Organization Tips for Scrapbookers: The Ultimate Guide for Storing Your Supplies by Denise Pauley is a book from Creating Keepsakes.It is way thicker than I expected, at 256 pages. This book packs more heft than most of its competitors!

A better title for this book would perhaps have been “1001 ideas for storing your scrapbook stuff”. The book’s pages are extremely heavy on photos and light on text. The huge color photos on every page are definite eye candy for anyone who is looking for inspiration for methods of storing their supplies (although the artsy focus effects in the photos can be somewhat annoying). If you know the nuts and bolts of the “theory” of organizing your scrapbook supplies but are looking for inspiration of visually interesting ways to do it, this book will certainly provide it. The ideas in this book aren’t just functional, they are nice to look at too.

The book does include brief discussions of the basics of organization of your supplies, describing sorting by topic, type and other methods. And it includes cameos from various Creating Keepsakes scrapbook celebs as experts to provide their favorite storage tips. But this text content definitely feels secondary to the eye candy of the photos.

If DIY is your thing, there are some quick projects for organizing such as a fabric-covered “inspiration board” and converting an address book to an envelope letter storage system.

There are some really great ideas in this book but I wouldn’t expect it to help you organize if you are starting from the ground up. Rather, it is for the scrapbooker looking for, as the title says, tips to help them with their storage. It will help you improve existing storage and iron out problems with it, or make it nicer to look at and live with. If you are needing help on just getting started organizing, I would recommend instead getting a copy of The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker. If, on the other hand, you are an experienced organizer just looking to improve your system’s usability or looks, you might find inspiration in Organization Tips.

Related Posts:

• My New “Organized & Inspired” Scrap Room
• Bookshelf: The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker

Am I dreaming? My favorite stamp company has come out with clear stamps to accompany my recent favorite scrapbook organizing book! As much as I love scrapbook supplies it is rare that a new product makes me grin from ear to ear – but this did!

I still need to make the labels for all my drawers and storage baskets – these  Technique Tuesday stamps will be perfect!

They will also be great for using for all of the swaps that I participate in with some friends, for making tag labels for those packages! I can’t wait to get my hands on these!

I promised in my previous post about the book The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker that I would show you my reorganized room when it was finished! So, minus a few finishing details, here is what I did to overhaul my space.

(If you would like an idea what my room looked like before the overhaul, visit the photo gallery of a previous arrangement of it on this site here. I had changed the arrangement somewhat since those photos but the concept was still the same – the table in the middle of the room, lots of plastic drawers, two bookcases, the cubes, and a plastic drawer cart.)

After reading the “Organized & Inspired” book and evaluating my previous space based on their quizzes (to which there are no wrong answers – they are more like personality quizzes to establish what you need), I decided my space needed wholesale change. I also needed to make some changes to the other side of the room to accommodate a new desktop computer system in my office area instead of a laptop. And I had been unhappy for some time with the “functional” look of my space. It wasn’t exactly pleasing to the eye and it is a room that I spend hours in every day since I work at home and it does dual duty as both scrap room and office.

The first thing that happened was that I decided I needed to simplify. A lot of things had to go. The clutter was distracting me while scrapping. A lot of things were sitting unused and just taking up space. A big box of stuff has been removed and will be donated, given away or sold when I have a chance to sort through it.

The next thing that happened was that I decided that except in the closet and for two 12″ x 12″ units in the room, the plastic drawers were history. They were inefficient, since the drawers were often half-empty, and ugly to look at. Some were given away, some repurposed in other parts of the house (in closets), and the rest donated.

After all of this, I was able to get rid of one of the bookcases, and I decided that the desk would go against the wall. It’s not the best for light, and I am a little claustrophobic sometimes sitting against the wall. But it made the room feel much bigger and less cluttered.

The closet now houses only stuff that I don’t need to see to know that I have, things like adhesive refills, paintbrushes, and extra sandpaper. That seems to be working really well.

The result of all this change is dramatic. See for yourself:

All of these changes were made for only a little over $150! The baskets on the bookcase are all from Michael’s, bought on sale for 50% off. They allow me to be able to have a lot of my things out where I can sort of see them. Because I have realized that if I can’t see something I won’t use it. But yet the baskets look nice while still making things somewhat visible.

The 3 drawer cubes are from Target and cost about $25 each. The same ones are also available at many craft chains. The shelves on the wall came from Lowe’s and were very inexpensive. They let my ribbon and buttons be seen by me and also be decoration for the room. (I already had the containers for those but they weren’t well used.)

Another angle of the desk area:

There were some unexpected benefits to moving the table out of the middle of the room. My 4 year-old daughter immediately brought her new toddler sized papasan chair in the room, set up camp in the middle of the floor and now likes to play or read in here while I work or scrap. That may not sound like a benefit in a room that is supposed to be Mommy’s getaway at times, but most of the time it is a joy. And when Bridget is not using her chair, the cat thinks it is a great place to “supervise” me from while I work or scrap.

I still need to add labeling tags to the baskets and the drawers, but so far I am very pleased with the function – and the form – of my newly reorganized and inspired space!

Alright, anyone who has read this site regularly knows that I have an organization problem. I have repeatedly reworked my scrap space in the past couple of years and always get a bit closer to just right, but never quite hit it on the head. But now, I think perfection just might be within reach with a new tool in my arsenal.

You see, Santa in the form of my husband (with a little help from my wishlist) brought me the book The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker.

The cover alone of this book left me weak in the knees with hope that I might actually have found a book for ME. The room pictured on the cover, which belongs to co-author Aby Garvey,  is the same green as my room (although it looks beige in the computer graphic.) The window treatment is similar to mine, and the mixing of furniture is real. Books full of rooms with built-in cabinets are nice to look at but don’t lend themselves to adaptation to an 11×11 room with little wall space.

This recent publication from Simple Scrapbooks is not just an organization book. (And I should know since I have read them all in my endless quest for organizational help!) Authors Wendy Smedley and Aby Garvey take and unique approach that solves problems without being overwhelming, and the book even features a few projects readers can create to decorate their creative space with.

The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker is spiral-bound and divided into three main sections. The first section is a step-by-step process of determining your needs for your organization and inspiration in your space. While seemingly not as in-depth as other books on the topic, it effectively addresses topics through broader concepts without bogging the reader down in distracting detail. In fact, I believe that it is the application of these broader concepts that has helped lead me to the solutions that I needed.

The second section is devoted to sample scrap spaces but is definitely more than just eye candy. Tucked between each room’s detailed photographs are descriptions and explanations of the room’s set-up and contents. Even if the room’s occupant didn’t have the same scrapping process as I do, it seemed that there was still a relevant storage or decor idea that I could take from each room.

The third section of Organized and Inspired focuses on projects that scrapbookers can create to store or display their supplies and creations. It is a beautiful reminder that our spaces should not just be practical but should be inspirational as well.

One of the most valuable parts of The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker is the workbook that is tucked into a pocket in the back of the book. Consisting of a two page quiz and checklist for each of the book’s first 11 chapters, the workbook will walk the reader through identifying their personal organizational needs and style. Answering questions in that workbook is what made my personal lightbulb go on about what wasn’t working for me in my storage set-up and made me realize why certain of my supplies were constantly ignored in my creative process. I am looking forward to fixing that in the next few days!

The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker is a simple but comprehensive way to re-evaluate your scrapbook area and improve things that aren’t working for you. It is also a great source of inspiration to remind yourself that form and function do not have to be mutually exclusive – your scrap space can be nice to look at and nice to work at!