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Found or Lost?

© Julie Rayl

Scrapbooking has become one of the most popular hobbies. As such, there are a tremendous amount of supplies being offered by industry experts to help you make fabulous pages.

When I began scrapbooking three years ago, I started out with some paper, adhesives, photos and markers. Now I have a plethora of punches, stickers, die cuts, more paper, stamps, plus I've added colored and watercolor pencils and the stash keeps growing. Needless to say, having a good organizational system is imperative. After much trial and error, I have found solutions for my needs.

Quiz
To start, let's take a quick 4-question quiz to see if you are in need of some organizational help.
1. When you begin to make a page, do you find yourself spending more time looking for your supplies than actually doing the page?
2. Have you taken over the dining room table?
3. Do you have three sets of the same stickers?
4. When you're digging through your supplies, do you find embellishments that you wish you had used on the pages you just finished?

If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then you are in need of organizational help.

Three Reasons To Get Organized:
The first reason is more free time to scrapbook. Let's face it, it's hard to get pages done when you spend most of your time searching for your supplies. With all your supplies organized, you will be able to pull out what you need in a minimal amount of time and get to work. Clean up will also be quicker since you will know where everything goes.

The second reason is reduced amount of lost and/or damaged photos and supplies. I have damaged a few photos and ruined good paper because I didn't have a proper place to store them.

Lastly, in the long run, it's cheaper. At first it may seem expensive to get organized, but over time you will save money by not having to buy new paper or buying duplicates of things you already have.

Finding A Place:
The first step to organizational bliss is to determine where you are going to house your supplies and make your pages. This could be a closet, under a table, in an armoire or you could dedicate a whole room to the craft. Scrapbookers around the world have come up with creative uses of their homes to store their supplies. One lady changed her son's playroom into a scrapbook room. Seldom used guest rooms have become a popular scrapbooking place. It's important to have a place for supplies, so that you will always know where everything is, and it won't be in the way of the rest of the family.

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