Last month I posed this question to our community: What are your big scrapbooking roadblocks? If you want to see more of those challenges and ideas for overcoming them, but sure to head back to that post and check it out.
One thing that stood out was the issue of organization. People mentioned this multiple times — from product storage to timelines in albums. So, this month I asked our community to give us their favorite organization game changers. Here is what everyone had to say.
Organize Your Products
Entering all my products (except paper) into the Color My Life app has really helped cut down the time I search for things.
Still love looking through all my goodies, though…sparks creativity for sure!
There are many people I’ve chatted with in the crafty world who use Color My Life. This may be a good option if you struggle with keeping track of products. I use Evernote to do much the same thing (plus it helps me organize other areas of my life too.) Some people use a simple spread sheet on their computer—for free!—to organize in an affordable way.
Tiffany Spaulding’s “Totally Tiffany” – she has a whole huge organization plan that is easy to follow and very effective, and free. She sells products, too, but you don’t need them to follow the plan. She does free weekly planning sessions (one week paper, another stamps, another embellishments, tools, photos, etc.) once in a while, but you can see all the previous videos in YouTube – just search “totally tiffany get organized challenge.” I’m not kidding – this changed my life!
If you want to explore some Totally Tiffany ideas, try her Facebook group to get started. She also has a YouTube channel that has older posts there. I did find her 2021 Get Organized Challenge if you want to jump straight there.
Organize your supplies to match how you use them/look for them. What I mean by this is: if you think “I need a red polka dot paper” then organize your papers by colour. If you think “the plaid from Simple Stories would look amazing here” then organize by manufacturer.
I’ve done both. Currently my 12×12 papers are arranged by manufacturer and I’ll be honest, I’m struggling as I do tend to think “oh I need pink flowers”.
The same goes for embellishments. Do you reach for “dimensional embellishments”? Or “the chipboard from Shimelle’s Main Character Energy”?
My embellishments are sorted into categories and are in iris containers. I have enamel dots and gems/sequins in one. Flowers and doilies in another. Journaling cards and tags in another. Etc. that way I can grab a bin when I need that type of embellishment and rummage.
Remember you don’t have to choose just one way to organize. I have a small selection of designers (Vicki B, 49 & Market, Simple Stories etc) that I can go to. A small selection of colors that I can go to. Then my biggest organizational category is patterns. Hearts, stars, stripes, plaids etc. I found that my brain thought about things in these different areas.
I would say I am quite good at ‘macro’ organising, but not ‘micro’ – I still can’t find specific embellishments, which I know I have. I am trying to fix this by making up ‘sticker books’ – I have bought ‘release paper’ from Amazon (the stuff that vinyl and stickers peel off from) and have used my clearance Xyron adhesive cartridges to apply adhesive to the back of the cardstock ephemera which come in packs, and group them together. I keep them in files. That is a time consuming process … but I am able to leaf through the files and find embellishments a lot easier, for layering, etc.
This reminds me of the system that Janet at RTS Scrapbooking shared a few years back. She used composition notebooks and temporary adhesive to accomplish the same organizational goal.
Janet has an quieter YouTube channel with lots of ideas in her back catalog. She moved most of her content to a super affordable Patreon group to get away from the negativity of the open internet! At just $1 a month, you have a safe, private group to share scrappy ideas.
I love the release paper idea for certain organization. If you do too, I found some on Amazon in the US (Claire is located in Australia and her links are different than the US links!)
Organizing physical products can be tricky. If you have pattern paper that is pink on one side and orange on the other, do you file it with pink papers or orange papers?
This dilemma would trip me up so often. One day I just told myself to JUST PICK A SPOT. If I don’t find it in pink, then someday I’ll find it in orange. It didn’t matter that much.
It was a relief to not feel stuck by nit picky feelings. Now if I really, really like both sides of a paper, I’ll buy two and put one in each category. But for the most part, I just let go of over thinking things.
Think about your space
Room Zones. Have a zone for cutting, stamping, storing, and so on. In the zone is where you will make homes for all tools needed for that task. This type of organizing keeps you from having to keep getting up during that activity.
I definitely have zones. What I have also found helpful is to duplicate inexpensive items that I would use in each zone. For example if I use tweezers in my heat embossing zone and in my die cutting zone, I’ll buy a pair to keep in each zone. This inexpensive trick has helped save my sanity many times when I can’t find that thing that I need because it ended up in a different zone.
Like most people, I have Ikea units in my craft room. I have Kallax cubes and Alex drawers. All great for storage. The cubes have evolved over the years by me adding glass shelves, drawer units or doors, so I can put smaller items out without wasting space, and messy items out of sight.
This looks great and I organise like with like (all ink pads together, all cutting dies/stamp sets etc), papers by manufacturer/collection and cardstock by colour – all visible, except the drawers. I am levelling up my game with those by labelling each drawer.
I also have the carts (Ikea and other store) – these hold mixed media items and all the trays have cute labels, cut out of vinyl on my Silhouette machine.
I also have a weakness for magnet/pinboards. I have a few small ones (8) dotted around – some with magnetic cups/trays on for pens and things, some with small pieces of art I have attempted and the rest just have cute magnets on, lol.
Also, Ikea pegboards. They sell smallish ones and I have hooks, cups and trays on two of those, where I keep sprays, more pens, scissors and other ‘stuff’. My room isn’t massive but one of my Kallax units is at a 90 degree angle to the other and my husband pinned ply to the back and I covered it in glossy white vinyl (3 rolls – $2 each from KMart) so I have more wall space.
Approach your albums
My scrapping life has really transformed since I started doing album planning. I used to just scrap whatever/whenever and flew by the seat of my pants. Now that I have become a grandma for the first time, and want to do a first year album for my grand daughter, using Lauren’s album planner from Craft Some Joy, it has super increased my productivity.
If you want to explore more on Craft Some Joy, you can visit the website.
I plan out my stories. Ideally once a month I download all my photos from my phone or camera. I use the Photos program on my Mac to organize them and tag them with the people and themes (travel, seasonal etc) that matter to me.
Then I choose.
I can’t tell ALL the stories, so I choose some. Those photos get printed and stored in a regular binder. Into a page protector in that binder, I add the photos with a notecard listing anything I want to keep in mind for the story. Dates, product ideas, journaling notes, layout sketch, etc. This has changed my scrapping!
Don't forget the photos
In order to have layouts, we need to have photos. I have a complicated photo system, but reader Neyla shared this ingenious, super simple system.
Regarding photos, I just “like” the photos that I’m planning to print. Then I can find them much easier in the Favorites folder. I don’t “un-like” them until after I’ve scrapped them, since I’ll need to find the date.
No More
Sometimes overdoing it can be the problem with organization! See what folks had to say on this subject.
I’ve been on the organize, organize, organize bandwagon before. But what I found is that the more subcategories of organization levels I create, the harder it is to put things away. For example, if I have wood veneer pieces that are hearts and stars and vehicles and flowers I just dump them all in one container. If I put each of them in their own baggies, then in a container of wood veneer, then into a bin of embellishments, it is just too many steps to put things away!
I have to admit, I have also fallen into the ‘buy more containers’ trap. My sister works at a store that sells them and sends me pics of clearance items and of course, they are cute and I have to have them! Currently sitting in my craft room with a lot of empty cute boxes. That is an anti-tip.
Hope you got some good ideas from our organizing scrappy friends. We all struggle with something in our rooms. If you have a dilemma, let us know and maybe one of our members has a hot tip for you.
Likewise, if you have a hot tip, drop it here so I can add it to this resource post. And be sure to check back as things just may change here in the future!