Homespun with Heart

In between projects, I get the itch to get more organized. I tend to be a VERY messy scrapbooker. Usually before a project is finished, my entire desk is covered - I mean covered - with stuff, and I have about a 5x5" square of space in which to work. It takes me awhile to get things back in order! I tend to be visual, so if there are things out on my desk I can see, they will be more likely to get used.

(my Papertrey Ink ribbons)

I don't have a big, fancy scrapbook room. While I love our house, we only have 3 small bedrooms. So, I decided awhile back to set up camp down in the basement. About a year ago, I posted about my scrap space. It still looks pretty much the same, with a few slight adjustments!

I've added a thread rack to hold the colorful threads...the little cup holds my needles.

Recently, I needed to figure out a new die organization system for my Papertrey Ink dies. I wasn't quite sure how to get them organized. I tried them in a binder with CD sleeves, but that didn't really work for me because when I flipped the pages of the binder, the dies would fall out. I decided to take the CD sleeves out of the binder and put them in a container.

Now I can flip through them easily. For now, I'm just using sticky notes to divide them into sections. I divided them into these categories so far:

People (like the Simply Jane dies)

Tabs, Notebooks, Envelopes

Frames, Tags, Shapes (circles, Ad Sense shapes, etc)

Animals

Baby, Kid (Little Princess die, Truckin' It, etc)

Spring, Flowers, Trees

Jars, Food, Fruit

Fall, Halloween

Letters, Numbers, Words

Christmas, Winter

Impression Plates

What I love about this system is that I can add more or change my categories when I need to. Love flipping through to see all of my dies! I still need to label the actual CD sleeves with the die set names. The larger dies like the borders, Favor It boxes, etc. are in a large plastic baggie in my Papertrey Ink box next to my desk.

I have all my punches and stamping inks on the pull-out keyboard drawer of my desk, easily accessible...

My Papertrey Ink stamps are on the bookshelf organized by title alphabetically in CD cases, along with my Cricut cartridges.

Trust me, it's not always this clean! Oh, I organized my blog recently also and added some links to the top to clean it up a bit. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by today. This week will be an exciting one -- Papertrey Ink celebrates its 5th ANNIVERSARY! So stay tuned to lots of projects, blog posts, giveaways and such.