Organizing My Craft Stash

I am convinced that organizing and reorganizing my craft stash will set me free.  Sometimes, it will even keep me out of Michael's.  For a while, anyway.

A few months ago, I started cleaning out the boxes and boxes of stuff we had in the basement... And I realized, when I found 13 half used bottles of Aileen's Tacky Glue, that I needed to make some changes.  Serious changes.  So I bought boxes and baskets and shelves.  Unfortunately, you can't buy time.  And there is no Time Lottery to play.  But there is a long weekend.  And I have spent much of it organizing my stash.

And I bought a 24 pack of Martha's glitter.  It had to be done.

Here are the directions to make some of the cute little things I've done:

• For loose letters:
• Take a 3 ring binder with baseball card-type plastic protector sheet inserts.
• Dedicate one page per letter
• Pop out the letters and put them in the different pockets to make them more visible
• For alphabet stickers (on a sheet)
• A photobox is perfect for this.  Just sort by color, add tabs to mae it easier to pull what you need.  For oversized sheets, use the 3 ring binder above, with single page plastic inserts instead of 9 pockets.
• For the huge sticker and die cut stash:
• Take 12X12 or 12X12.5 (white .5 margin at the top) scrap book paper
• Fold in half, print side to print side.
• Fold down front half  about one inch so you have a 5X12 pocket in front.
• Glue down the front flap (this is just for pretty, it could be skipped if you aren't into it).
• Glue up the sides, close to the edges, leave top open.
• When completely dry, write labels right on the top of your "file"
• Some Examples
• Baby Die Cuts (frames, icons, etc.)
• Baby Stickers
• Baby Words and Quotes
• Floral with Brads
• Floral Die cuts
• Floral Punch outs
• Floral Stickers
• Floral Words and Quotes
• Tags- Blank
• Tags- Graphic
• Tags- with Words
• You might not have a ton of baby stuff- so make just one folder for Baby and put everything in there.  But I am anal.  One category will not suffice when 3 are possible...
• Put these in a alpha order in a large 10X14 plastic box.  With a lid.  Lids are, I'm finding, essential for good organization.
• Voila!  You now know about your entire sticker collection, so you can skip the Jolee's aisle at your local AC Moore.  Just testing you.  You know that 40% off coupon (50% on Labor Day) is burning a hole through your mind you read this.
• If you have a bulging folder in your craft file, break it down into smaller categories or reinforce the sides with tape -- or try out brads or grommets or whatever.
• You might want to put an example or two on front.  I do this a lot with my pre-punched shapes.
• If your category is holiday related so you don't need it all the time and you can stash it at the back of your closet until needed, you might want to consider making it is its own box. 
• For example, Christmas. Apparently, last year I was smoking crack at Michael's and thought I'd stamp all of my own cards.  Yes, really.  I'm sure 2011 will be my "homemade card from a doctoral student" year. It's September.  A girl can dream.  I already have 10 done!  65 to go!
• So I have a Christmas themed photo box and threw all die cuts and stickers in there.  And a mini box of stamps.  Too many Christmas stamps. Alphabets are still organized as above.
• For buttons-- I found cheap glass spice jars and sorted by color and put them on a shelf.  Cute!

More ideas later! 

Happy Crafting!