.  Many of us have fallen victim to the lure of scrapbook swaps among local and online groups. All the hours, material, creativity, and postage costs make these items difficult to purge. But let's face it . . . not everything is YOUR style, you are NEVER going to use some of it. 

It's time to make more S.P.A.C.E. 

SORT: 

Keep only what you love. If the colour or style does not make you smile, it must go. Keep only what is significant to you - don't keep the soccer page swap items if your kids are into hockey and dance. Sort into: KEEP, TRASH, SELL, DONATE 

PURGE: 

Pack up the DONATE pile and give it to a beginner scrapbooker who might appreciate these items. Throw out the TRASH pile. Bag up and assign a price and your initials to the SELL items and put them directly into the garage sale box. 

ASSIGN: 

Sort your KEEP items into categories, theme, holiday, colour, whatever makes sense to you. 

CONTAINERIZE: 

Store your keepers in page protectors by theme in binders, or get them into giant ziplocs to create page kits for your next cropping session. 

EQUALIZE: 

Next time a swap arrives in the mail, take a few minutes to toss or give away what you know you'll never use, create a page kit for your next cropping session, or put in a page protector in your swap binder for storage. 

At one point in my scrapbooking life I participated in a ridiculous number of swaps. Not any more . . . 

When you are done, please share a photo to our Facebook group showing your storage system. 

2024 Craft Room Organization Challenge ~ Challenge #4 - Tools and Adhesive

If you are ready, here is Challenge #4 . . . 

Tools and Adhesives 

Gather together all of your tools and adhesives into a box and let's start S.P.A.C.E.ing them! 

Sort: 

One by one, put each item into piles: FAVOURITES, TRASH, TO SELL, STORE, DONATE.

Purge: 

For the SELL pile: bag up and assign a price and your initials to tools/adhesives that you don't love/use anymore and put them in your garage sale box. Throw out the TRASH pile. Arrange pick-up or drop-off of the DONATE pile.

Assign: 

Store your most used items in a basket or box or other system right on your desk, within easy reach. Divide the STORE items into categories that make sense to you: cutting tools, pens, punches, templates, etc. 

Containerize: 

This is the time to tidy up your tools. Tools need regular maintenance to keep them efficiently working. As you put your tools away in whatever container (drawers, shelves, boxes, baskets - always ensuring the container is clearly labelled) give them a little maintenance.

*  scissors - sharpen your scissors using a small scissor sharpener, or have them professionally done. Carefully clean the blades (I like alcohol swabs to remove sticky adhesive).

*  pens - test pens and throw out the ones that are dry or don't work well.

* craft knives - change the blades.

*  trimmers - clean the deck of your trimmers with a damp cloth, and a little cleanser if necessary. Replace dull blades, or cut through fine sandpaper or aluminum foil.

*  Work surface - clean ink, adhesive and paint from your self-healing mats.

*  Punches - to prevent punches from sticking, punch through wax paper. Problem punches may need a little lubricating oil such as sewing machine oil, then punch through scrap paper several times to remove oily residue. Dull punches can be sharpened by punching through aluminum foil or fine grade sandpaper (both right side up and upside down).

*  Stamps - stamps should be cleaned after each use, but if there is a build up of ink on your stamps, you should clean them with an alcohol free baby wipe, or paper towels moistened with a mild cleanser (ammonia free/bleach free) Use a soft toothbrush to remove ink stuck in the crevices of a design. Store stamps flat, rubber side down.

* Dies and Thin Cuts

* Clean and recalibrate electronic cutting systems

Equalize: 

Once you have a system in place for your tools, putting them back in the same place every time will become a reflex, and you will never have to hunt for you scissors again! Take a couple of minutes at the end of each scrap session to put your tools away.

We have started a Facebook group as a place for us to share photos, accomplishments, encouragement, tips and tricks as we work through the Craft Room  Organization Challenge. 

2024 Craft Space Organization Challenge #3

It's Time for Challenge #3 ~ Photos

So, your paper is beautifully organized, your scraps carefully stashed or purged, and your desk is gleaming! You are starting to get organized. Doesn't it make you feel creative? Don't you want to get cropping? Well, you CAN'T scrapbook without PHOTOS!

Our third challenge is to organize our photos. Photos can be easily damaged and sometimes irreplaceable. Here is an excellent article to get you thinking about how to organize those precious photos before we start to S.P.A.C.E. them:

https://www.scrapbook.com/articles/organizing-and-storing-your-photos-and-negatives

Protecting your photos means making sure your hands are clean and dry. Always hold photos and negatives by the edge. 

When deciding where to store your photos you need to think about humidity, temperature and light. Your storage space should be no less than 15% relative humidity and no more than 65%. Dry paper from low humidity can become very brittle. High humidity will cause photos to stick together and can also cause insect infestations. 

A lower temperature is best for photos, slowing the degradation of paper and ink and discouraging insects. The temperature should be no more than 23C so your attic probably won't be a good storage place. You should avoid temperature fluctuations as well, your garage or basement might not be a good storage place either. 

Light is also a concern in the safe storage of photos and negatives. Dark storage places are best to preserve your photos and stop inks and pigments from fading. 

Just a few more don'ts . . . Don't store photos or negatives in albums or photo boxes that aren't lignin and PVC free, or envelopes that are not archival quality. Don't hold photos together with rubber bands or paper clips.

Please take a moment and read this excerpt from Design Strategies for Scrapbookers:

Photo preservation begins with safe storage.  Remove photos stored in the old magnetic albums immediately.  A magnetic album has cardboard pages with adhesive on them and a plastic sheet to cover the photos.  The adhesives and plastics in these albums are highly acidic and can ruin your photos very quickly.

To safely remove photos from magnetic albums you can use:

1.      Dental floss – Slip a piece of dental floss under one corner of the photo and use a gentle back-and-forth sawing motion to lift the photo.

2.      Blow Dryer – Set your blow dryer on low heat to soften the page’s glue and then carefully lift the photo.

3.      Spatula/pan scraper – Use a thin spatula to slowly pry photos loose. 

4.      Undu Adhesive Remover – Undu neutralizes adhesive’s stickiness, making photos easy to remove.  It dries clear and will not damage photos or smudge most inks.

5.      I have heard about freezing the pages first  but I’ve never tried it so use at your own risk.

Use an acid-free photo box with dividers or an archival quality photo album for storage.  Organize photos chronologically or by theme, event or subject depending on how you scrapbook.  Write notes on the dividers or on the back of the photo for later reference.  Don’t use ballpoint pen to write on backs of photos.  Buy a special photo-marking pen or pencil. 

Always save original photos if they are one of a kind and can’t be replaced.  This is especially important with heritage photos.  Instead, scan and print new copies, storing the original for safe-keeping.  If you are determined to use the original, use photo corners to adhere these precious photos to your layouts so they can be safely removed.

I just had a reminder of this rule recently.  I’ve been working on a family tree album and needed some baby pictures.  I scrapbooked all my baby pictures when I first started scrapbooking many years ago.  And that was the problem.  I had cut them all in shapes and used decorative scissors on them.  Not one was complete enough for me to scan and reprint.  My mom and aunt are going through their old photos in hopes they have some originals.  So I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to save original photos.  Scan the originals and have them reprinted. 

Don’t forget to properly store and organize negatives.  Plastic negative sleeves will hold 4-7 negatives, depending on brand and the size of film.  If you have older negatives in smaller sizes (such as 110) you can easily create subdivisions in the sleeves with a sewing machine and clear nylon thread.  You can store negative sleeves in a 3-ring binder or folder.  Label each sleeve with the date and/or subject.

Digital photos have their own set of rules.  Always back up your computer files, including your digital photo files because computers crash and hard drives fail.  Store a back up copy of your photos and important documents to an external hard drive.  You can also download your digital photos to CD’s or USB drives although there is some debate as to how long they last.  There are many online sites that you can save your photos to as well.

When you are looking for a safe place to store your memorabilia, photographs, negatives, supplies and albums, keep in mind that they will do best in a dry, cool place, out of direct sunlight.

Available in colour, black & white or large print

BUY

SORT: Gather together all of your photos, and sort them into categories that make sense: 
TRASH (it's okay to throw out photos with bad colour, expression, composition. Why keep them? You're not going to scrapbook them) 
TO SCRAPBOOK (the shots you know you are going to use) 
TO STORE (photos that need to be kept, but aren't necessarily going to be going into your scrapbooks) 
TO GIVE AWAY (doubles that you want to send to friends and family)

PURGE: Throw out the TRASH pile. Put the TO GIVE AWAY photos in envelopes and mail them to friends/family, or put them in your car so you can drop them off the next time you visit. Do not leave them in your studio, or they will creep back into your organized space.

ASSIGN: Sort the final two groups of photos into a system that makes sense to you:

Chronologically
Holiday/Event/Vacation
Person

CONTAINERIZE: Now it's time to decide how you want to store your photos. Perhaps you want to put your TO STORE photos in acid free envelopes or albums. Perhaps you want to put your TO SCRAPBOOK photos into photo storage boxes, or accordion folders.

EQUALIZE: Next time you get new photos from the photo processor, spend a couple of minutes and put the photos where they belong: throw out the bad shots, give away the extras, put the keepers away in their album, and sort your photos for scrapbooking into their container.

We have started a Facebook group as a place for us to share photos, accomplishments, encouragement, tips and tricks as we work through the 2024 Craft Space Organization Challenge.  You are welcome to post before and after photos of your photo challenge here.

2024 Craft Space Organization Challenge #2

How did you make out on the first challenge? It's not too late to share your photos. Doesn't it feel great to start the new season with a clean work surface?

Let's move on to the next challenge . . .

Challenge #2 

Did you know that a 1” high stack of patterned paper equals as many as 250 sheets of patterned paper? That’s a lot of paper. I don't know about you, but I have a lot more than 1" of paper.

So here is this week's challenge:

Your challenge this week is to S.P.A.C.E. your paper - - and I mean ALL of your paper: cardstock, patterned paper, specialty papers, and all those SCRAPS!

If you are a quilter you need to S.P.A.C.E. your fabric. A knitter -- your wool. I think you get the picture. This challenge is for everybody!

SORT: 

Bring all of your paper to one area. Sort it all into piles: KEEP, SELL, DONATE, TRASH

PURGE: 

Bag up, and assign a price to paper bundles that you want to SELL at a garage sale or online, and put the bags in the garage sale box. Throw out the TRASH pile. Bag up the DONATE pile and immediately make arrangements for drop-off/pick-up or put in your vehicle.

ASSIGN: 

Separate your paper into categories that make sense to you. For example, you may want to divide it simply into cardstock and patterned paper. If you have a huge stash of paper, you may want to divide it by colour, theme, or manufacturer. If you bought paper for a specific project (in my case a recent trip to the east coast) keep it kitted together.

I have separated out Christmas and sports papers in their own containers. The rest of my kits are stored in bankers boxes.

Another way to sort your paper is in page kits. Package matching patterned papers in a zip lock or similar bag, add matching cardstocks and embellishments to create kits. Most of my patterned papers and embellishments are sorted in this way. When the opportunity for some scrappin’ time presents, I just have to grab my tool pouch and a kit and I’m ready to go.

Do you buy a lot of paper “stacks” or kits? I don’t recommend taking them apart. They are perfect for building page kits.

Do you save your leftover scraps? Decide on a minimum size that you are willing to keep. I usually throw out anything smaller than 4 x 6”. 

CONTAINERIZE: 

Store your paper in a way that makes sense to you:

- vertical paper holders
- hanging vertical file folders
- wire cubes
- paper trays
- paper organizers
- bookcases with adjustable shelves

I use vertical paper holders for my cardstocks (which I personally feel I do not have enough of) and banker boxes for my page kits.

EQUALIZE: 

Each time you finish a scrap session, return from a crop, or bring home new papers, spend a few minutes putting your paper away where it belongs.

We have started a Facebook group as a place for us to share photos, accomplishments, encouragement, tips and tricks as we work through this Challenge. When you have completed this challenge please share your photos in our challenge #2 album.

2024 Craft Space Organization Challenge #1

Why do we come up with cute, self-deprecating names for our crafts and our craft space?  Why do we not take ourselves seriously?

Several years ago I realized the only thing holding me back from taking my art seriously was me. How could anyone else take me seriously when I didn't see my self as a serious craftsperson? 

I’m "only" a scrapbooker. A scrapbooker who has been developing her talent for over 25 years, who has taught others, who has written books . . . so why wasn’t I taking my skill seriously?

And then I did. I started by ordering business cards with my name and title, Paper Artist and Blogger. And my crop room became my studio. I may never become rich or famous but that doesn’t change the fact that I am an artist and what I create is very serious and very important to me. 

Organizing your creative space should be taken seriously too. Constant clutter will block your creative energy and keep you from doing your best work.

So it is time to do a little day dreaming. What would your perfect studio look like? How would you improve what you currently work in? Start jotting down ideas and making sketches. Go through some magazines looking for ideas you think would be perfect for you. What do you need in your creative space to make you enthusiastic and and yet content?

I live in a building where we are not supposed to paint the walls. Yep, six rooms of beige. So I hang up art . . . only pieces that make me happy or give me happy memories. I have two Clark McDougall prints hung in my studio that bring me joy every time I look at them. My solution to the boring walls is art.

Look for your problem areas. Think of ways you can solve the problems. Take notes. Make sketches. Do a bit of research.  Don’t think about costs yet. Don’t buy anything yet. That comes later. Just dream . . .

Welcome to our annual Craft Space Organization Challenge . . . 

The one room that always seems to become a cluttered mess is my studio.  As the clutter piles up it becomes harder and harder to find what I need.  Is this the same for you?

Today is the day to begin taking back your space so you can accomplish more and get more enjoyment out of your precious crafting time.

These challenges were originally set up for scrapbookers but they work quite well for just about any type of crafter . . . which is a good thing for me.  My studio is set up for my paper crafting, quilting, stamp collection, letterboxing, knitting and crochet, writing, my hubby's leatherworking, genealogy, cross stitch, and tapestry.  I need a system that works for ALL of my crafts. 

The information in these challenges can help both new and veteran scrapbookers and other crafters to get organized.  

It doesn't matter if you are starting a new craft room or space or you need to dig out from one you don’t recognize anymore, you are not alone.  

It doesn’t matter if your space is a room, the kitchen table, a designated part of a room, or a closet.  

What I want you to do right NOW is take a photo of your craft space.  No . . . leave the dirty coffee cup where it is. Yes, I know you let your cat sleep on your keyboard.  Do not touch ANYTHING.  Just take a brutally honest photo of your craft space and upload it to our Facebook group.  A random winner will be drawn on January 7, 2024 to receive a prize.

Come on!! You can do it!! No shame here . . . just hope and encouragement. If I can get MY MESS fixed, ANYONE can. Just follow the challenges I'll be posting over the next 10 weeks.  You can do this!!! 

Challenge #1 Clean Your Work Space.

The first challenge of our ORGANIZATION CHALLENGE is to clear off your crafting work space. Maybe you have a desk committed as your craft space, maybe you have an entire room of tables, or maybe you have taken over the dining room table. Wherever you craft, completely clear off the entire surface of your work space, dumping everything into a big box. Give your surface a good scrub and polish, removing every speck of paint, adhesive, and uh.... is that chocolate????

Take a photo of your newly scrubbed craft space and upload it to our Facebook group.

Okay, now let's get to work on that big box of stuff.

Now is the time to learn that you need S.P.A.C.E. to craft:

* Sort * Purge * Assign * Containerize * Equalize * 

We're going to use this method for each and every challenge.

SORT: 

Going object by object, divide everything in the big box into categories that make sense to you. You may want to have some baskets laid out and labelled: SELL, DONATE, TRASH, STORAGE (for stuff you want to keep but doesn't belong on or in your desk/work surface) , NOT IN HERE (for items that sneak their way into your craft space but belong elsewhere in the house) and ACTION (for items that you want to keep in or on your desk). Set up these boxes or baskets or whatever near the door of your craft room or, even better, outside of your craft room

Look very seriously at all your stuff and decide if you really need each item. If your answer is yes, you need to ask yourself if it belongs in your craft room. If you answer no to either question you need to PURGE it.

PURGE:

1) Throw out everything in the TRASH pile - all the ripped, broken, dried up, crumpled STUFF.

2) Bag up and assign a price and your initials to everything in the SELL pile, and put in your sale box.

3) Call the person who could use the DONATE pile, and immediately set up a time to drop off, bag it up, and hang on the door knob so it doesn't sneak back into your studio area. 4) Put the NOT IN HERE stuff where it belongs.

ASSIGN: 

You have a couple of options here for your STORAGE pile: put the stuff aside to be organized when we work on other areas, or (and I strongly suggest this alternative) put the items away where they belong using your current organization system.

CONTAINERIZE: 

Sort all of your ACTION items into the appropriate drawer, container, and boxes. Containerizing gives you a chance to make everything pretty and inspirational to you. You may need to make a shopping trip to purchases containers that you love to look at, are sturdy enough to withstand repeated openings and closings, and are the right size. Make a list and take measurements. Label everything.

EQUALIZE: 

Each time you finish a crafting session, return from a crop, or bring home new supplies, spend a few minutes putting everything away where it belongs. By the time you are done this challenge you will have “a space for everything” so put “everything in its place.”