I’ll admit it.  As much as I try, I’m not as organized as I’d like to be.  I’d love to be able to quickly and easily find everything I need for crafting.  Sometimes I manage that, and sometimes I don’t.

Today I’ll be showing off before and after pictures of my recently revamped cardstock storage. Nearly all of my cardstock is from Stampin’ Up.  I like how their colors coordinate with their inks, and it’s really good quality stuff.  I’ve also had a pretty easy time matching Stampin’ Up colors to one of my papercrafting weaknesses, Basic Grey patterned papers.  In the last few years, I’ve come to appreciate Papertrey Ink’s white and cream cardstock for its sturdiness compared to SU’s white and vanilla cardstock. 

So soon after I started out in stamping in 2002, I bought an accordian-file style organizer from Creative Memories.  I repurposed some old file folders that weren’t very worn, put one color of cardstock in each folder, and arranged the folders in the organizer – neutrals in front, then the rest in ROYGBIV order.  Because the organizer became expanded and heavy once it was filled with 50-plus folders of cardstock, I kept it on the floor of my craft room.  It looked like this:

Truthfully, it worked pretty well… so long as I didn’t overload it with entire packs of cardstock.  As SU increased their color selection with their overhaul in 2005, the introduction of In Colors each year starting in 2006, and with their latest revamping this summer, the organizer just wasn’t quite large enough to handle more expansion.  I started putting the In Colors and packages of cardstock in one of my desk drawers, along with a folder of scratch paper kept nice and handy up front:

Well, I finally realized I needed to figure out something better.   I decided it was time to clean out the top drawer of the lateral file cabinet, which has been used as a “junk drawer” for about the last 12 years (and I’m embarrassed to share this photo, but I figure I might as well be candid):

Pretty scary, yes?  But I found new homes for all that stuff, either in a more appropriate place in the house or in the trash. 

I decided to put all the retired colors of Stampin’ Up cardstock in the lateral file:

The retired “regular” colors are on the left, and In Colors are on the right.  I kept each color in its old repurposed file folder, and put two folders in each of the new hanging file folders (except in the case of a few colors, where I still have a full or nearly full pack of cardstock for some of those colors).  Each of the different SU color families is in a different color hanging folder – blue for Bold Brights, green for Earth Elements, etc.  The different years of In Colors are each in a different color hanging folder, too.  Here’s a closeup of the In Colors side:

All the current SU colors, along with my PTI white and vanilla cardstock, have been relocated to two file drawers in my desk.  Once again, I’ve used a different color of hanging file for each SU color family.  Each color is in its own hanging file folder, along with a manila folder to hold half-sheets and smaller scraps.  I kept my scratch paper folder at the front of the top drawer, but I decided I could move about 2/3 of its contents to the recycling pile. 

Ta-da!  Neat and organized.  Well, except for one thing.  I haven’t yet decided exactly how fancy I’m going to get in labelling the new folders – whether I’ll simply handwrite the color names on the labels, or include a small swatch of the color, or use my label maker to print them really neatly.  At any rate, I feel this is definitely a step in a good direction.