Organization Day!

Good evening, all! Today has been GLORIOUS! And not just the weather, although it probably set some records today for LACK of heat and humidity. I have all the doors and windows open, and it is breezy through and through!

Today is day 1 of my 5-day weekend. I have much planned, but as we all know, I'll be lucky if I get half of it done. So I am quite proud of my accomplishments so far today. In case you don't know, today is the first day of the new Stampin' Up! catalog year. As such, I had on my list:

1. Re-organize card stock
2. Re-organize inks
3. Re-organize markers
4. Place 1st catalog order after 12 noon MT.

And I DID THEM ALL! Woo-hoo! For the non-stampers among you, this may be a little scary to see, but I thought I'd show you the re-orgs.

First up, we have card stock. Because I'm a Demo who gives classes, and because I also make cards to sell, it's just easier for me to always have all the SU colors on hand. Please remember what I am about to show you is ONLY SU card stock, ink, etc. All my contraband card stock lives in other cabinets.

Here we go:

Waaaay on top are my White, Vanilla, Kraft, and Naturals White and Ivory. I keep them there because I use them all the time, and this way I don't have to open any doors. Also on top are the current In Colors (I'd already relocated the old ones when I took this pic.)

Top shelf with doors holds all the current colors. I keep them together by color group (green, blue, etc.) and not by SU color family. My brain is happier that way. The rest of the neutrals - Black, Sahara Sand, Basic Gray - are on the right, and some overflow extras are stacked on top of the greens and blues.

The second shelf holds all the retired In Colors, by year. To the left of the In Colors are a bazillion packs of DSP. We'll see those again momentarily.

I took my handy-dandy Farewell Colors list and purged all the colors that are retired. Here they are, with the hoarded extras added in to the mix:

I then took all my pre-ordered card stock and put them in the boxes on that first shelf - in with the greens and blues, etc. I also took all the returning In Color card stock from their boxes on the second shelf and moved them up to the Current Colors shelf.

I still had that pesky pile of retired card stock to address. So I had to re-org the bottom shelf, too. It holds (held) mostly extra packs of now-retired card stock, plus all my specialty card stock like Brushed Gold, Shimmer White, Glossy, Vellums, etc. I had to remove some 12x12 storage cases to make room for everything, and after much futzing, I ended up with this configuration:

I now have a section of Neutrals back-up stock in the center of the second shelf. On the bottom left of the lower shelf I have all the now-retired card stock standing up, with their dividers. In front of the card stock is a stack of all those specialty papers, held up by a book-end thingie. It actually works pretty well. I will get some more dividers and label all of them eventually.

Remember those 12x12 boxes of DSP I had to remove? Well, I have this cabinet on the other side that holds some 12x12 overflow and a box of stuff I can't bear to purge:

The box had to go, and it was replaced by the two 12x12 storage boxes of DSP:

Oh, look! I have room for more! Not. That space will end up holding some more 12x12 storage boxes so I can make room for all the new DSP I'll be ordering out of this catalog.

So here we have this poor, poor box of goodies that is now homeless:

I could go through it all and use it. Or I could go through another cabinet and purge that stuff and find this box a new home. That is more likely to happen. I love everything in this box, I just don't use it.

Moving on to the inks. I have two Color Caddies. One with the extender section and one without. Here's the Before of the two caddies:

The smaller one holds all my retired In Color inks plus the 6 or so Craft (pigment) full-sized ink pads. The one on the right holds all the standard colors (except Basic Black, Basic Brown and Sahara Sand) plus the current In Colors. I have them by color (greens, blues, etc.) because when I'm looking for a green ink, I want to see them all together. Color families are no help to me when I am looking for "green". (I am a Bad Demo, I know, but this is just how my brain works.)

Today we had a major shake-up in the Color Caddy world. I took the smaller one APART and cleaned it, since some of the Craft inks had leaked over the years, and it was a mess. By the way, if you get ink on your white carpet, dab it with a dry paper towel to pick up all the black, then blot it with another paper towel wet with Hydrogen Peroxide. Keep dabbing until all (or most ) of the ink is gone. Ahem.

After the re-org, here is what I ended up with: Smaller caddy holds all the neutrals, including the 4 or 5 shrink-wrapped Basic Black ink pads I discovered in a drawer:

On the other sides are the retired In Colors that did not return this year. I moved the Craft inks, now cleaned and individually packaged in zip-top bags (grrr) to a drawer, where I made room for them by removing the aforementioned 4 or 5 shrink-wrapped Basic Black ink pads. (I need a keeper.)

The larger Caddy now holds all the rest of the SU ink I own:

This includes all 40 new standard colors plus all the now-retired colors that were already in there. I plan to put a red dot on the ends of the retired ones so I don't accidentally plan a card around a retired color for one of my classes. You just know that's something I'd do, right?

By some miracle, while looking for something else, I found my "lost" packages of 8 1/2 x 11 dividers and labeled them for all the new colors. See how organized I look:

It's almost scary. But I'm not done! Oh, no, I was on a roll, baby! I tackled the markers, too! Here is the re-org, just about finished:

Notice my cheat sheet of the new color groups? ;) I read somewhere that the markers are a perfect fit for the storage cases we sell (WAIT, that's not right ... the cases are the perfect size to hold our markers... yeah, that's better), so instead of organizing my non-SU unmounted stamps, I took the 4-pack of cases I had and used them for the 4 new color groups. Sweet!

Here's what's left of the old markers:

So sad. But look at my shiny new packaging for my new markers:

I bought the "all the new colors" markers pack, and it comes with an insert for the Many Marvelous Markers storage box, which I don't have. So I hacked it up and put the strips on each case:

This is how I operate, anyway.

Then, even though I was going to wait until later, I caved and placed my first humongous SU catalog order for the season. OMG, it was crazy. Then, after I stepped away from the steaming laptop, I realized I'd forgotten a few things, and no, I could not wait until later in the month. I could not! I would remember the incompleteness of my collections, and I would not sleep until I had the items ordered and on their way to chez moi. So I placed a second order. There, I admitted it. (Is there a 12-step program for this affliction?)

So what else did I do today? Well, I did all that organizing before noon, and except for the break to place my order(s), since then I've been stamping stuff and also futzing with fabric:

Yeah, that's a piece of fabric I plan to use behind some stamped images, and in order to get it square, you pull the threads out and let the fabric's weave do all the work. Well, that's fine if you do one or two, but since I don't know when to stop, I have quite a few more to do than two.

Here are some of the parts-is-parts, just to show you I've actually done something today besides organize ink and paper:


Oh, look, this little girl has a freckle right in the center of her forehead. Sigh ... I think I'll call this a sneak peek at my work-in-progress and go play with some more fabric now. I really hope to get these finished tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!