A Real Eye-Opener in the Ribbon Department

We all, er...well, most of us in this stampin' and scrappin' hobby, are hoarders to some extent. Me, I am a paperholic ... and a collector of ribbon. Since my place is soooo small, I am always looking for ways to better store the cr@p I have, mostly to reclaim floor space, but in reality it also means I can buy more. :-)

So I have embraced the idea of wrapping all my ribbon onto wooden clothes pins to more efficiently store it, and ultimately to also more efficiently find it when I need it. There have been several blogs that talk about grouping the newly-coiled ribbons by color - blues & greens together, reds & pinks, etc., in very cool-looking plastic containers on a shelf where you can see them. My shelf is in a closet, but this might still help me find what I am looking for. At least I should be able to take out the blues & greens without having to deal with ALL of them when I only want one particular color. Sounds good, anyway.

First step: obtain some clothes pins. One of my co-workers planned to do the same thing with her ribbons, and since she was trekking to the Dollar Store this past weekend, she offered to pick up some clothes pins for me. And how many did I want? Um, how about 100 for starters (5 bags of 20.)

Second step: delivery of said clothes pins to yours truly. That was accomplished Monday at work...very convenient!

Third step: take photos of the Before situation. Here ya go:

This is the collection of 1-yard pieces of ribbon I had to have as I checked out at Recollections for the .. sniff, sniff ... last time. Hey - it was on sale! In this shot it is in the bag, sitting on a bench in my Kitchen.


This is the Miscellaneous Ribbon Repository - all the ribbon I have purchased in the past several months (like 6 months) at various LSS's, tossed into a box in my Craft Room ... the room no one can get into because of all the cr@p tossed into boxes.



My spooled ribbons, obtained over many years of hoarding, are currently stored in two sweater-sized Container Store plastic storage boxes. This one is the half-filled one, and pretty much only one layer deep.


This is the second of the two storage boxes, and in addition to the spools being two layers deep, there is also a collection of Mike's wooden spool ribbons tossed in there as well as a bunch of loose ribbons.

Add to these shameful collections the bags from my Really Reasonable Ribbon Club plus the...ahem...RABOM ribbons I had to get in several (like 4) weak moments, and you can see I have a daunting task ahead of me.

Step 4: assume the position and begin.

I started with the piles o'ribbon from the Recollections bag and also from the box in the Craft Room (Craft Room - what a joke!) Once I'd finished those, I did the Ribbon Club bags. Then I moved on to the smaller of the two storage boxes, and did all the bobbin ribbons. Lastly, I started on a few of the spooled ribbons.

Then I counted. I went through 4 of the 5 bags (that's 80) clothes pins already, and I had not even finished the storage box. Oh, man, I needed more clothes pins - a LOT more. So tonight on the way home I stopped at my Dollar Tree and picked up 10 packs (200), then 2 more (+40) and 2 more (+40). Then I left. They probably thought I was nuts. Oh, did I mention that I also found some ribbon there that looks like it would match SU's Basic Gray? Hey - it was a buck!

Tonight's task is to first spool up the two bags of RABOM ribbon I realized I did not do last night, then I'll move on to the rest of the spools in the smaller storage box. I had no idea this would be a week-long project! What was I thinking!?!?!?!

On the way home from work tomorrow I plan to stop by the Container Store and look at their storage options. I'll look at the cool containers, but I suspect I will end up getting the shoe-box-sized storage boxes like the sweater boxes I currently use.

Off to spool up the RABOM stuff before I have to go to bed.