Craft Cabinet COMPLETE

Last month I was telling you about my New Craft Cabinet. I am so happy to report that today is the first day of spring break and I have spent the entire day organizing the cabinet and IT IS FINISHED!

I am a bit OCD, and so I labeled all of the boxes and storage spaces. This will help me remember where things go.  I only purchased one thing for this cabinet everything else I had on hand.   I have also found some interesting ways to organize and keep up with my scrapbooking. I wanted to keep as much as I could inside the cabinet...but I have a few shoe box crafts on top of my cabinet. In that closet I was telling you about I have 2 Rubbermaid boxes. One full of fabric and sewing supplies. And one full of things I want to "up-cycle" or craft one day. Other than that I have completely organized my CRAFT life. The rest of my life well...I don't have it all together.

On the top of the cabinet you will find a shoe box for glue, tapes, and any kind of adhesive.  Then a box of photos that need to be scraped.  A box of ribbon, Scrapbooking Acessories like rub-ons, stickers and anything else to embellish my pages.  And the very last box your will find Letters.  All kinds and all sorts of letters.  The red basket is full of bags, like sandwich bags....I never toss those...I rewash them and use them for my crafts...I have had some for maybe 10 years.  ..

On the second shelf you will find all of my jewelry and beading supplies to the left, and on the right other small knick nacks that I want to up-cycle into other crafts...(like some wine corks, coffee cans, and you get the idea)

On the third shelf you will find some plastic drawers labeled and sorted by color.  (note I have red and black or vampire paper in one drawer, can you spot it!)  I have had these drawers for 7 years.  They come in 3 drawers...and I have LOVED THEM.  They are about $9.00-$15 per set.  They are the off brand rubbermaid.  The little magazine rack has some matching paper sets, and then there is two 12x12 folders.  One has scrabooking stickers and emblishements that would not fit in the shoe box, and the other has letters that would not fit in the shoe box.
That empty space is where my sewing machine goes.  But it is actually, in use. I am making a baby quilt for the new baby.  The cubby above holds my sewing machine accessories.

On The bottom shelf you will find My current scrapbooks, to the left...and 3 drawers.  One for each of my kids with paper for each.  I have a teen boy.  So some papers are just for him.  My other child is a girl so all of the pink sparkly stuff goes to her, and my other child is a baby boy...So for me..It is really easy to put paper away for each of my kids that I know can be used for each of their pages.  The other boxes are shoe box drawers.  The are labeled.  Stamps, Punches, Tools (scissors, cropadile, exacto knife, rulers you get the idea)  and the last drawer is for blank cards and envelopes and small paper that can be used to make cards.
The big block of shelveing paper is a huge drawer full of fabric, and a small tool box with all of my sewing accessories. (like my needle and thread, pins, etc)

Now on to the Organizing your scrap-booking supplies.  This is what I am doing....I have tons of 12x12 refill pages I have purchased in the past and they would not fit into my books. (don't you hate that) I don't trash anything so I held on to them.  I have always used them to hold some things together or other paper projects.  I found this extremely effective...So I decided to take it to the next level.   This was my purchase...I purchased $15 worth of 12x12 refill scrapbooking pages from the Dollar Tree.  Each package contained 10 sleeves, and I purchased 13 of them.  Everything that was on the shelf.  That gave me 130 sleeves and I used every single one of them.  Plus the ones I already had.  These are not good enouph for your scrapbook....they don't work on most scrapbooks but they are perfect for organizing...Also if they rip or tear no big deal...  I utilized both sides of the sleeve if I could.  I HAVE WAY TO MUCH PAPER.  Here are some photos of what everything looks like.....

 I pulled this sleeve out of my daughters layout drawer.  It has a scrapbooking paper sets on each side.  

 Here is one side.  It has 2 double sided pages and some matching rub ons.  

On the other side is 4 matching pages that would be perfect for any spring or girly layout.  

 This is a 2 sided design.....One side everything I need to put a page together.  

Flip it over and you have everything you need to make a page.  Now that I can find everything so much easier I can add whatever I need.  I was able to complete 3 pages in about an hour...That is with the kids asking me for ???? every 30 min.  I was impressed so I had to share.  

 In that magazine rack is the rest of the matching sets...I pulled this one out...It is like a road trip or mapish like paper set with 4 sets of paper..with stickers and more....and If I flip it over....I will find another matching set.

It took me awhile to organize all of this.  But I KNOW I will be able to put a page together really quick.  I was also so happy to find paper I forgot I had.  I wanted to get everything all organized today so the rest of this week I can take my printed photos and easily find everything I need to get caught up with my scrapbooking.  I need to make about 30 pages.  With 2 kids, going to college and being unorganized I have not be able to get any pages done this year I usually go to weekend crop retreats, or crop nights and SINCE I am antisocial I am able to knock out quite a few pages.  With a new baby on the way...I can't see doing that anytime soon.

Let me know what you think?  I hope you could understand the method to my madness.   Let me know if you had done something that might help me.  Right now my ribbon is wadded and stuffed in the shoe box.  I need a better solution for that.