I'm back!

After scrapbooking a layout a day in May, I needed to focus on finishing out the school year strong and getting my classroom in shape. I took a week long teaching course in Kalispell, MT, right after school ended so didn’t finish in my classroom until Monday night at 8:30pm! I still need to go through my filing cabinets, but I’m going to leave that for early September. Another couple days in my room prior to school beginning and I’ll be set.

I was so inspired by cleaning my classroom that I spent a week cleaning and organizing my craft room. I did not dare take any “Before” photos as the room was a hideous mess. There was one path on the floor to one small area on the futon. My desk was a nightmare from the LOAD challenge, so I couldn’t have scrapbooked in June if I had wanted. I still have a little bit left to do, but here are my current “After” photos!

The first is a view from my window seat and the second a view from the door.

Notice that the floor is spotless and the only piles I have are (1) works in progress on the window seat, (2) my school books for the class I'm taking next to the futon, and (3) the magazines I need to go through to cut out scraplifting ideas!

I had to include a photo of my bookshelf as it used to be stacked with books two deep on most of the shelves. I finally made the decision that I was never teaching theatre again, so I donated most of my theatre books to our drama teacher. I also quit hording books I've already read and took them to my classroom library. I will admit that most of the books I kept are my favorites and I wasn't willing to part with them. I do have one shelf that contains the YA books I haven't read and will take to school once I do. The beauty of this system is that I'll be able to start buying YA novels again once I start reading them and making space on the shelf.

Okay, now to my organization system. I went through ALL of my scrapbooking supplies and donated several boxes to a friend who is having a garage sale next weekend. It felt good to purge things I haven't used in years. I even donated a bunch of the wood stamps I never mounted! Someone is going to get a good deal at that garage sale! Anyway, I cleared out all the paper in the rack above my desk and replaced it with CTMH cardstock. This is where I'm storing my page protectors, pages in process, and the non-CTMH cardstock/paper I kept that doesn't fit in my other paper container.

It holds CTMH paper packets older than a year, papers by manufacturer that I am keeping for specific projects, and other miscellaneous papers in the side trays. I also have a couple black storage boxes that fit nicely under it.

I'm proud of my storage system! In addition to the 4 deep black storage boxes, I got 8 white photo boxes that hold paint, foam stamps, paint trays, and photos. I also got 6 white project boxes (they are under the futon!) for CTMH chipboard, stickers/rubons, embellishments, non-CTMH chipboard, Bind-It-All coils/cardboard, and one box for all my Scenic Route kits/papers!

By placing all of those embellishments in easily accessible boxes, I was able to better organize the cabinet to the right of my desk. I have to move very little to get to items in the back of the top two shelves, and I have pull out drawers for inks, wood stamps/punches, ribbon, CTMH stamps (WOW! I have a lot of stamps!), card, other projects, and CDs/software.

The final bit of organizing I did was clearing off the majority of the paper from the rolling cart in front of my cabinet so there was room for my CTMH ink tower. Getting that off my desk really helped. It also forced me to decide what I was going to do with my CTMH paper.

I finally made a divider for the 5 different paper packs in each season. When the next Idea Book is released, I will transfer the unused Winter 2008 packs to the black paper storage by the bookshelf. Having the current year's worth of paper packets right next to me will give me motivation to finish them off prior to new product arriving. I have a feeling that this new system will help with my productivity. I guess you will get to be the judge of that as I post my new pages/projects here!

For anyone who made it this far...thank you for reading my very long and involved post! Leave a comment and then e-mail your address to me and I'll send you a gift pack of handmade cards!