Organizing My Scrap Stuff On a Budget, Part One

When I began scrap-booking, I had no idea how messy it could get or how much stuff I would aquire and need to keep organized.  There are so many products out there that are designed to help with this problem. So many, in fact, that you could end up spending more money on places to store your tools and paper then you do on your actual scrapbooks. That is not what I wanted to do, so I began looking for inexpensive ways to deal with this problem.

 I have a few ideas for storage that I hope will help you get your scrap-booking organized 

without breaking the bank.

 My first challenge was

  Paper.

Paper gets out of hand really quickly so I needed to deal with it first.

Here is where I started. I bought this wonderful container at Target for $29.99. 

(it has been a few years, so the price or availability may have changed)

Please forgive my photo quality, I am new at this

The reason I love this container so much  is because it is cheap and it is useful in so many different ways. It has individual drawers that pull out and seal completely. You can use each drawer for different purposes. It is perfect for "in progress" projects, keeping all your papers, photos and stickers all together in one drawer. You can  also use these to organize your papers by theme or color. 

This product is well worth the cost!

Okay, the next  big issue with paper would be the scraps! 

These really pile up fast! 

I certainly did not want to use up precious real estate in my drawers to organize these, but I just couldn't throw away pretty paper. 

So here is a system that I found works best for me. 

I have 4 one gallon size zip-lok baggies. I use these to separate and store all my scraps. They are organized by size. Small, medium, and large and 12" strips. Then I  purchased this paper holder at Hobby Lobby for $5.99 to keep them all together. It was worth the cost to keep the bags upright and all together. 

I do have one tip that really helps keep my scraps from getting unruly.... Always trim the edges of the scraps straight before storing. Simple, yet it makes a huge difference.

Tomorrow I will show you how I store large amounts of card stock and patterned paper on the cheap!