My May Progress in my 2018 Organization Resolution

Back at the end of December, 2017, 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. I posted my January progress here. My February progress report on that organization is here. My March organization efforts can be found here. And my April report is here. 

Things slowed down a bit in May, partly because I was going through physical therapy for some serious shoulder and arm pain and was more interested in lying flat with a hot pad than going up and down stairs, lugging stuff around. But I did get some organization done. Mainly, it was moving things around, getting like-with-like and filling a few ArtBin containers which now have temporary homes.

Back in April, I did some reorganizing of my Lindy’s Gang embossing powders but there were still nearly 80 pots of powder (not counting duplicates) and finding the one I wanted was not significantly helped by just labeling the tops. I had mentioned that I probably needed to alphabetize them and set up an iPad checklist.

Well, on May 1, I needed some embossing powders and, as I pulled the colors I needed, I alphabetized all the pots in the three slots available in a deep ArtBin container:

Still, while I now knew the general location of the different pots I needed, searching for them resulted in having to take out as many as 20 pots in order to successfully locate one or two, because they were stacked three deep!!! And of course, they never went back in the slot the same way. So I sat down and ordered an ArtBin container that would store the pots in a single layer and was still large enough to hold all of them. and this  final arrangement  has room for a 9 more colors (I’m hoping that, now that I can see the names, I won’t be duplicating any more and can focus only on buying colors that I have a need for…)

 This flatter container fits nicely on two empty Tim Holtz die storage boxes (I’m planning ahead in the event of a dire event of discontinuing these boxes! I heard rumors once! LOL), next to the deeper bins of Sprays. Magicals and embossing powder duplicates are still in the deeper container with the empty slots accommodating overflow from my Lindy’s spray bins (pink).

See that stack of ink pads and mini-pad storage tines on my table top? The ink pads were dealt with in my May 23 ink-pad-sort, described below The tins, however still live on the table top as do my Distress Oxide inks pads.. One step forward, two steps back, I guess...

Of course, the disadvantage with this method of storage is that, in order to reach marker and pencil sets (bin with the blue handle) or a particular Lindy's Spray (pink bins), I have to continually shift (heavy) bins around. I really need a shelf system where each bin has it's own level...but that's not likely to happen in the near future so...

I filled a second of these flat bins with Tim Holtz paper and chipboard ephemera from Idea-ology and this is temporarily stashed under my work space next to more spare storage boxes …

(Note to self: find a similar solution fo the rest of my Idea-ology metal, resin and the like, and for my Prima flowers!)

On May 5, 2018, I purchased a small Interdesign bin for my Sizzix Sidekick dies. I placed each packet into one of the new Sizzix storage pockets and labeled the pockets with the name and SKU of the set. They fit nicely in this smaller bin, and currently allow room for a package of extra pockets as well as the cutting plates and embossing mat, Both the bin and the Sidekick fit nicely on top of some stamp storage boxes behind my Distress Marker Tins and beside my (occupied) Tim Holtz die storage boxes:​

On May 23, I got fed up with the fact that I had at least three Iris drawers crammed with various sprays that I never used because I couldn't FIND anything. So... two more deep ArtBin containers were called into service.

Bin #1 gor most (not all) of my Tattered Angels (Glimmer Mist) sprays:

Bin #2 got the overflow of Tattered Angels (chalk sprays), my Smooch bottles and some Bazzill color samples to temporarily act as dividers:

I WAS going to store them like this, side by side on top of a pair of stacked Iris carts holding my husbands painting supplies:

But this was a bit unsteady so I bailed on this plan and placed them in the shelves behind husband's work table (the oak shelving to the left of this Iris cart). These shelves are narrow and will only hold the bins side-ways (they were originally CD storage shelves) but will do for now... Next step - label and sort within bins so I can find the color I want.

After pulling all these sprays from the Iris carts where I had stashed them, I freed up a lot of space for ink pads and related products. When possible, I moved mini-pads to Tim Holtz mini storage tins. Otherwise, products were stored by brand.

The current Iris Cart drawers are, as follows,

A). Four drawers of Ranger Inks, Distress Inks, embossing powders, Stickles and the like (click on the photo to see it full length):

Sadly, one can't remove drawers from Iris carts so if things need to be shifted, whole drawers need to be unloaded and swapped out. For example, I'd like to keep Ranger all together, but right now, Archival inks are in the bottom drawer while others (Adirondack, Distress, etc.) are in the top three)

B). Four drawers of miscellaneous brands. I tried to keep like with like but there were too many brands that I had only a few items of, and so these drawers are still a mixed bag. 

Many of these had been in smaller Sterlite drawers on top of my large cabinets of stash and were basically not easily accessible, so that means that there are three or four drawers in these smaller drawer units now available to stash things in I don't use that often. Sadly, not all ink pads from the Sterlite units were moved and, in addition, there are a larger number of ink pads from various companies stored in four cassette tape cases inside my large cabinets. These remain relatively inaccessible and I need a solution for them...

C. A drawer of gesso, acrylics and enamel drops from Wendy Vecchi and Dina Wakely:

D. Two drawers of Altenew ink pads (the minis were subsequently move to some of the Tim Holtz mini ink storage tins on my desk and replaced with the new Wendy Vecchi Art Blendable Dye inks and reinkers)

E. And a drawer for Smooch Sprays which all fit in a smaller Artbin case but wouldn't fit with the bottles of Smooch in the larger ArtBin container):

So there you have it --- a major reshuffling of inks and sprays. Next step --- check all these ink pads and discard dried and decayed ones (I know that several of the Color Box petal pads I used to accumulate are no longer viable, for example) and then find a way to categorize them (other than "miscellaneous", "Ranger", etc) and access them (stacked three or four deep, it isn't possible to know when opening the drawer what I have ... and there is always that row of pads at the very back that can't be seen unless all the others are moved so they can be pulled into view...).

My work top looks a little neater now, with only storage tins where the stacked ink pads were. The storage tins are (stacked left to right) a stack consisting of miscellaneous minis (like Hero Arts, Memory Box, Delicata, Versamark and more) i Tim Holtz Mini storage tins, a stack consisting of  three tins of Archival minis and four of Altenew Minis, and a stack of Distress Minis and blending brushes:

Still, there are stacks of Distress Oxide Inks and Distress Inks taking up quite a bit of potential space over there to the left so I need to solve that problem too. I fill these by color family and then, within the family, alphabetically. But I need labels on the tin edges i order to find the specific brand and color range, I think.

On to June...