September Creative Chat-Card Stock

Hey everyone!!

It's time for the MFT Creative Chat. The My Favorite Things Design Team Creative Chat is a monthly feature, where we are challenged to explore our creative spaces and share valuable organizational methods, tools, and shopping strategies with you. You'll be able to peek into our creative spaces, ask questions, and share your own ideas in the MFT forum. This month, we were asked the following questions:

How do you store and organize your card stock?

How do you store your scrap card stock?

How do I store my cardstock? Well, I am about to show two things: my grossly HUGE collection of card stock, and my OCD(or CDO as it should be), LOL!! For my card stock, I keep them in stacking portable file storage containers....the big ones, LOL! You can purchase these at any office supply store, or places like Target or Wal-mart. Here are some from Office Depot, which are VERY reasonably priced. I have four of these containers...three to hold open packs of paper(and some back stock), and one that holds the rest of the back stock that wouldn't fit with the others. I won't tell you that there is a whole stack of back stock in my closet...nope, won't tell you that at all. Sheesh...

As you can tell from the very first photo, and now onto this one, I have my card stock arranged by color, ROY. G. BIV, to be exact. For those of you without OCD, or with an allergy to science, ROY G. BIV is the acronym for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet....the rainbow! I told you I was OCD. I used to have my card stock completely segregated by company, now, I have it all mixed together and I am SO much happier. When I need a pink, I can see all the shades that I have, and chose accordingly. Plus, with them all together, there is no more digging into one spot for my MFT card stock, one for my SU, and one for my PTI, they are all there together.

Each color is put into a separate manila file folder, with it's name and company name written on the tab. These can also be purchased at any office supply store, but I linked to the ones I used from Office Depot. This eliminates that moment of CRAP, where did this color paper come from??? What's it's name? Blah, blah. I do leave my paper in the original packaging for as LONG as I possibly can. Most paper comes shrink wrapped, and those will only last so long, but that's the beauty of the file folder, it keeps it all contained. What I like about these storage containers is you can stack them up, so they don't take up much room, or have them all set out, so that you can get to all of them easier. I have a VERY small craft space, now, so it's nice having the ability to make them take up as little space as possible.

How do I store my scraps? For me, it is easier to keep my scraps with the original paper, thus again, eliminating the guess work. I have so many different colors, and some are VERY similar...to have to hunt down what it is when I am blogging would be SO annoying!! What I normally do, is trim off any unusable edges, like if you were to run a piece through a die cutting machine, and there is very little around it left over. I then put them back into the original packaging with the card stock or into the file folder with it. This keeps all my scraps with the full sheets, and forces me to try to use them first, before cutting a full sheet of card stock. I've been known to make an entire card from nothing but scraps!!

Well, that is it for me for now! Thanks for taking a look at my storage, and I hope it wasn't too boring for you, lol!!

Visit Kim's Blog for a full list of designers that have taken up the challenge and get ready to delve into the minds of our creative team!

****Just wanted to thank you all for your sweet comments, and well wishes. Jonah is doing a little better, but everyday is a new day for him. Some days he progresses, some days he stays the same, and others they find one more thing to fix. As long as they keep finding fixable problems, and none of those NOT fixable problems, I am considering it a victory for now. Casie got to hold him for the first time since he was born for about 10 seconds the other day. I wish I could have been there to see. Breaks my heart:( *****