organizing my patterned paper

This is an expansion of my post from yesterday...

Over the years I have organized my paper and cardstock in a few different ways. Okay so when I started out I didn't have quite the amount of paper that I do now. But the simplicity of how I arranged my paper when I first started scrapbooking has come full circle. Since I didn't own a great deal of paper I arranged it by theme (Christmas, plaid, baby etc) and the cardstock was my old favorite...ROY G BIV -the colors of the rainbow. Now since then I've arranged my patterned paper in different ways, one of the over throw back I've returned to off and on is my manufacturer. But there were so many little folders with so many names... Arctic Frog, Doodlebug, K& Co., Around the Block, Wild Asparagus and so many more. It got to be too darn frustrating to have to hunt through all of those different folders to find something suitable for a particular layout. So after a few weeks of my papers being arranged in that manner it was not working out for me as well as I had wished it would have. So I separated it all out and had gone to my old way of organizing...my folders are thus;

Plaid

Stripe

Harlequin

Dots & Circles

Geometric shapes (shapes other than circles)

Flowers (I have 2 folders for floral papers Ü)

Kids-boy/girl

Pets

Sports

Military

Red, white and blue/Americana

Halloween

Autumn/Thanksgiving

Stars (who knew I had so many sheets of various star patterned paper that they warranted having their own folder)

There's more but you get the point. Once you start looking at your paper in this manner you start to go through it looking at it and asking yourself- do I really need 10 sheets of this particular paper? Unless you're making greeting cards by the dozens or scrapbooking for others the answer "No". Being organized is an essential to knowing what you have on hand and it saves you valuable time and money. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've had friends tell me that they bought a particular patterned paper only to discover a couple of weeks later(when they finally got around to putting it away) that they had purchased it before, some times they bought it 3 different times. All I can say is "Wow, what a waste of time and money". Most scrapbooking stores have either a final sale policy or a no return policy on paper and idea books- look for signage on the wall behind the cashier or ask what the return policy is before you buy.

What's my point with all of this? Knowing what you have saves you time and money. The best way to know what you have is to keep it organized. Click on the photo to see an enlarged view.