In My Studio with the Scrapbook Design Team

We're excited to introduce a little change to our "In My Studio" post - instead of sharing a post by just one person we're going to pick a specific area of our rooms and have a Team share details about that!  It should be fun to see a little glimpse into all of our Design Team's creative spaces :)

This week the Scrapbook Team are up and they're sharing a peek into how they store their patterned papers!

This is how I store my patterned papers right now. I try to gather collection by collection in a plastic bag/page protector. I store them in my IKEA Kallax shelf in a Kvissle letterbox also by IKEA.

Since our downsizing, my kitchen table has become my craft room. All of my patterned paper is stored in 12x12 clear scrapbook bins, that I purchased at Michaels, a few years ago. At the moment, the boxes are stored in my daughter's bedroom closet and are taken down when needed. Each box contains items from the same collection (e.g. Wonder by Crate Paper, Baxter by Seven Paper, etc...) and one is filled with my scrap pieces of paper.

I store my all 12x12 papers/cardstock, standing up, in my Kallax-type shelving unit (I got this shelving unit at a local hardware store in Aus) with plastic dividers in between.  I sort all my 12x12 papers by manufacturer.  

My smaller papers (6x6 and the left overs of the 12x12 after I have cut them down to 6x8) are stored in a black wire basket that's also sitting in one of the cubbies of the shelving unit.  I've sorted my papers by colours and added coloured dividers inbetween so it's easier to find what I'm after.  Although after looking at these photo's I think it's time to purge my paper stash...but it's just so hard ;)

For my patterned paper storage I mainly use a We R Memory Keepers accordion file folder that came with my WRMK rolling cart. But it’s now also available separately - I think they call it Expandable Paper Storage now. This folder holds all of my patterned papers (yes - all of them) and I mostly organised them by manufacturer. In the compartments at the back I also have some specialty papers, like acetate, vellum, foil, etc., and some sheets of solid coloured cardstock.

The clear zipper bag holds all of my paper scraps. I don’t really have a rule that I will throw away scraps that are smaller than a certain size, or something like this. If it’s a paper I really love, I will even keep tiny scraps. But: I do use my scraps regularly so that bag never really gets fuller than it is in the photo.

And lastly, for my current Citrus Twist Kits kit I like to use one of these clear paper files. I usually keep all the elements of the kit I am currently working with in there, except maybe for die cuts or other smaller embellishments. I like to store these in pretty bowls on my desk. That way I have my kit in one place and can jump right in when I have some time to get crafty.

I am in the middle of a big purge in my scrap area, but I plan to keep the basic premise of my storage the same because it works for me. I keep collections together in a plastic bag or envelope until I either don't have enough embellishments left to create with the collection, or I only have a couple pieces of patterned paper left. I then separate the papers into a Crop In Style holder sorted by color with a section for neutrals. 

I purchased this cute drawer at Hobby Lobby and my 6x6 pads fit perfectly inside it. My rule is that my stash cannot outgrow this drawer. I will admit that I did need to purge quite a few when I initially bought the drawer, but this has really worked well for me and I am going to continue this method of storage. Beside the drawer I keep my white cardstock, and my 6x8 and 8x8 paper pads. 

One year ago I had over two feet of patterned paper! That didn’t even include my 6x6 pads. But when we moved I had to purge drastically. So my plan was to keep whatever could fit in a few 12x12 iris containers. Now, if the containers get filled, I have to purge to make room for only papers I love. I have one container for colors and it’s sorted in rainbow order (for those of you wondering “But what about the multi colored papers?!”, well “multi-colored” is the bottom of my “rainbow”). 

A second container holds my neutrals, which includes black, grey, wood grain and a lot of white. This container never fills up because I use neutrals for backgrounds so often. The iris containers I use are old and used to fit in little plastic shelving unit. But I tossed that before the move and fit the containers easily in my Kallax shelves.

We live in a large apartment, so our den was transformed into an office.  One of the book cases in this area houses most of my patterned paper.   I have quite a bit of patterned paper, so 2 shelves of the larger bookcase (from IKEA) is where i keep all the my beautiful papers.   As you can see, I try my best to keep the papers and collections together in cello bags (this is what it looks like after a crafting session!!!) so I can see what is inside.   All bags are labelled at the right corner  so that I know what collection i am working with. As the bag empties, I usually break up the collection, and store the papers (only keep papers 6x6 in or larger ) in large zipper bags (just like the ones the PLkit comes in)  at the bottom of this shelve of the book case.

My CTK kits are always stored together in an Iris case in the desk drawer, and as soon as the new one comes in,all the old papers go in a cello bad inside the Iris container.

Hi, It’s Veera here to show you how I store all my pattern papers. My main scrapbooking storage solution is my Ikea Kallax / Expedit unit. For my papers I’m using a Kvissle Letter Tray inside the cubes. On the left side I have put the letter tray as it should be (horizontally). Here I store all my kits and collections that I want to keep together. As you can see I have added also some embellishments to the shelfs so the collections and kits keep together nicely. On the right side I’m storing all the other papers and paper scraps that I want to keep. Here I have placed the letter tray on it’s side to have vertical sections for the papers. The Ikea Letter tray is not full 12x12 (it’s a bit shorter) but I have found it to work just fine for me.

I love getting a glimpse into our Design Team's creative areas and how they store their goodies.  How do you store your patterned paper? We would love to see/hear (leave a post on the Facebook Fanpage!).

Is there anything in particular you would like to see from our "In My Studio" posts? Please leave a comment below and we'll make sure to include it in future!