A Little Re-Org

I had planned to maybe work on organizing some stuff in The Captain's Quarters, but when I lost my DSL this morning and was DISCONNECTED from the Interwebz, I got serious about things In There. 

Like most crafters, I have a lot of ... crafting supplies. Non-crafters are constantly amazed at the crap we collect, but hey, we NEED it, don't we?!?!? 

I'm not totally insane, so I knew I'd have to tackle things in pieces. Last night I was talking with my tweeps about a Clip-It-Up to organize my collection of clear stamps. I know they are pricey, so I looked at alternatives, including making my own. There are some pretty clever home-made versions out there!

My clear stamp storage box was overflowing:

Something HAD to be done! So I triaged. I dumped out that box, sorted things by company, created a WTH pile and a MEH pile, then put everything else back in the same box, and I had this:

MUCH better. AND, I no longer need a spinning rack organizer thingie to hold them. Sweet.

Next up: My A Muse 4x4 paper collection and my A Muse and PTI stamps. I never look at any of that stuff.  Both boxes were overflowing. I took out all sorts of "Pretty Little Papers" - these things:

 and yes, I think I have one of every pattern and color. They are now in the Not Keeping pile. I was ready to put all of the 4x4 packs into the Not Keeping pile, too, when I decided they were perfectly good papers, and could be cut and used as 4x4 layers. We'll see how that goes.

After I was done with those two boxes, I moved on to my Every Color Divine Twine collection. Here's the Before:

Yes, I can see it, but I KNOW I have it, and I decided to put it in a box:

It's too tall for the lid, but I'm okay with that! This is where it lives now:

(Yeah, it's fuzzy, but it's kinda dark in there and there's no closet light.) It sits nicely on top of my box of remaining PTI ribbons. And now I have a big empty where the twine used to live:

I can see SURFACE!  This is where I would have put my clear stamp spinner storage thing if I still needed one, which I do not! I'm sure I'll rearrange something else over here eventually.

But wait - there's more!  Back in the olden days, I used to buy Every Color Brad and Eyelet from Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts because they matched the SU colors and I could buy them in bulk. When I got my library wooden card catalog, I filled one of the drawers with all the tiny bags of brads and eyelets. I took a Before photo of it, but it's way to blurry to show you. I will, however, show you the After:

I love it! Those are stacks of clear containers that screw together. They are sold in a stack of 6 with one lid for the top container, but you can add as many or as few of the screw-on sections as you want. This was perfect for the OCD portion of my brain, as it let me put all like colors together without being limited to 6. This is what the stacks look like:

Nice, eh? Next, I knew my Nestie storage needed attention, too, plus my MFT and other dies lived in another box, and it was time for them all to live together. I got a wooden box for them to replace the cardboard IKEA box, and transferred everything over:

Here's the difference in size:

I had so much more room! So I grabbed my other box of dies and they now all live in this one box. I have the sections by shape: Circle, Rectangle, Border, etc., so it was pretty easy. I now have a new section at the front of the box for "Shapes" which is really "everything else". It still needs some work, so I'll show you that when I feel it's more blog-worthy.

Let's see, I think that's it on the organization front. I was so happy I got ANYTHING done, I pulled out one of my Clear & Simple dies to play with. It's a big one - almost a full card front, so I wasn't sure if it would work or not. I cut him out of felt and made this:

Isn't he CUTE? I might have to break down and put him on a square card, but still ... I'm going to have fun playing! The main die can also be made into an owl, which I'll try next.

Not bad for a Sunday, not bad at all. I think I still have some stampin' energy left. I might go read my irreverent stamps to see if I get any ideas.

Thanks for stopping by!