Stay @ Home Update #7

Each Sunday (at 5:00 AM) I'm sharing how the week's 10-minute stay@home organizational challenge went. If you don't have an idea what that means and you're curious, you can learn more in my original Stay @ Home Update blog post - found HERE.

Now here's the disclaimer: Some of these daily stay@home challenges are taking more than 10 minutes, but who's counting, right? 

Here's what I've accomplished this week...

Day 1 - SUN, May 17

I have this bin where I stash a variety of things that might make it onto a card some day - images I've colored, diecut pieces, images I stamped but didn't color, and so much more. I often times pull it off the shelf and look for something to make a quick card... BUT - that's a big word for a reason - but it seems to have gotten out of control lately; too full, no organization to it at all. I found I was basically ignoring it instead of using items from it because it was just too much bother to look for something usable.

I fixed that problem today. I went through every item, sorted (and yes, tossed quite a few items, too). I added some labeled dividers to make it much more user friendly, too.

Day 2 - MON, May 18
I am satisfied with my storage system for my Embossing Folders. They are organized by manufacturer and each folder is labeled with the name/company. I have them stored in alphabetical order in this metal container. I've used this system for about 3-4 years now and see no reason to change it.

That's not to say that it doesn't nee attention from time to time though. When I get new embossing folders I tend to place them in the front of the box thinking I'll lable/store them later. Sometimes "later" is mighty slow coming. Today I did some catch up and am proud to say that each embossing folder now has a divider and is stored in its appropriate place.

Day 3 - TUES, May 19
I recently organized most of my ribbon but I still had several smaller rolls that I had left intact with plans to put them in one of the drawers in my Sterilite 3-drawer units. I took care of that today.

Day 4 - WED, May 20
This bin contained an assortment of different types of embellishments, tags, and things. It needed to be purged and organized so I decided to work on that today.

After getting rid of the things I knew I wouldn't use, I sorted what was left into themes. I then established five theme-based drawers for storing embellishments. As I continue to work my way through items in my playroom, these themes may be tweaked but for now they are: Dogs/Animals, Travel/Vacation, Birthday (but I think I'll add Celebrations to this themed drawer, too), Owls, and Sports/School.

Day 5 - THUR, May 21
I had a bin full of packaged shaped buttons. Some people would think that would be better since they were together in sets, but I tend to be a very tactile person so finding the button I want to use is easier if I can run my hands through them. 

To make that possible I took all of the shaped buttons out of their original package (except for a few that were very VERY small), purging the ones I knew I would not use. I now have a bin of shaped buttons that I can enjoy searching through.

Day 6 - FRI, May 22
I chose an easy task today - I uploaded the wood mounted stamps in my Thanks drawer to my Evernote inventory.

Day 7 - SAT, May 23
I had a bin of cards from years gone by that had sort of fallen apart - these were made before I discovered that not all adhesives were created equal. Time to dismantle and salvage. I took the images off and tossed the rest of the card.

I now have a nice stash of colored images that I can use in future projects. I'm not sure I'll ever use them all, but for now I chose to keep them all - even the ones I don't particularly like. At some point in the future I may decide to toss some of them, but they don't take up much space so for now I'm going to keep them.


Okay, that's it for this week. Stay tuned to see what I accomplish in the coming week.