Organization Challenge Week 2 - Brainstorming

Welcome to Week 2 of the Organize Your Stuff Challenge! Hopefully you all have gone through the process of scrapping and now have in your perfectly manicured little hands a list of your problem areas. This week, your challenge will be to figure out why these areas are hindering your scrapping, and what to do about them. I also want you to grab your trusty camera, because we're going to be posting some pictures this week.

First on our Challenge list - I want you to take a deep breath and leave your current world behind. Ignore the phone ringing and your kid screaming about something being on fire. Just take deep breaths, relax. Imagine you just woke up from 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep (ok, stop laughing). You feel refreshed, your mojo is strong, you grab your coffee and head to your scrap space. There are a trail of rose petals leading up to the magnificent French doors that is Your Room. The Scrap Fairy, in all her glorious grandeur, has visited last night (unfortunately, she didn't do the laundry, but we'll talk to her about that later). You now have the scrap space of your dreams! It's clean, it's tidy, it's free of dust/dead silverfish/things the cat coughed up. Don't wake up yet - what do you see? Are things in country woven baskets? Are they in sleek metal tins? Are there labels or do you just "know" where the supplies are at? Are your paints lined up on a shelf by color, or stashed in a drawer? Is the paper out for all to see, in racks or in cupboards? Does it feel like the loft space of a Manhattan artist, the cozy craft room of a southern cottage, maybe a porch of a shore house? This is YOUR dream room. There is no right and no wrong. This is a place where you spend so much of your time and creative energy - start envisioning what you want out of it. This is just brainstorming right now - leave out budget and space constraints. We'll deal with those later. Just have fun with it.

Now, you are still in your dream space. First thing I want you to do is to grab your list from last week. Start with problem area #1. I want you to write down all your thoughts on this area - why it's a problem, and what would make your life easier. Your dream room has no problems. Envision yourself in this space, creating the same layout that you did in week 1. How is this different from your reality? So, for my example - my monthly kits. Right now, in my reality, they're in plastic bags lined up on my desktop. I take out one, I can't get it back in, the others fall over. I hate that! But in my dream space....what if I had something to keep them upright? And in order? And maybe off my desktop....like if I can stick them in a cabinet maybe. Or hang them up. That would work. See? Just jot down possibilities. Because in Week 8, when we get to kits, I may find something related to hanging or upright containers or the like that will "click" for me. But by jotting down ideas, I already have in my head a good start on how to get rid of this problem area. And if you can't think of any solutions, that's ok too - I'll give you plenty.

I don't want to talk budget and space yet, but I do want to focus on one practical aspect - how you work. I know everyone in this challenge has seen beautiful scrap rooms that they'd sacrifice their mother-in-law for. But if you have small kids who get into everything, then an open shelving system on the floor is not going to work for you, no matter how pretty it is. If you have room for one small scrap surface, then don't drool over a desktop tool caddy that takes up half the table. If you're a sitting scrapper, don't look into standing-height counters. So as we go along, keep your reality in mind. You CAN have a great, gorgeous space, and on your own terms. We're going to bring the items you covet into your reality with what you already have and own. It CAN be done. So keep this in mind as we go along - I want you to IMMEDIATELY rule out any storage solution that will not work with your lifestyle or your scrap space. No matter how appealing or pretty. Just cross it off. With a big black Sharpie.

Our final step in the challenge this week is - picture time! I think this is a great motivational tool - it's not meant to get you down in the dumps by looking at your photo (sans David Duchovny) and thinking, man, my space bites. You're going to post this photo and you're going to find that there are others out there much, much worse off than you are. And that will (sadly) boost your spirits. And if you have the absolute worst space posted, well - you have nowhere to go other than up, right? Let's keep those attitudes positive! You will also print this photo out and display it prominently in your space. Because when you're in Week 10, and you don't want to do this anymore because you feel like all you do is organize and nothing has changed, you're going to look at that picture and see how far you've come. And that will give you a second wind to tackle the rest of your list.

Here is the photo of my space, un-Photoshopped:


Overall, I'm happy with my space. It does need some tweaks tho. And some cleaning (I think that's jelly on my stamping cabinet....yuck, kids!!!).

See you all in Week 3 - get ready for a clean sweep, ladies!

Stacy

Organization Challenge Week One - Space Audit

Welcome to Week One of the Organize Your Stuff Challenge! Let's get down to the nitty gritty - today we're going to do a space audit. Let's see what you have that works for you and what's bogging you down in the scrapping process.

This week I'm going to start off with scrapping. What a GREAT Challenge, huh? Seriously, tho - I want you to complete a layout. Any layout, it doesn't matter. And I want you to have a pen and notepad nearby when you do it. Scrap how you normally would, and at each step, I want you to make a note about your supplies and how it's helping or harming your process. So suppose you start with photos. Can you easily locate the ones you want? Great! Why was it so easy? Or does it take you half a year to find that one photo of your neice in the pink swimsuit? Then that's obviously a problem area. On to paper. And journaling. And embellishments. Et cetera. You should go through most of your supplies in this process, making note of which ones are easy to find exactly what you need and when you need it, and which ones make you want to give up scrapping altogether. If you don't use certain supplies on the layout, or if you have piles of stuff that need a home, then take note of those separately once your layout is done, but use the same guidelines. And hopefully you will start to see a trend in those supplies that work well in their current storage setup. Maybe they're close to your workspace. Maybe the boxes are labeled clearly. Maybe it's in a divided cart. Regardless of the reason, you've already found a system that works for you, and you can start to apply this type of storage to the problem areas in the future.

As this week goes on, I want you to post your lists - the good, the bad and the ugly. You can then compare your list to the Challenges and see what weeks you might be interested in, either by re-vamping your storage system or offering advice to others if you've found a great solution that works for you. Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all in organizing - even if you have the most bizarre way of storing ribbon on the ceiling using small bits of chewing gum, it may be the perfect solution another scrapper is looking for (but I hope not. Really. I do. It's unsanitary).

As promised, here is my list from the scrapping audit:

What works:

Photo selection - easy to pull from photo binders

Layout ideas - notecards filed by number of photos in Cropper Hopper boxes

Finding tools - tool caddy near work desk

Choosing embellishments - items in labeled containers, which are in labeled drawers

Journaling - pens in caddy by type and color

Finding stamps and stamping supplies - organized by theme in Rolodex, stamp pad rack

Alpha organization - labeled drawers by color

What needs help:

Finding coordinating paper lines - all are mixed in by color, it takes too long to sort through

Choosing die cuts - some of my containers are too small, they need more space

Sticker/rub on organization - love my PSBs, but the shelf they're on is a nightmare to navigate

Kits - if I take one out, they all fall over. I don't want to even touch them!

From my lists, what seems to be working for me is containers, by theme or color, and labeled. So I will make sure to incorporate those features in my new storage systems for my "problem area" list.

In the meantime, I'm going to make note to check out the weeks on paper organization, die cuts, stickers/rub ons, and kits! Post your lists, and I hope to see you next week, when we'll don our thinking caps for a brainstorming session!

Stacy