Where scrapbooking means business.
Scrapbook totes were not as numerous at CHA Winter 2013 as they were in past years, but at least two manufacturers presented pretty and practical solutions for crafters to store their stashes.
We R Memory Keepers offered a new “360” spinner wheeled bag and a coordinating shoulder bag. The teal patterned two-piece set makes a beautiful, classically stylish statement for scrapbookers and other crafters on the go.
Yesterday, I described the problems that had gradually and not-so-gradually developed in my kitchen scrap space to make parts of the space no longer practical for me after a year of using it.
So, after I took a brutal look at all of those facts, I came up with a plan to partially rework the kitchen area, keeping the things that were working – and even expanding on them – and replacing the things that weren’t.
The plan wasn’t radical, but involved a few large changes that will drastically enhance the usability (and long-term flexibility) of the space for my paper crafting needs.
A New Drawer Unit: The biggest key to updating the space was to replace the cubes and Cropper Hopper cart with an Ikea Alex drawer unit. The Alex unit looks much nicer for my home decor, and provides a single nice solid work surface for my paper trimmer and die cut machine to sit on. It also provides tons of nice deep drawer space for all my ink pads and small bottles of things like Stickles and Distress Stain, as well as great storage for all my small embellishments, ribbon, twine and many other supplies. This unit, with the help of an assortment of drawer organizers from Walmart, sucks up product like you wouldn’t believe! It’s greatly enhanced both the appearance and efficiency of my work space – a double win!
About 15 months ago, I finished the creation of my new kitchen scrap space. This moved my scrapbook work area out of the spare room at our house and into the kitchen. Now, for the past few months, I’ve been in the midst of overhauling my original kitchen creation again to fix a variety of problems with it. How can it need an overhaul so fast? I believe that organization is something of a living, breathing process. It’s never really done because we as people are always changing and growing, which means that our organizational needs shift and change as well. What worked a year ago, or even a month ago, can suddenly be unworkable for us today.
So let’s look at what I got right, what stood the test of time, and what I outgrew and got wrong in my original design of the space that I am reworking in this next go-around.
To refresh your memory, here’s a look at what my kitchen scrap space looked like before I started the overhaul:
The start of a new year is a time that many people – not just scrapbookers – start thinking about organizing, cleaning, and purging their spaces. For me and my scrap room, this process always starts way before January. I’m an absolute wimp when it comes to cold temperatures and gray skies, so as soon as it starts to get even a touch chilly outside I retreat indoors to my warm, cozy spaces. The problem is that after I spend just a few weeks in those spaces, I start itching to rearrange them and try something new. I guess I just get tired of looking at the same old surroundings!
I started plotting and planning my scrap room revamp in late October, and then after waiting to have time to make the trip to IKEA (the closest one to me is about four hours away) I finally started the actual makeover process in early December. It took about a month of work interspersed between my regular job, family gatherings, and Christmas prep and celebration, but I’m finally finished and am thrilled that my scrapping space now looks like this!
Since I talked all about the recent moving and transformation of my scrap space on this week’s Paperclipping Roundtable episode, I figured pictures were probably due of it as well!
Up until last fall, I’d had a scrap space in our spare bedroom that doubled as my office as well. (I wrote about it awhile back – it had changed some since then, but the basic idea of the space remained the same.) Then when my husband started working with me full-time for awhile before he was sentenced, he asked me to start sharing his office with him for both convenience and so that we could spend as much time as possible together. To our surprise, we both loved the arrangement and have decided to make the joint office permanent.
That left only my scrap stuff in the spare room – until the family tag feud in November and December required a work space that could seat two people so we could both work on our tags together. We took over the kitchen table “temporarily” as a joint workspace. And something amazing happened…I discovered I scrapped more, and got more done, than I ever had when I was hidden away in the spare room.
All of the reasoning and methods of my move to the kitchen are pretty thoroughly detailed in the Roundtable episode on shared scrap spaces, but here’s the photos of what I’ve done for my new space, which is still actually a bit of a work in progress.
the kitchen eating area seen from the living room
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