Organisation is Key!

Well, it's certainly been awhile since I've gone a week in between posts! I do have an excuse though - I've been reorganising. I realised I've been in a constant state of tidying for awhile now, it was time to completely resort, throw out and rehouse a lot of my stamping goodies! I was finding it impossible to create in the midst of the chaos that was my stamp room, so hopefully things will be back to normal now!

Because organising and the need for a tidy workspace was a big topic during the UStamp chat last night, I thought I'd show you a couple of the ways I keep my space tidy and my goodies at my finger tips!
The first is a wee project that is so fun to do, and so useful as well! This is my designer paper ring. Now, I have a confession to make - I have all the double sided papers in the catalogue! Who can blame me though, they are so gorgeous! But with such an abundance of paper, it was hard to remember what patterns I had (and the photos in the catty can't do these papers justice, they are so much more beautiful in real life!)

So I made this ring. It's really simple - the dividers are squares of Very Vanilla Card stock with the corners rounded. The stamped label is from the Totally Tabs set - I like that this design has three lines, I can mark any papers "retired" on the third line when I need too. You just stamp it, punch it out with the round tab punch and fold it over to make your tab. Love it!

I just punched out 6 scalloped circles for each paper pack, one from each different sheet. I used the Crop-a-dile to punch the holes, so I could do all of them at once - so much faster and easier than doing them one by one!
I also have one for all the card stock colours. For this one I chose a shade of yellow from each colour family for the dividers and tabs. It's so useful having these rings on my desk at all times, they take up very little space and I have all my colours right there for mixing and matching.

While we're talking about card stock, here's how I store mine...

I have some cheapee file cabinets from Kmart that take A4 hanging files. Each colour has it's own folder, and I keep scraps in the front of the folder, full sheets at the back. I have four drawers, one for Soft Subtles and Rich Regals, one for Bold Brights and Earth Elements, one for Neutrals and specialty card and one for In Colours, current and retired.

I made labels from each colour card and I've got them stored in catalogue order (my card stock is probably the most well organised thing in this room!) My label maker is instrumental in keeping everything in it's place, as you 'll see here....

These are my sponge daubers. I love these little guys! They are in a drawer beside my ink pads - and I use my label maker on the smallest setting to label each one with a colour as I first use it. The "waiting to be used" ones are in the bag at the back.

You can have one sponge dauber for each overall colour - one for pinks, reds, blues etc - but over time your colours will start to get muddy when you sponge, not a good look! I won't have a dauber for every colour - if it's one I think I'll rarely sponge with I just use a wedge of Stampin' Sponge. But for my most used colours, I wouldn't be without these!

While we're talking about rearranging things....I was wondering...am I the only person that saves the "greenery" from wilted bouquets and uses it to make a new arrangment? I like making flowers last longer this way, and often with the gorgeous "fillers" in bouquets today you can make something just as pretty. This is the leftovers from my birthday flowers from my family and Shanan, I don't know what those feathery looking things are...but I love them!

I'll have more organisation tips and photos of how I keep my stampin' stash stored (try saying that five times fast!) for you soon. For now, dinner is in the crockpot simmering away (picture me at 7am this morning, tears streaming down my face from cutting onions!) and I have the whole day to stamp! I haven't forgotten my new fav mystery product promise, details soon!