ORGANIZING FEAT

I have a goal for this month. I am working on mot spending any money on craft supplies for a month. I am actually going to try for a month and a half. I have so much stuff, both for stamping and quilting that I am discovering I can't find what I need when I need it and so my first response is to buy more. Also I have so much disorganized stuff that I forget what I already have and buy it a second time. This is stopping as of May 1. I am ORGANIZING!!!!!

I started with the project of unmounting my stamp sets and this is a long term project. So far I have 28 sets unmounted and in cassette cases. Then I worked on organizing my paper scraps and placing each SU color in its own hanging file folder with a label in the color of card stock using the SU printed labels. Both of these projects have worked very well and yes I am using my scraps much more efficiently rather than cutting into a new sheet for a small piece creating of course even more scraps.....

Yesterday I went made a trip to the container store for another CD case holder and also found some nifty divided boxes that I thought would be perfect for my next much needed organizational project.....my ribbon scraps and odd lengths of ribbons. These scraps were simply jumbles in a plastic shoe box. This storage method did keep the ribbons from spilling out everywhere, but it did not really make them usable. I couldn't really see what I had without digging through the mess and spending time untangling them.

I purchased three boxes which each had 30 small slots in it. My thinking with having three boxes is I have one each for cool, warm and neutral colors of ribbons. I decided since most of my ribbons are non Stampin' Up ribbons that it made no sense trying to do boxes for each SU color family and one for neutrals.

I can't take credit for this storage idea. Several months ago a friend of mine showed me her ribbons in this type of a system. And at that time I knew it was what I wanted to do with mine. I love just looking in the boxes. The colors are so fun. Here is a close up of the warm color box. Isn't it fun to look at?

I still have my spools of ribbon in two sets of SU's plastic ribbon holders, but frankly I don't like them and if they had been so blasted expensive I'd get rid of them. I don't know if I haven't figured out how to use them correctly or what, but when I try to pull out a length of ribbon to use all the spools in the row turn and their ribbons unroll also. I end up either with a mess of unrolled ribbons or have to take time to very tediously re-roll them. I know I probably shouldn't say negative things about SU products being a SU demonstrator and all, but I just can't recommend something I think is poorly designed and their ribbon holder is one of those things. Sorry SU.......

So now my ribbon pieces are wonderfully organized I wonder what will be my next project will be? Other than continuing to unmount stamp sets that is.

In case you are wondering I am doing some stamping during this whole process, but so far the only one I have a picture of is a Mother's Day card for my mom and you will have to wait till after Mother's Day to see it. She just may drop by here and I wouldn't want to ruin her surprise.