Betsy Veldman
It seems every time summer rolls around I’m in the mood to clean and purge.
The kids are home all day and there’s generally more “stuff” around…baseball stuff, swimming stuff, toys, summer rec crafts, etc.! I don’t deal well with clutter, so I really get the urge to organize things!
Today I thought I’d share with you one of my recent organizational projects: my dreaded (but well-loved!) scrap basket.
Do you have an over abundance of scraps like me? Every time I think I’m going to do a project using my scraps, I feel like they actually multiply! But today is a new day.
I was inspired by some of the ladies chatting on the Papertrey Ink board. They were cutting their papers into 6×6 blocks. Oh, the genius! I also scrapbook, so I could never do this to all of my paper, but my scraps go pretty much exclusively to card making. So why not?
So that’s what I did. And when I finished trimming them neatly, I couldn’t just toss them all back in a bucket. So I sorted them by color. If a piece was double-sided, I tossed one piece into the pile that coordinated with the front side, and the second piece went into the pile that matched the back side.
Oh, sweet mother of scraps…I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.
I picked up these baskets at the dollar store. They fit the 6×6 pieces perfectly. I used my die cut machine to cut the dividers out of cardstock.
This first basket is sorted by color.
This second basket contains neutrals (cream/white, brown/black) as well as stripes, florals, dots, and Christmas.
Lookin’ good, don’t you think?
Oh, but wait. After cutting everything down to 6×6 blocks, I was left with…
THIS.
Will it ever end?
I had a little devil on one shoulder saying, “Just throw them away!!!”
But a little fairy, aka my 7-year-old daughter, sat on my other shoulder saying, “No, keep them! They’re soooooo pretty!”
How could I resist? So I issued myself a challenge. They need to be used by the end of the year or they need to go. I told my little fairy that she was welcome to dig out of that basket anytime she pleased.
So to get started on my challenge, my little fairy and I sat down together to work on a project to try and whittle down that stack of strips (the photo really doesn’t do it justice…there is A LOT of paper there!).
I decided to pull strips that worked well together. You know I love to mix patterns and colors, so I really enjoyed this process. I covered an 8 ½” x 11” sheet of cardstock with adhesive and filled it with strips. I trimmed off any excess even with the edge of the cardstock (and yes, threw it away! Go me!).
Here are the sheets I made…
And here’s one my daughter made. She loves blue, so she mixed and matched a bunch of blue pieces…
My thought is these sheets can be cut down to create card sets. I gave it a try and it was FUN! Here’s a set I made using a sheet from the photo above.
I grabbed the Essential Sentiments stamp set from A Muse Studio, which contains tons of great everyday and holiday sentiments.
This allowed me to quickly put together cards for lots of different occasions. I just added a few die cuts, a little twine, and some buttons. This would also make a great on-the-go project to take along on vacation or to a crop.
To get a better look at these cards, stop by my blog!
I’m on an organizational roll, so keep me going! Share your best tip here and I’ll pick one winner to take home the Essential Sentiments stamp set (seen above). All comments must be received by midnight (MDT) on Thursday, July 28.
Happy crafting!
Betsy Veldman,
Paper Crafts Go-to Gal
P.S. Just a reminder…you have one more day to vote in Round 3 of Gallery Idol! Click HERE to view the Top 10′s cards and cast your vote. Voing will end at noon (MDT) tomorrow!
I love love LOVE your idea about scrap storage!! I have a tip about ribbon storage! I had a big plastic jar leftover from some chex mix from Target and I use it for scraps of ribbon! Just wrap a piece of paper around it, put some letter stickers on it, and you’re in business!!
I also keep my papers organized by color. I use baby food sized jars for small embellishments like buttons, etc. Thanks for your tip about using paper scraps. I can’t seem to throw away even the smallest scraps of my beautiful papers! I love your idea for making collage sheets of the scraps and then using them in my cardmaking. Thanks!
OMG I’m totally LOL’ing at ‘sweet mother of scraps’!!!! What a funny and inspirational article, thank you so much! I can’t wait to cut down my unorganized scraps! It will really clean up the place
Uh.. gosh, I would love that stamp set.. but a tip…OK, here’s my fave tip that is honestly NOT my idea but couldn’t tell you where I found it.. To hold my stickles bottles, I bought some two sided adhesive velcro circles, attached one circle to the underside of my shelf, and stuck the other circles onto the bottom of my Stickles, and voila! Rip ‘em off anytime u need to use it and slap it back onto the velcro when done!
I have starting cutting the real small scraps into ATC size, 3.5 x 2.5. Then I still had scraps, so I am making pieces that are 3.25 x 2.25 and 3 x 2 inches to use as layers. Now I have pieces ready to just stamp or add an extra cut to and a card is done!
And I love the way you have organized the patterned scraps. My colors are never a problem, but the patterned pieces are all jumbled together. Thanks!
what a most wonderful article with FAB organizational tips!! And to have such FINE card samples-YUM!!I love Betsy Veldman art! My newest toy has been the Spellbinders Grand Caliber and die cuts. I hate throwing anything so I keep a file folder of the leftover papers after they’ve gone thru the machine. I like that I can cut out the various sized “frames”( left from the labels dies) especially when on patterned paper, glue onto a notecard and stamp a sentiment in the open center. I think this stamp set would be the perfect fit!
Oh, if you could just come to my house and give me a hand! All, I have to say it sure looks pretty and must have taken hours! Thanks for sharing!~
LOVE the 6 x 6 idea and then using the leftover strips the way you did to make an 8.5 x 11 sheet. NICE! My tip is in how I organize my die cuts. They are sorted by groups, i.e. round/ovel, square/rectangle, etc. etc. and I place them on magnetized sheets which are then put in empty video cases. Keeps everything nice and neat. And of course the video cases are labeled so I know which one to grab.
Thanks so much for all your inspiration!!!
Fabulous ideas! One idea I have is to put all of a season’s papers, trims, and embellishments in one 12×12 bin together so I can just grab that and the stamps when I’m ready to make cards for the season. I have done this for Halloween and Christmas so far.
I have been using a big plastic file box for my scraps for years now. Everything is seperated into ROYGBIV, including pattenered papers. Might try to seperate the paper into solids and patterns. I let my kids go through my scrap box and make their cards for thank yous and birthdays. Really love the paper you made from scraps….I will be doing that for sure.
I store all my solid color cardstock scraps in a drawer unit. My granddaughter loves to pick through it for supplies although she was a little confused when the scraps did not always match the color of the drawers.
I just love my Scrapbox. I would say it is the best organizational tool I have and I actively use it to organize my scraps- making me use them more often. Also, I find the urge to go buy more stuff is less since I know just where to go to get the supply I’m thinking of.
Oh, I really just need to read this thread! I’m in such an organizational deficit at the moment. However, I do look my plastic and cotton hanging shoe organizer for my punches. It hangs on the back of my craft room door and I can see all of my punches in the plastic pockets. It’s way better than having to dig through little plastic bins for my punches!
Oh Betsy! This is genius! I am going to the dollar store asap and get me some of these baskets – I just saw them the other day and wondered what I could possibly use them for in my craft room and here you are tellng me
I don’t really have tips – I need them! The only thing i could think of is that I don’t cut my 12 inch papers down to 6 x 6 but I after I have cut one in half to use for a card, I put the other 12 x ? (can be variable depending on the size of card I made) in a magazine holder that I did get from the dollar store. They are 9 x 11 so will not work for 12 x 12 sheets but they work great for 8-1/2 by 11 sheets or 12 x 12 that are no longer full but too long to fit in my scrap basket – which is now going to be more organized thanks to you 
Oh my! I love a good organization project Betsy and this one is pure bliss! I love that awesome find you found at the dollar store. I think I will be making a trip there for those very soon as I bet they hold the 6×6 pads perfectly too! Your cards are beautiful and that strip idea is a winner! I have trouble parting with mine too.
My latest project was to print out all my sketches that I had saved to my computer from the various sites (for both cards and scrapbook layouts) in 9 wallets to a sheet, cut them down and organize them by number of photos (in the case of layouts) or oreintation/size, etc. and then past them front and back to 4×6 notecards which I color coded to match the different dividers. I can fit at least 4 idea per card and I can find exactly the inspiration I’m looking for in a flash. For my layout sketches I even took it a step further and organized my 3 photo layouts so that all the 3 horizontals or the 3 verticals or the 2 horiz/1vert, etc. are together. It speeds up my creative process tremendously and is a great organizational project to take with you to work on at kids activities and such. Plus 4×6 notecards fit perfectly in a cheap photo box!
I love to include flowers on my cards but hate the prices of the Prima ones…. so I started making my own…..using my die cut machine to cut out flower shapes from everything like fabrics, glittery tulle from JoAnn’s, felted cashmere castoffs (think Goodwill here,) vinyl, meat tray inserts, magazines in French, vintage music paper, etc. Combine with various colors DSP and those brads you’ve stockpiled. Make all different sizes and store by color family in transparent plastic food jars from Costco and you’ll soon have all the flowers you can use…….combine 10 or so in a bag as they make nice gifts for scrapping friends !
WOW!! Great idea. TFS. Well, I dont have much of large papers but I use the scraps even the tiniest ones to punch small flowers, butterflies and keep them in a small box. Later use them according to my color need on my projects. Lovely sentiments and really plenty of them;)
Love what you’ve done with your scraps, Betsy!! Your organizational skills are top notch. OK, no tip, but a question–now that these sheets are all cut apart into manageable 6 x 6 sheets, how do you know what manufacturer/collection they come from? Did you make a list to track that info somehow? Or jot down the info on each sheet? Just wondering!
This is a FABULOUS idea!! I love it! Thanks for sharing!
I store my 6×6 papers with all their scraps in quart sized bags and my 12×12 with the scraps in the big sized bags.
I’m in desperate need of some organization help for my embellishments but my one tip I can share is for my cuttlebug or other embossing folders is: I write the name of the folder on the back of my folder in marker because I never remember the names when needing them for a submission or directions. Nothing huge but it helps, lol! TFS
((Hugs)) Theresa
Such great ideas, thanks for sharing. Being inspired by you, I also made a card with scraps and cosmo cricket on my blog. I think I have a few cards inspired by you on there
Definitely heading to the dollar store for storage. YAY thanks for the chance to win. http://jazzypantzcards.blogspot.com/2011/07/got-scraps.html
Love your idea! I have a similar system but yours is so much prettier.
I like to organize my buttons in the new Gerber plastic food containers. They are just the right size and they are see through. Another idea I would like to get started at some point is to have a binder with stamped images of all the rubber stamps I have. That way I can just look through my binder for images rather than go through all my stamps.
My best organizationed items are 1)my ribbon – I wrapped around little cards stock cards for thread and have them in a plastic storage bin which is made for threads. Works great. Organized by color of course.
2) I keep seasonal stuff all together. I have 12x 12 plastic containers. One for Halloween, holidays, birthdays, valentines, etc. That way I can grab the container and everything is there.
You did a great job or organizing your papers.
I, too, am trying to get my stamp room organized. I am afraid that I let it get WAY out of hand. BUT one thing I have done is separate all my single 12 X 12 papers into colors and patterns. I then put these in magazine-style plastic holders with labels. I also have some that are by company and then by collection. This helps me when I need to use a certain color, pattern or company on a project. I also use my Pampered Chef round gadget holder to store items that I always need within arms reach. It is nice because it spins. The other thing I like for storage is the Scraponizer systerm. They have different sizes and they are stored in a magazine style holder, too.
Thanks for your ideas for scraps, too. I need to do that, too. Thanks for a chance to win a great stamp set, too.
There are such great tips here…the only one I can think of (and haven’t implemented yet because the walls in our den aren’t done yet)…is to take a jar (coffee for example) and screw the lid on the wall (outside facing the wall). Then, I can put buttons or brads in the jar and attach it to the lid that is already there. I saw a garage organized like this and thought it was a great idea.
I don’t really have a tip but I just had to say I love the little baskets of 6X6 squares and the sheets you made with the leftover scraps are brilliant. I am off to try this now.
TFS
Ang
Love your ideas and cards. 1) I have some of my scraps in a shoebox size plastic bin organized by type of scrap – different holidays, solid colors, floral, babies, etc. 2) Another idea, I wrap some ribbons (that are without a paper roll) onto paper towel or toilet paper rolls and put in the throwaway plastic containers that cookies, grapes, etc. come in along with the other ribbons. You can see the colors and types and arranged similiar ribbons together. They’re pretty sturdy if not piled too high!
Love your set of cards! I like to use up scraps by putting three thin strips of paper across the card, near the bottom, and then stamping a sentiment above them and to the right. Lots of white space, but pops of color from the paper strips.
I roll up my large sheets of decorative papers and pretty wrapping papers and store them in a Christmas wrap container I bought before the holidays. It’s like a tall trash can and comes with a domed lid. Keeps the papers nice and clean, and from getting bent up.
DeniseB
You are a tremendous inspiration! I can do this! I actually love 6×6 mini albums as well as cardmaking so I will copy your trimming to 6X6 AND create some 6×6 striped CS, also! Gotta find those cute plastic bins to keep the papers in EZ reach. Mahalo for sharing!
Great tips, thanks for sharing! I’m not great at organizing, but I try to have a *home* for everything, so it can all go back where it belongs. The trouble is when you bring new things home, sigh, and have to find a *home* for them too!
You are WAY to ingenious. Love the scraps as paper especially. WOW!
Cutest and best idea ever! I have my scraps in gallon ziplocs and they are a mess!
Your method looks a lot better than mine, but I have mostly solid cardstock scraps. I’ve tried several organizational methods & haven’t settled on what is perfect yet. I do keep my big pieces in my file folders (in a stand w rollers) with the matching full sheets. The smaller scraps go by color in plastic paper boxes. It’s still hard to see everything I have. I love your baskets & putting strips together on cs–I’m going to keep in mind when I have enough pp scraps.
I sort my paper by color or by occasion in those giant clear 12×12 scrapbooking envelopes. I keep all scraps in the same envie. I don’t save anything smaller than 1×1. Yes it kills me to throw out those bitty scraps, but now I think I’ll use them for a big collage sheet like you did. Brilliant!!
Loved this article…and boy dosn’t it look wonderful!!! Great idea, I’m going to give it a try. One thing I do with cardstock is when I have left over pieces if it’s big enough to cut 4.25×5.5 for a card base I do that and have those stored in a similar way as yours and for anything less I have baggies standing in a shoe box sorted by color. When I just need a little piece of this or that I grab the bag and I have several shades to choose from.
Thanks so much, love your idea!!!
I love this idea. Right now all my scaps are jumbled up. I would take the strips and make them 6×6 too though.
My organizational tip: I got several clear plastic round jewerly containers, spray painted the outside of the bottoms a hammered metal, then attached a round magnet to the bottom (this way you can’t see the magnet). I got a poster frame from Target and cut metal sheeting from Lowe’s to fit in the frame. Now I have have my brads, clips, and tons of smaller embellishments in these containers where I can see them since the top of the containers are clear.
I love this idea..you are brilliant and today I’m going to start on my paper stash..thanks ever so much for the idea
I love ribbons! I buy DMC Plastic Floss bobbins and plastic box container with dividers. I wrap my ribbons on a bobbin. Then I organize them by type (satin, sheer, etc.) and color. When it’s time for ribbon, I pull out the container. I also use these containers for my buttons–organized by color.
Love your idea for the 6×6 papers and for the scraps! Gotta use those ideas to organize all that unruly paper in my scrap room. I think the best thing I’ve used for organizing has been the ribbon cards that go on rings and can be hung up on hooks. Keeps the ribbon organized and they look pretty hanging up on the wall in my craft room. I used a couple of old Mason jars to put scrap ribbon into that wasn’t long enough to go on the ribbon cards.
Organizing the smaller pieces of patterned paper this way is a fantastic idea! It might make it easier for me to actually cut those beautiful papers up! I have organized my embellishments by color and theme into plastic containers that are just over 8 1/2 x 11 x 1 or 1 1/2 inches deep. I then organize the containers on a rolling cart that can be moved as needed.
I found a clear, round container at Jo-Anns for my buttons. There are several dividers, so I divided my buttons by color and manufacturer. I also used a label maker on the bottom of each section to list the company they came from. It has a twistable lid that you just twist to the buttons you want to access, open the small door, and get out the buttons you want. Now, my buttons are in a clear container-so that I can see them to use them-and they are pretty to boot!
I keep all my leftover card stock and paper in plastic sheets and sorted them by brand and colour.
Awesome ideas! I love your cards! Thanks for the inspiration.
Love your scrap paper idea! I organize my Distress inks with a suggestion from Jennifer McGuire and my own twist. She places a foam blender on the bottom of each ink with velcro, I do this but found a plastic box from home improvement store that they fit in, in pairs,in 4 rows. I’ve staggered the foam on the bottoms so a pair fits together perfectly, then made a label to put on the side so that when they are paired, labels are easily read. Works great and always easy to figure out which place it goes back in.
While reading I was actually saying to myself “okay, so this is all about organizing stuff.” But wait when I kept on reading till the last part of the blog, I said “WOW!” Who wouldn’t? From those suppose-to-be trash items beautifully made cards for all occasions were created and they are not just cards, they are attractive and good looking ones. Many people are scrapbooking and spends a lot of money on the items needed. However, sometimes we really don’t need to buy much we got all we need inside our homes. Creativity accompnies resourcefulness and that’s what I’ve learned in this blog. Very inspiring! Thanks for the insight! Scrappers please check out my scrapbooking ideas also at http://yourscrapbookingandcraftsguide.com/. Thanks!
I’m in the process of organizing my ribbon. On my cheap rolls that I pick up from Michaels or Walmart, I pull if off the roll, wind it up, and secure it with a rubberband and put it in ziplock bags by color. Whoops forgot to mention that I cut a yard off and put it on my ribbon ring organizer so it’s easy to grab. My PTI, A Muse, and SU ribbon stays on the rolls and are stored separately. But I also take a yard off those ones too to put on the ribbon ring.
Love this post! my tip is: I use a regular photo storage box (the kind michaels always has n sale) I put velcro dots on the lid and then attatch the opposite side of the velcro to my cricut cartidges. they store nicely on the lid while the box has plenty of room for the books and touch pads! also- I go thru the books and ripp out all of the non english directions/pages, then my touch pads fit right inside perfectly!
thanks for the chance to win!
Jenn Post
This summer I’ve concentrated on labeling/organizing my Spellbinders’ dies on strong magnet strips (Hobby Lobby) stuck to heavy white CS sheets, normally 4 sets to an 8 1/2 x 11 page, corners rounded and slipped into a sheet protector in sturdy notebooks (half price at Costco). I put them back-to-back, sorted by shapes/labels/borders, etc. and they are now so easy to slip in/out to use/return to their spots — LOVE it! Next on the agenda is to cut SB scalloped ovals from white shrink plastic, punch a large hole in top, stamp with pretty matching color to each notebook, shrink & hang from a small chain to notebooks. I’ll list each notebook’s contents separately on plastic label maker strips stuck to back of my pretty labels (so I can pull off & change as necessary with my burgeoning collection of dies)!
Love your idea! I keep my scraps in a recipe box, according to color, but all different sizes. Yours looks so neat! My tip is how I organize my ribbons…in jelly jars…you can see right through them. Thanks for the chance!
I don’t know how much of a tip this is but your tip about using up scraps got my creative juices flowing. I recently got turned on to an organization call “Operation Write Home”. Paper crafters and card makers are asked to create greeting cards that are blank on the inside. These cards are then sent to our troups so the soldiers can use them to write home to their family and friends.
I’m ready to start ramping up with the cards but OWH does ask that you keep duplicates to a minimum. This idea of adhering coordinating strips of printed paper to card stock insures that each card is unique and doesn’t have that “mass produced” look and feel to it. Thanks for this suggestion; you’re a life saver!