OFFENDING HOME OFFICE: PART 2

Well that day or two some how rolled into other S.H.E. projects and here it is February 2014.  Some additional progress has been made here and there between this and that last update, but nothing to write home about.

So two days ago I started challenging myself to get after the “pretty-up” work.  Meaning the nuts and bolts organizing of the office.  There are still some big things to remove from the room entirely, but the guys will deal with that, because it’s their stuff.  

Detail work is my job.  So I set a goal, one organized, clean-up project per day.  No excuses.  I of course have started with my area, because the guys are still sorting their big stuff out. I also know more what I want.  

For my birthday and Christmas the guys gave me some great equipment to work on the card business with and I of course have hit a sale or two to get the small “go withs” sticking very carefully to my $50 per month budget for such purchases. 

Bringing new things into the craft room/office made me more determined to be organized with it so I could use it easily.  So I started there.

The new machine was a Cuttlebug, which is a hand cranked embossing machine.  It uses embossing folders and die cuts. I also received two of the We  R Memory Keepers Punch and Score Boards  So I needed a safe, organized way to not only store these gifts, but it needed to be easy to use and to get to.

It was my dear husband, Gary,  that came up with the storage box for the folders and eventually the dies, once I purchase some.  It is a repurposed item, which is wonderful.  We had it already, even better.  In fact we have several of them, best! That means as my collection of folders grows so can my file system.

Those of you who were adults in the 80’s will remember Flip and File storage boxes for computer discs.  

By changing the direction of the filing system from front to back to lengthwise my embossing folders fit in perfectly.  Even better we still had the keys to lock these containers so when we start traveling with retirement I can safely take the boxes along and not worry about spillage. 

These folders come in various sizes, I currently only have the 5 X 7, the A-2 and border folders and not many of those.  So one box works well for all of them and the pressure plates as well. 

I wanted them to be very organized and easy to find and use.  So I first sorted them by size so smaller folders wouldn’t get lost between bigger ones and then wrote on each one with a permanent marker it the name for it.  

Next I sorted each size grouping by type. Celebrations, fauna, flora, shapes, textures etc.

Since index cards don’t normally come in the sizes I needed for this project I created my own using previously owned poster board (I’m all about recycling you know and one side was still clean) and one of my other new pieces of equipment a We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch and Score Board. 

 There are numerous utube videos on how to do this, just use the search terms “envelope punch board file folder”.  I just made dividers not folders to conserve space.  I also made each divider approximately ½ “ taller than each embossing folder, by the way I laid the folders on their long edge to get them to fit in the box perfectly. The photo below is pretty self explanatory if you don't want to mess with utube.  You use the punch lined up the way you see it to cut one side of the tab, then line it up on the opposite side at the length you want and use a straight edge to cut off the excess.

I file to the front so once the dividers were made it was a fast thing to insert them where they belonged.

Because I have so few folders right now there was plenty of room to put my plates for the Cuttlebug in the front of the box.  So everything fit nice and tidy.

Due to the massive culling we did I still had an empty bookshelf to put this box and Cuttlebug on, along with my Punch and Score Boards.  As I may in the future need to add other boxes due to adding an abundance of folders and dies the shelf is deep enough I could turn the two largest items at 90 degrees and easily put more boxes on the shelf.  See the photo on the side.

So that bit of organization was accomplished on the first day of my self challenge.

Jan who says now she knows here folders won’t get bent and she can do any embossing project quickly in OK.