My January Progress in my 2018 Organization Resolution

Back at the end of December, I blogged about the mess my craft space was in, and how I hoped that, in 2018, I would make some progress in getting it all put back together and neatened up. This is my January progress report on that organization.

I started out gangbusters on January 1 and kept it up for a week before I fizzled out somewhat, but I did make progress, slowly but surely.

I have detailed the work I have done so far on my dining room table/computer station and my stitching space in the basement on my stitchery blog. Here, I want to focus on my crafting space, which really took a back seat to the first two areas this past month. Still, I did accomplish something. While moving things around when working on my stitchery space, I started putting supplies away.

I started on January 10 with bags of Nuvo Drops and WOW! embossing powders which lived in plastic bags on the floor in this mess:

Hot Mess!

Nuvo Drops

WOW! EP

I started by color coding each:

drop of each color adde to lid

3/8" punch, Avery Labels, Versamark and EP - applied to lids

I HAVE to find a better way of embossing those EP dots --- they blow every which way and end up with more EP on the sticky side than on the top!

These products ended up in a deep container along with some BoBunny Glitter Paste:

This container currently resides on top of 3 other larger containers that contain Lindy's Gang Products (2 pink deep bins) and Ken Oliver and Brusho products (thinner clear container) and next to another deep container with Lindy's Gang EPs and magicals;  all under the back of my work table. I HOPE that this location is temporary (It's a pain to move all those bins when what you want is in the middle or bottom one!) but it will have to do while I tackle the rest of the space.

Between January 14 and 17, I started tackling stamps that had no "home... mainly because they simply were dumped in a cardboard box by my desk as they arrived in the mail.

I started with a bin recommended by Jennifer McGuire in her year-end "Favorite" post about organization (the InterDesign FRIDGE AND FREEZE SPLIT BINZ 70630) and sorted out all the clear stamp sets (and in some instances, coordinating dies) from that box AND from some Iris Cart drawers where older ones had been "stuffed". I sorted, alphabetically by maker and filed the narrower envelopes of stamps, using card-stock dividers for each letter of the alphabet. I made labels for each divider, identifying the makers:

Jennifer had transferred all of her stamp sets to same-size envelopes and labeled them, and she laminated her dividers. I may end up doing that eventually, but right now, this works for all my "smaller" (e.g. narrower) clear stamp sets.

I have several sets of clear stamp, however  that were too wide to fit in this container. One of the emptied Iris cart drawers ended up getting those:

I have a wider bin (InterDesign FRIDGE AND FREEZE BINZ 70530) on order to accommodate these...

Next up were the cling stamp sets (and, in some cases, coordinating dies). These all went back into Iris cart drawers, alphabetically, by maker (except my Wendy Vecchi sets, because I ran out of drawers so they ended up in an ArtBin satchel temporarily.

I had a number of "independent" die and embossing folder sets - sets with no coordinating stamps, like stacked dies,  cover plate dies, border dies... They got their own drawer, again temporarily (hopefully):

Finally, there were a number of clear stamp sets, coordinating dies and even embossing folders that were magazine freebies (I really really like the UK magazines for their design tips but an added bonus is the cover sets of stamps, dies, embossingfolders, even free papers!) Again, they got their own Iris cart drawer:

Like for the clear stamps sets/ dies, I have additional bins on order for the cling sets and dies... Now, to find somewhere to put these bins. This location, in the top of a stacked set of bins which used to hold finished stitchery, really isn't a good permanent solution:

That is a basket of alphabet and word stamps in the bottom bin and 12 x 12 loose scrapbook papers in the middle...

Next I tackled made cards! These were getting packed into a box on top of my desk, awaiting filing in photo boxes which currently are full and really need to be culled. Still, rather than go right at the culling, on January 19, I decided to at least sort the smaller (4.25 x 5.5) cards into a new photo box:

The larger (6 x 6 and 5 x 7) cards remain in that pink box on top of my desk:

Not a whole lot of progress but I can at least move my chair a little without fear of rolling over supplies that still sit on the floor, and that pink box is no longer threatening to topple over...

​On to February!