Paper Organization!

Good morning! As promised, the fruits of my weekend, a very well organized paper supply! Let's start with my 8-1/2x11 cardstock. I bought an office storage box from staples a while ago when I first needed a storage solution for scraps and I bought legal size hanging file folders to fit in the box. I chose this particular office box because it had wheels, a very handy tool which sure saves the back when moving this (now very heavy) box around. At the time I didn't realize that the box was adaptable for letter size hanging folders as well, but over the weekend I realized this and converted it, which is perfect for 8-1/2x11 cardstock. I labelled each folder by colour. For colours that I thought I didn't have enough of for its own folder, I made "misc" folders at the back of the box, organized by collection. I added a note in each misc folder with the colours that are in that folder. Overall, this whole storage system cost $34 - $18 for the box and $16 for two boxes of hanging file folders.

Now onto my designer paper! Boy, did I have a hard time with this! I bought this scrapbook and paper storage system from Michael's on Boxing Day and had just put all my 12x12 paper in it. Well, you can imagine what a pain it was to find anything you were looking for in that box!! So, after much thought, I decided to convert this box to a strictly designer paper haven. The next problem I had was finding 12x12 hanging file folders. After three days of looking and searching the internet for a supplier that would ship to Canada, I finally found them at Michael's (I had checked there initially, but either they didn't have them or I asked the wrong person for help *lol*). Anyways, I was VERY happy to find them, and, to add to my happiness, they were on sale :)

I organized the paper alphabetically, each in its own file inside the hanging file folder. I added the name of the paper and the names of the coordinating colours on the front of each file folder for quick reference.

Inside each folder is a little baggie for small scraps of each collection and the larger scraps and full size sheets are loose in the file. I like this system because I can pull out the folder for a particular designer paper series and see exactly what scraps are available, then close the folder and put it all away. It's self contained cleanliness :) This organizational system was a bit more expensive, $58 in total - $10 for the box, $40 for the hanging file folders (both bought on sale), and $8 for the file folders.

Thanks for looking today and I hope you are inspired to organize your crafting area! Next on my list... finding a way to organize ALL my embellishments!