Paper is taking over the world.

Hi friends just a quick update on some of my storage solutions. After all the mothers day cards I made I had a bunch of housework and rest to get caught up on. I have to admit I was sort of tired of all things crafty for a a week or so. There was paper pieces every where. Ever walk through the house and then realize you have little tiny pieces of paper scraps stuck to the bottom of you feet? What a mess. It's all organized now and back to somewhat normal. This is what I did.
Part of putting it all away took some doing. With all the cards being made recently I had scraps galore. And everyone knows that even the smallest scrap can be used, besides I'm cheap like that. So whats a crafter to do? Make a scrap box of course.

 For the smaller scraps I have them organized by color and by shapes. When I cut out designs I often make mistakes,  have extra pieces, to big to small, or just doesn't look right. For the small scraps, like under 8 inches, I put them in a box. There used to be just a big pile of a mess. Now there are tabs for each color. There are also separate tabs for things like squares, circles, hearts etc. I find that I can grab them easily when I just need a small piece of a certain color. Then I put all the tabs into a photo box. It still needs decorating, but that's for another day. The box sits on my craft table, which is way to messy for me to show you.
Each tab was cut using my silhouette. Then the coordinating color inserted into the tab. It would have been a lot easier to just do some print and cuts. But not as fun!

My larger pieces are stored by color in 12 x 12 scrapbook page protectors.  Not so sure this method is going to work for the long run, but it's alright for now. I then put them into a magazine style box, more on that below.

Much better then the big pile of messy paper I had going on. This one still needs covered. 

So that's what I do with the scraps. But your asking, Tracie what do you do with the unused sheets. Well those are in my homemade magazine file boxes. I got some free flat rate shipping boxes from the USPS.  Gotta love me some free stuff. 

 I cut them into magazine style holders and then covered. I tried a few methods of covering them. All pink of course. Painting them was tedious and I needed several coats to cover up the printed boxes. The paint also weakened the integrity of the box, surprise cardboard doesn't like getting wet. But this worked the best. Sure wish I had thought of using spray paint.

 So I began covering them with pink wrapping paper. That so did not work.

The paper was easier, but I foresee them ripping in the future. The wrapping paper also bubbled heavily with the glue. Could have been that it's the cheap dollar store paper, or that I put to much glue.  Who knows. Needless to say I did not use this method for the rest of my boxes. They all need a label made for the colors they hold, but they are the basics- red, blue green, multi-colored etc.
They are all on my little book shelf for easy access. I liked them on the top shelf so I could just pull the paper out from the top without having to remove the entire box.

The bottom shelf holds my other photo boxes that I store things like glitter, glue, paint etc. For now they have little hand written labels. so much to do, so little time!

I have several friends with Birthdays this week, so I have been making a lot of cards. I can't post them yet because then it will ruin their surprise. However as soon as I give them out I'll share them here. I am using a few of the new designs. Some that I came up with, and some just regular shapes.







I Link up Here: Not just a Housewife, Clean and Scentsible,  Skip to my Lou, I Heart Nap Time, Blooming Homestead,  Alderberry Hill, Tatortots & Jello, A Night Owl, Craft-O-Maniac,  Thats whate Che Said, Crafts Ala Mode, Say Not Sweet Anne, Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Mad in Crafts

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