My Scrapbook Room is Done!

My scrapbook room is done and was under budget (if you don't count tax). I gave myself a budge of $75. I love it! Remember, I used to just keep everything in tubs under the bed and would bring them out and put them back when I was done. It wasn't any fun to do this. I now have a great work area.

This is what was purchased:
$6.99 Desk organizer from Michaels. It holds hole punches, brads, scissors, markers, and corner rounders.
Three $1.50 each pink containers with snap lids from Walmart. One will hold scrapbook adhesives. Another holds small scrapbooking memorabilia that are not photos (hotel room keys, concert tickets, etc). The third one will live in the top dresser drawer to hold misc small stuff.
One $2.50 tall pink container with a snap lid from Walmart. I needed this to hold stamping supplies.
$14.99 six drawer cabinet with wheels from Office Depot. I used a $10 coupon that my husband got in an email, This holds all my stickers. Plus I have a drawer for stencils and books.
$14.99 wall organizer from Michaels. I used a coupon. This holds ribbons, adhesives, memorabilia, and photos waiting to be scrapbooked.
$2.00 for two photo 4x6 holder from Michaels. I used coupons. I used to just stack things on paper trays. These keep photos safe and
$13.02 for three cans of spray paint. The paint was used to paint the old brown dresser white. It looks so much better.
$6 for three photo frames from Walmart.
$8.99 photo board from Michael's. Used another coupon!
I made about five trips to Michael's in the last three weeks, since they have a one coupon per day limit.
Total: $73.98

There were other great organizing supplies I liked such as small crates for $1.99 at Office Depot, but I just didn't have a need for them. There were also great plastic jars with lids at Michaels. These would be great if you had lots of small craft supplies like beads, buttons, gemstones, etc. They have sets of three large ones or six small ones.

Right now I am using the top dresser drawer for my hot glue gun and all my stamping supplies. The second dresser drawer can be used to keep my current scrapbooks and photo albums. When I’m done with a scrapbook album, I have a bookcase upstairs that has a cabinet on the bottom with doors. That’s where my completed scrapbooks live.

Wall Shelf...I love this!

My daughter loved this. She felt like this was something that came from my dream scrapbook room. Here’s the deal: I had to assemble this myself and I’m pretty direction deficient. Actually, I’m horrible at directions and reading any sort of three-dimensional map or drawing. I have no depth perception aptitude!

This is my dream scrapbook room:
http://www.kevinandamanda.com/photos/scraproom/new/

It was supposed to take 15 minutes to assemble. It took me 15 minutes just to make sure I had all the pieces. There were six steps. I would screw something together, only to find out it was upside down. It mattered what direction boards were placed, because there were little tracks for other pieces to slide into. I had the entire thing put together in a little over an hour. I was very proud of myself, except the top piece wasn’t lined up right. I knew this because it was sticking out about a half an inch on the backside. It couldn’t hang from the wall this way!

I took it off, and finally realized, I had to flip it over. That was it. One hour and fifteen minutes later, I did it (not including the time it took to make sure I had all the materials)!!! I put extra ribbons in one of the white canvas basket. At this point, the other basket is empty!

Then I set up my two pink containers on the shelf. The first one holds all my adhesives. The second holds all the little things I collect...event tickets, hotel room cards, etc. I also thought this would be a great place to store my 4X6 photos that are waiting to be scrapbooked. In the "old days" I would just stack all this stuff on paper trays. I like my new system much better

Caddy

My daughter fell in love with this caddy at Michaels. They have bigger ones, and I debated which one to get.

I had read that you should “go big” when buying scrapbooking supplies. However, I really don’t have tons of stuff, and I thought I would bring it home and make sure everything fit. If it didn’t, I could always exchange it for the larger size.

I had more than enough room, and I actually ended up with empty pockets! I put the markers, scissors and hole punches in the top (there are three sections). Then I put brads and corner rounders along the side. There are six pockets along the side, and I ended up with extra space. I paid $6.99 for the caddy on sale (with a coupon). I decided I got a good deal!

My Stickers Are Now Organized!

Organizing my stickers has been one of the most difficult things for me to organize. I had a binder with page protectors, and the stickers were put in page protectors by theme. However, some of my stickers were twelve inches long, and didn’t really fit in an 8.5x11 binder. Plus it was a pain to find stickers.

I got lots of great ideas for stickers from the Internet. When I went shopping, I had an idea in mind. I wanted to use drawers for my stickers. I would have a drawer for seasonal/holiday stickers, a drawer for travel stickers, then the other two drawers would be for each of my children. Since I have a boy and a girl, this would be easy.

My daughter actually found this cart at Office Depot. I liked it because the drawers were not too big. It also has six drawers, and I could use the other two drawers for my scrapbooking books and extra card stock/stencils. My husband actually got an email from Office Depot for $10 off a $25 purchase. This would make the cart $14.99! I couldn't turn down a deal this great. Walmart also has tons of options for carts with drawers.

My daughter made the labels,and organized the stickers. Even my long stickers fit in the drawer! This will be a huge help. I love it!

Organizing Paper

I got this expandable 12x12 paper organizer about four years ago at Hobby Lobby. It was regularly $14.99, but I paid $7.49 because I used a coupon. I checked today, and they still carry them! Right now they are black and cream in a paisley print pattern.

I had my paper organized by color, but it wasn't in any order and I couldn't find anything without going through each folder.

My seven year old label-making helper, changed all that! Ann Claire made all the labels and put them in rainbow order. Then she put all the paper where it belonged. Thank you Ann Claire!

This system works great for me. I would love to have shelves that store my paper, however, at this point it is out of my budget. Plus I don’t have that much paper, and this expandable file works great.

I still have lots of work left to do when it comes to organizing: coming up next stickers and everything else!

I also need to find time to get my scrapbooking done!

What I Have...

My scrapbook room is downstairs and is the guest bedroom/craft room. Before we finished the basement (six years ago), I would use the upstairs guest bedroom, but there wasn’t much room, so I kept everything in containers that I could store under the bed. Every time I wanted to scrapbook, I took out all of my supplies, and then when I was done, they went back under the bed. My basement has been finished for six years now, and I have yet to make any attempt to create a great work area!
I took some pictures of all my supplies. I’m so embarrassed! (It DOESN’T always look like this, but I emptied almost everything so you could see what I was dealing with). This is all my stuff! Right now I have some containers, two dresser drawers, two paper trays and two small containers that can hold pens/markers. I have an accordion paper holder that works great for storing paper. I also have tons of stamping stuff, that hasn’t been used in probably ten years. My stickers need major help! Right now they are in the blue binder (and many are too tall for it). This mess is rather overwhelming, but since I’m off for the summer, this is the time to get it organized. I should also note that when I scrapbook I usually use paper, stickers (with embellishments) and markers. I don’t really use lots of extra supplies.

Organizational Inventory:
2 small plastic tubs
2 large plastic tubs
2 binders (one is holding stickers in pocket protectors)
1 pencil holder
1 paper cutter
2 paper trays
2 small red baskets
2 large dresser drawers

Scrapbook Inventory:
Tons of stickers
Tons of paper
Corner rounders
Scissors
Hole punches
Brads
Markers
Scrapbooking tape
3 12X12 scrapbooks
2 photo album
1 school days album
4 Disney Autograph Books with pictures
Pictures waiting to be scrapbooked
Scrapbooking How-to Books
Stencils
Ribbons

My Scrapbooks

I keep three scrapbooks going at all times. One is a family scrapbook, and the other two are for my children. I also have a photo album for each of my children. In these albums I add pictures that don’t really have a theme, but just show how they are growing.
Since I teach school, I do all my scrapbooking in the summer. I know lots of people that meet up with once on month on a Friday or Saturday night and have scrapbooking marathons, but that doesn’t really work for me. I want an area that has all the materials within reach and not have to pack up everything and store it under the bed.

These are my projects for this summer:
Update Family Scrapbook
Update My Daughter’s Scrapbook
Update My Son’s Scrapbook
Organize Scrapbook Room!!!!

I have been looking online at dream scrapbook rooms.
This is my favorite: http://www.kevinandamanda.com/photos/scraproom/new/

Since I’m kind of thrifty (sounds nicer than cheap), I’m going to set a budget of $75. I know $75 will not buy me Amanda's scrapbook room, but I’m inspired by Amanda, and determined to have a great workplace! I’m also going to need to track down some Michael’s, Hobby Lobby and Joanne coupons! I’ve also been looking at scrapbooking discussion boards to get even more ideas.

Scrapbooking...Step 1

My July goal is to get my scrapbooking caught up. But I also need to get my scrapbooking supplies organized.

Step 1: Go through my photos on my computer and make sure my photos are organized and backed up. I've now decided that once a month, I will mark my calendar, and back-up my photo folders to my external hard drive.

I usually go through and delete the bad ones when I download them to my computer. It is easier to do this right when they are downloaded.

When you name your folders that contain your photos, the best way I have found is to name them by date, but also add a description.
For example: 01-12-2010 Ski Trip

This makes it much easier to go back and find photos from specific events. Also, 1-12-2010 is not the same as 01-12-2010. If you don't put the "0" in front, they will not sort correctly. I've learned the hard way! Naming them this way also helps when backing up photos. It is easy to see what dates have already been backed up, then only the new photos need to get backed up.

A free photo organizational program that I love is Picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/home
It is a great way to order pictures, email pictures and to post to online photo albums. It is easy and free!