Papercraft Storage: Organizing Paper {Part 1}

Organizing papercrafting supplies can be a challenge if you have a small craft space like I do! But, it's definitely do-able. As promised, I'm going to share with you how I organize my craft area and hopefully it will inspire you and give you some new ideas!

This is Part 1 of 2 on organizing paper. I decided to separate this into two posts: cardstock and designer paper. The last couple of nights I spent organizing my cardstock. I have a lot of paper, so this was time consuming! I love colour coordinating paper with ink and embellishments, so I decided to separate all my cardstock by Stampin Up colours. A couple years ago, I bought a filing box and filled it with hanging file folders. I used to organize my paper by colours of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, etc.) This worked well for a while, until I started collecting specific colours from Stampin Up. Everytime I try to look for a specific colour, I have to leaf through the "reds" file folder, for example, where there are 3 or 4 different Stampin Up reds. Just finding paper becomes quite a chore and quite time-consuming. So, I separated out all the Stampin Up colours, still organizing the file folders in order of the rainbow, but this time labeling each file folder with the specific Stampin Up colour.

To better illustrate what I'm trying to explain in words, here are a couple of pictures:

 

I thought of alphabetizing the file folders, but I decided to group them by shades of colours and then in order of the rainbow. Often, when I'm trying to decide what colour to use for a papercraft project/card, I look through 'pinks' or 'greens', for example, and then decide which shade I'm going to use.

 

This filing box fits all of my 8.5 x 11 cardstock (with a few unwrapped packs of paper outside of the box). It's a bit of a tight fit and my collection may be growing with the new In-Colours that are being introduced in the new annual catalogue. However, it works great for now.

 

As for my 12"x12" cardstock, I don't have too much of this size at the moment, but I put most of it in this 12"x12" paper storage container that I found at Michael's:

 

 

You may ask, what do I do with all the little scraps? I hate to waste paper, so I save almost all of my scraps. My motto is If I can punch something out of it, I keep it. :) So, I separated out the scraps by Stampin Up colour and put them in little ziploc bags. I then labeled each bag with a Sharpie. If I had more room in the filing box, I would put each bag in the appropriate file folder. However, it's pretty snug as it is, so I stuck the little baggies in a photo box on my craft table.

 

 



I know this will make my life much easier when I go to my crafting table to make a card or project. It's also a great way to see how much paper I have left in each colour before I put an order in. Currently, I have lots of paper to use up!

Thanks for stopping by. Come back tomorrow for Organizing Paper: Part 2!