Welcome to our first-ever spring cleaning and organization week! We're excited to highlight some of our most organized team members' scrapbook spaces this week in hopes that their hard work to build beautiful, functional creative areas will inspire you to look for the best solutions for your own organizational challenges. Today, please welcome Jody Wenke as she takes you on a tour of her scrapbook room.
Barring any natural disasters or computer issues, I am finally going to show you my studio, and I'm very excited! Let's go back to the beginning: two years ago, my husband realized that this little hobby of mine had turned into a full-blown obsession and agreed to build a scrap room for me in our basement.
It certainly helped that he was able to build the entire room by himself because he is in the remodeling business. I wanted it painted a soothing yellow because the color just makes me happy. Fast forward to a couple of days just past Christmas when a burst pipe wreaked havoc on my studio. The lower cabinetry needed to be torn from the walls and the carpet needed to be ripped up and dried, but thankfully no scrap supplies or layouts were ruined:
So while two years ago I had a beautiful scrap room, I didn't use it to its fullest potential. This flood lit a fire in me and I went through every single drawer and streamlined all my supplies so everything would have a place. When you walk down the stairs to my basement, this is the first thing you see:
To the right is a brand new wall of my favorite family photos. I love the uniformity of equal sized (8x10) frames. They were all bought at a Joann's store; each frame was $5 and I would use a coupon for 50% off each time I went. Same with the mats—each one $2.99 at Michael's and then I would use a coupon. I would buy a couple each time I went shopping, so it wasn't a big chunk of change to spend all at once.
I recently bought this frame at Ikea ($25) and searched high and low for a quote that would fit the personality of the room. I did manage to find a great one and used my personal stash of my most favorite ever American Crafts Subway Thickers.
This next photo is where the magic happens...: ) I like to refer to this table as the Autopsy Table, it's that big and sturdy...enough room to spread out supplies—and enough leftover room for a friend, too! There are a total of 16 pull-out drawers all organized differently; some have letter stickers, some rub-ons, some scrap papers, some chipboard letters and some color-sorted embellishments. Every drawer has compartments for all the supplies. They were all bought at different Dollar Stores. The large white plastic bins were $1 and the smaller ones were 3 for a $1. Here are just some of the ways I have organized everything:
You know those sheets of embellishments/stickers that we all have much too much of? Well I cut them apart and put everything in color-coded bins and on the back of each product I initial the manufacturer's name so if I ever need to know this info for any publications coming up it's right at my fingertips:
Target is also a great place to buy these galvanized buckets for storage, the small rectangular bins are a steal for a $1 each!
On top of my scrap table, I love my Making Memories carousel ($39 at Michaels before 40% off coupon) This is worth its weight in gold. It houses everything I use constantly (pens, scissors, tape, my glasses,etc...)
I keep all my cardstock and patterned papers in Sterilite bins (they can usually be found at Walmart on sale for $10). They are organized in colors and by manufacturers name (American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon, Jillybean Soup & Basic Grey are my personal favorites).
Now, onto the cabinets! The left cabinet houses some embellishments sorted by themes and all my different sized photos. Again, the buckets were bought at Target (small buckets $1 each, larger buckets $2.50 each).
The right cabinet is so organized I can't stand it! Whatever I am looking for is available at a glance (foam, felt, Easter, Valentine's Day, butterflies, arrows, Halloween, school, photo corners, etc...)
This shelf holds all my scrapbooks:
One of my very favorite things in the whole room is the SIMPLE sign bought for me from my sweet friend Carmela. No other word sums up my scrapping style like this one :) Here's another angle, and right outside this window is my girl's swing set and trampoline—what is nice is that I can take totally candid photos of them, kind of like a paparazzi, if you will ;)
In this cabinet I store all my favorite scrap books and magazines (Creating Keepsakes and Simple Scrapbooks :::wiping away a tear:::) and also my photo CDs and stamp/ink and brad storage. They were all purchased at Walmart for $6 each. Here is the uniformity rearing its vicious head again!
This is another wall which I hang my most recent scrap pages from a curtain rod; I had seen it in other scrap rooms and loved the look. I can easily change the layouts and at least I don't have to put them into the scrapbooks where no one can see them, at least for a little while:
Here are a couple more angles of the room itself:
I hope you enjoyed seeing my studio; I certainly enjoyed showing it to you. I really tried when decorating for the room to keep costs at a minimum to show you that you don't have to spend a lot of money when putting together a room. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section—I will be happy to answer anything you'd like to know :)
