OFFENDING HOME OFFICE: PART 4

Day 3 of the one thing a day challenge started out as a basic idea and segued into what I think will be very handy and easy to use and make.  It is kind of a combination of various ideas I’ve seen, but as always on a shoestring budget.

Many crafters purchase stands that come with plastic bags and clips to organize small things on like the Clip Up (would require purchasing both it and the specialty bags to go with it.  I try to avoid spending money on such purchases like the plague as you well know), others have done various versions of this ranging from using pant hangers in a closet (this could get quite costly quickly with the volume I hope to need) to rednecking an idea using an old lamp and a stripped down lampshade with the purchased bags.

Me I wanted to use what I had on hand and for it to be as near free as possible.  You see I plan on eventually needing a lot of this particular storage idea.  

I hate waste, so when I am cutting into a new 12 x 12 piece of cardstock I want to cut as much of it as I will need in that color for projects in the immediate future.  This not only saves paper, but saves time as well if you set your machine up to do all the cuts at once. Plus because I am hoping to build up inventory for our card business I will need to make up several cards of each type at a time and then find a way to store them until they sell.

So here’s my cheapie version of the systems above.  I have an over abundance of wire hangers.  I’m not even certain where they all came from.  I think they breed like rabbits.  I also have a large supply of clothes pins from my clothesline days….I bet you can see where this is going. 

I placed the parts and finished cards in gallon size zipper bags and labeled them clearly with what cartridge from my die cut machine they were from, the card name and our stock number on it. I added any special notes I had made, instructions on any particular aspect of it and such.  Zipped it closed and then folded the top over the bottom bar of the hanger, holding it in place with two clothes pins.

Because I want each one easy to find I color coordinated the hangers, well not exactly the hangers, but the “collars” I made for the top of each hanger.  Similar to the color tags some stores use to indicate what size a garment is on the neck of a hanger—another idea I “borrowed”. 

To start with I don’t have many of these bags made up, so I am simply doing a few categories.  As volume increases I will add more colors.  

I started with green for spring, meaning all the holidays that fall from March to the end of May.

Yellow is for summer and all the holidays that fall between June 1 and Labor Day.

Fall is orange for back to school and all the holidays from September 1 through Thanksgiving.

That brings us to white for winter.  These cards are all the Dec-Feb cards.

Specialty celebrations like birthday, anniversary, new baby are blue collared.

Finally a striped collar for miscellaneous.  These could be cards that don’t fit into other categories, random shapes, frames, envelopes or pieces waiting to be filed.

Once I find a category getting too full I’ll subdivide them using a print/stripe of the same color grouping for the main section.  For now just the main groups are needed.

The collars are simply 1” x 1” squares of paper in the appropriate color I wrapped around the neck  of the hanger and taped in place with a wrap of scotch tape that went all the way around to help prevent tearing of the paper.  These are easy to see and fast to do.

You could tie a bit of ribbon or yarn, but what paper crafter doesn’t have scraps of paper laying around? 

If you don’t have wire hanger breeding stock or have never hung a piece of laundry out you can still do this project fairly cheaply.  Many thrift stores sell large bundles of wire hangers super cheap.  No thrift store? They aren’t that expensive at Wal-Mart or your favorite dollar store.  

 Clothes pins can be had at those places as well for $1-$2 for 50-100 clothes pins.  I used two clothes pins per hanger for security purposes.

Once all the collars were made I added the appropriate bags and hung them on the empty rod in my craft room closet by color groupings.   

You could do other craft items, or other bagged small  items  like hair ribbons, knitting needles, or similar items elsewhere in the house in the same manner. 

Because I started this right off the bat it was quick and easy to do.  I will make more as each bag is created in the future to stay organized with this section. Finished photo is at the side as usual.

Jan who says it’s in the bag in OK