Organization - An Evolving Process

Over the next few days I will share my organization secrets that I have learned over the past year.


First - Paper Storage. If you are a 12 x 12 scrapper like I am, the first thing you'll discover is that finding storage for 12 x 12 is neither easy, or cheap. A friend advised me to build one (and helped, thank god).

This shelf to the left was built from white malomine board purchased from home depot. I managed to get one that had pre-drilled holes in the sides for the shelves at small intervals that would allow me to adjust the shelf height. I also purchased the little plastic shelf supports from home depot. The individual shelves are 13 inches wide and the sides are 4ft. You can build to suit your needs though, which is the best thing about this shelf. The sides were cut and screwed to the top, the shelf supports put in, and the shelves snapped into place all in about 2 hrs. Beware though... it weighs a ton! I use it to separate my paper by colour. I put my cardstock in with my PP for simplicity. I've had this same system for a long time and it seems to work great!

Total Cost of Shelf:
Malamine board (2, 1 with predrilled holes) $30
Shelf supports - $.05 each = $3.00
Total $33
Compare to pre-built cost of $140 - $299 and what's not to like?

My other storage shelf was purchased from Canadian Tire. I no longer have the facilities or the tools to build my own since moving. This shelf is adapatable to your design. There are more vertical and horizontal shelves that I could add, but I like having space for my various baskets. You could also use this model for a paper storage shelf, but since I already have one, took advantage of the shelves other features. The drawers are lovely. In the shallow drawers I have my letter stickers, finished cards, and my embossing powders. In the deep drawers I have my ribbons, flowers, buttons ( yes, I need a whole drawer.. see previous post), and my larger print photo's and photo cd's. I purchased this shelf for approx $150. The assembly was time consuming and a little trying - but since I made Jeff do it there wasn't much frustration on my part!