Working in
my clean-up thing for the day was a little more challenging than other days of
the week, it was payday and that has a different set of chores I must do than
other days of the week.
But I
persevered to maintain my forward movement toward the goal of a completely
clean and organized craft room/office. I choose a project that would not
require a lot of thought, although it did take some time to do. The cleaning up
of scrap paper.
Anyone who
does papercrafting finds themselves with the dilemma whether or not to keep
their scraps and if they do, how do they store them? After consulting with numerous people on the
web I decided to combine a few ideas to what I think will be a workable solution
for our space.
I had a
decent size box of scraps I had been gathering as we cleared the main bulk, so
I sat down with my paper cutter and proceeded to cut it into the largest usable
pieces possible. Trimming off all those
dangling bits that get bent or cause the paper to hang up when you are trying
to get it out of your storage to the point you don’t want to mess with it.
I cut
rectangles and squares of all the usable spaces and placing all that was cut
off in a paper recycling bin. I also sorted by main color groups
as I went, white, blue, green, pink, brown, red, purple you get the idea. While this was time consuming it allowed me
to mull through other thoughts so it went fairly fast.
Once it was
all trimmed and sorted I faced the task of storage. First I created magazine holders of sorts out
of heavy cardboard boxes from bulk purchases of things like cereals purchased
at Sam’s Club.
I did so by
taping both ends of the box closed then cutting the box in half sideways, more
or less. I left a lip on the front edge of each box to help keep the pages from
sliding out.
If you work it just right you can get two
holders out of one box. While these
holders were not big enough for full sheets of 12 x 12 paper they were perfect
for most of the scraps I had.
I want to put a special note here about sources for
boxes. When I originally posted the
photos of my cereal box holder a lively discussion ensued over the flat rate
shipping boxes from the post office for larger size paper.
I would like to say right now that I do not get these
“free” boxes from the post office to make the larger holders. It is my belief that those boxes are not free
because they cost the post office money and as everyone knows the post office
is in financial difficulties.
I will, however, re-use one that I’ve received in the
mail from purchasing an item. Far better
to repurpose a used box than simply destroy it.
By waiting for bigger boxes to come my way it may take me longer to get
the ideal paper sorting bookshelf made, but it will be worth the wait and the adventure of keeping my eye open for other boxes
I can use for this purpose in the future.
Off my soapbox now.
Back to the discussion of creating the box.
No measurements, just eyeballing it because what
measurements would be good for one box would not be good for another. You can easily look at the photo below and
see basically how you need to cut one.
To cut 2 you use a taller box and do the lip cut from both the top and
bottom.
Be careful when you are doing such cutting, after all
there is no savings in a free holder if you end up in ER getting stitches.
Once the thick cardboard was properly cut to the size and
shape you can cover it with any type of paper you want. I will probably eventually cover mine with a
patchwork quilt of small scraps of paper and cardstock, but I haven’t decided
yet. So for now you can definitely tell
what it is made out of.
The largest
of my scraps that would not fit securely in these holders I put in a hard
plastic storage envelope I already had on hand.
In fact it was one of the envelopes I had emptied the day before of
ephemera.
The smallest
of the squares and rectangles that wouldn’t do well in the homemade holders
because of their size I put in legal sized envelopes that I labeled what the
color was on the outside and then put the envelope with other papers of the
same color in the homemade holder.
The
envelopes had the effect of also being a divider for each color as well. That will aid in future filing or shopping
for colors. You could also put a bit of color on the envelope to indicate what
color was inside if you are more of a visual person.
Oh and the
envelopes, by the way, were free. They
are from a printer that did a misprint of several cases of envelopes for a
company I worked for years ago. So I was
given the envelopes and have been slowly using them up for just such
projects. They are heavier than your
normal legal size envelope, so that is even better.
Once I had
merciless trimmed my paper down to a true usable size I found I had extra space
in the box. Never one to let a space go
unused I dug around until I found several small pads of cardstock that were of
scrap paper size and added those to the box.
They fit perfectly and now all my small papers are together for one easy
shopping experience whenever I’m pulling a project together.
This had the
action of nearly emptying another small drawer that I am certain I will find an
excellent use for in the future.
I have some very old versions of this type of holder that
my husband made out of chipboard years ago to hold magazines. They are a bit flimsier than these corrugated
boxes, but will also work.
When he constructed those he made them as a long narrow
box with one side completely open and you slide the paper/magazines in from the
side. These you could make from any size cardstock or chip board if you didn’t
want to wait to find the perfect box.
Of course in
all my cleaning and culling I had uncovered some actual purchased holders of
the same type to hold 8 ½ x 11 paper/cardstock so those are on the shelf with
the papers as well. These purchased folders varied from the old fashioned out of popularity bright yellow ones, to Cropper Hopper versions of it. So my shelves with paper on them are a bit eclectic in nature, but it works and I'm happy.
If creating
the holders yourself is too much work you can always do as I did. Just make dividers out of used poster board
until you get the exact holders you want.
Craft stores
run organizational materials on sale several times a year. So if all else fails you can purchase
those. Whatever your choice is a
selection of paper that is easy to see and pick out colors of is a must in any
paper crafting room.
By time I
was finished another box was now empty and could be removed from the room, ahhh
more square footage to work with for certain.
Gotta love it.
While
today’s clean-up was simple to achieve it did take a little bit of time to do
because I had such a backlog of paper.
In the future my plan is to trim up all the leftover bits after each
project so it will only take a few minutes each time.
By
“shopping” my scrap paper holders with the beginning of each project and using
any bit that the cut out will work on I should save a lot of money on
scrapbooking products and after all as Granny always said “Mind your pennies and your dollars will mind
themselves.”
Jan who
loves the fact her room is slowly coming together the way she wants it in OK
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