Creating the ultimate scrapbook room-an on going series

Creating the ultimate scrapbooking space is all about organizing your space. Utilizing every square inch and finding an organizing system that works best for your space. Be it a corner in your bedroom, kitchen or family room or maybe you have cleared out your utility room and plan on using it as your future scrapbook nook. Keeping your space neat and organized so you can see what you have- if you see it, you will use it.

There are dozens of companies out there that sell organizing systems. Deciding which ones to use depends upon 3 things- the size of your space, the amount of scrapbooking supplies you have or what to have and of course the cost.

My very first scrapbooking space was the kitchen table at our house in Texas. My supplies were stored in an unused linen closet. I had my photos stored in the "Keepsake" containers by Rubbermaid (and I still do). My page protectors and papers were stored in a Longaberger magazine basket organizer, my "tools" and such were stored in a Longaberger small market basket. My stamps were all stored on a plastic tray . I'd take my basket with my tools and put it on my dining table and go to work. Life was good.

My second scrapbooking space was an fold up table in a corner in the formal dining room in our house in Virginia. Once I started working at a scrapbooking store that was all over! My husband built me an Oak Armoiré to house all of my supplies, albums and photo's. Lettering templates were all the rage, and I had a fair amount of them. Plastic folders were great storage devices for them too and for the idea books that were starting to come out. A brand new items came out for scrapbookers Sizzix the at home die cutting system- woohoo! A break through for all of us getting tired of tracing and cutting out letters with scissors and X-acto knives. Suddenly my collection of nifty scrapbooking tools were expanding and that Armoiré although it was a very nice place to store my supplies, it couldn't hold everything.

I had discovered Bazzill Card stock and the rainbow of beautiful colors it came in...scrapbooking and card making has never been the same since. So many new companies were coming out with patterned paper and embellishment lines. I stored my paper in the accordion paper organizers. Those were fantastic! I still have 2 of them and those house my vellum and mulberry paper. Then came the 3-d embellishments and also at that time we were all getting into using fibers, brads and eyelets on our scrapbook layouts and cards. Storage in my "nook" was now getting to be a bit tight. You have to keep in mind that my scrapbooking area also housed all of my other crafts- there was yarn for my crocheting projects, Aida cloth and linen plus embroidery floss and patterns for my counted cross stitching projects. And lets not even talk about my sewing projects with fabric, patterns and thread, LOL! Oh and it also held all of the kids crafting materials as well.

By then I had moved into my 3rd scrapbooking space, the formal living room . I moved the card table into a corner in that room and I bought my first 2 tall plastic drawer units. I bought another couple of short ones and put them under the card table. So two areas underneath of my card table scrapbooking area were being utilized to their best ability. Those short carts were great for items I wanted to grab quickly. Slow but sure my scrapbooking stash was expanding. Because my space was in the formal living room and we had to worry about resale of our home I was not able to put up sort of shelving on the walls. I had amassed a lot of great scrapbooking supplies but my organization wasn't the best. Life was good but I knew that it could be better.

When we moved to South Dakota, we decided to live in base housing. My 4th scrapbooking space a room dubbed "My Scrapbook Nook" was the utility room. The room really was a "nook" as it was 4 feet wide by 10 feet long, it housed the water heater and the furnace. The space didn't have heat nor air conditioning and only 1 naked light bulb located on the end between the furnace and water heater. But we saw something more, we saw my future Scrapbook Nook. My husband was the visionary on that little space. He was excited that my space had a door- and that it could be closed to hide my scrapbooking and card making messes :-) Life was about to get a while lot better!

Now stay tuned as I walk you through the transformation of that small utility room into My Scrapbook Nook.