ACOT Message Board

 This week the area to be organized is PATTERNED PAPER and CARDSTOCK!!

and for the digital side Tracy is going to get ready for you Using the Folder.jpg file

Remember you can participate even if you like the way you have yours organized....share with us!!!

I have found there are really three ways to store PP (if you have more...please share)..
by company, color or theme.

The only problem with doing it by theme, is chances are you will have a TON of paper that will just not fit into a theme.

I think you need to ask yourself how do you scrap? Do you scrap by company, color or theme? If so that is how you should sort, since that is what you will be reaching for first.

For me, I don't scrap by company or theme but almost totally by color. so that is how my is sorted. The Cardstock and the PP. I do have my themed PP in sections that will be shown later in the challenge.



This is how I have my CS and PP stored. Again labeling is huge for me. Granted these cropper hopper things can get expensive. But I have seen people get big baskets from Michaels-- use their 40% off coupon,--(or equivalent craft stores) and then just buy the dividers from cropper hopper and seperate them that way. That is what I have done for my colored chipboard. As shown here. (I actually have mine sorted into baggies for the chipboard as they tend to slide under dividers..but paper would not)..just trying to give you ideas! 
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Now some PP are hard to really say WHAT color is this really    ...for example this one has blue, orange and white?? eeeek what to do?? What I do is pick the color that I would probably use it with...in this case I would probably go with the orange. When hunting for paper to use, I will look in my inteneded color first and if I cannot find what I am looking for I will flip through complimenting colors to see if something is there.  

 I've actually been trying to work on this. How does everyone sort their patterned paper?

 I have massive amounts of PP!  I have the 3 drawer units, but I need to divide them up better, because some of them are getting very full.
I started with a drawer of just children's paper,1 for seasons, 1 for holidays (but Christmas now deserves it's own drawer), floral, stripe, paper with numbers, fancy die cut papers, etc.   Then I put some in cropper hopper vertical files by manufacturer but I don't really see them when they are in there. 
I just bought 2 more 3 drawer units so I can spread them out more.  I started putting papers and embellies and some pics in plastic sleeves to do layouts later and they are in drawers - one for my twin grandchildren, one for my other granddaughter, one for disneyland. 
Then I have those craft keeper 12 x 12 envelopes that I store all fish themed items (for aquarium L.O.'s) and one for zoo L.O.'s, and one for my Book of Me L.O.'s, and one for the Dream Street chipboard albums, 1 with TLC stuff in it, 1 with beach themed items.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!!!

 LOL   Sort it  were supposed to sort it... I have one paper holder thats split between Christmas paper, Velllum, Easter paper, It has clear dividers to put between the paper. I have to admit I can always find the Christmas paper I want. The rest of them are a mish mash in the holders and I have to look through them to find what I want. Not organized at all. Patterned paper doesnt work as well as cardstock in the vertical storage. I also have one of those 3 drawer plastic  deals the 1st drawer is Layouts. Ones I'm putting together in my head, ideas I'm playing with, LO ideas with cardstock and PP together, 2nd drawer is basic grey  3rd drawer is new swaps. Can't wait to see all the different ideas.

 oh, I definitely want in on this one!  I have started, but maybe someone else has better ideas.  I am always open to new ideas

  
here is what I have done.  Hope you can see the pictures okay.  The basket at the right contains all my solid cardstock and in order of colors, nice and easy to grab.  They sit right behind my desk as I work.  The pic at the left depicts 13x13 storage boxes which I purchased at AC Moore for $14 each and each holds pp.  One box is Christmas and winter pp, one is Halloween and Thanksgiving, one is stripes/plaids, and one is flowered patters.  That is the upper shelf.  Then, I have two more boxes on the bottom shelf.  One box contains all other misc 12x12 pp paper and the other contains those long strips of stickers that can't fit in most places.
   

 Oh i can't wait to get started on this one! Going to lowes this evening!

 Can't wait to see how all of you gals have your papers organized! I am going to stay tuned to this one

I use to have a paper rack that I got from a LSS and a few Cropper Hopper organizers.  The paper rack was fine, however I found many papers got dusty as well as faded some.  So I convered to all CH organizers.

Before



 I am pretty happy with my cardstock and paper organization now.  I converted to the Cropper Hopper paper organizers a couple of years ago.  I started out with three and now have many.  Three just for cardstock and the rest for papers.

Cardstock is by color groups.  Papers I have organized different ways.  Themes such as Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, masculine, school, sports, wedding, heritage and then Christmas by itself (admittedly it takes two).  I also have some like BG organized by manufacturer.  Then, I have some kits to keep together all the papers, cardstock and elements that go together.  My challenge is getting everythng labeled.  I use the dividers and have them labeled, and need to figure out how to label the holder so I can turn and see which on I need to grab.

After

 My paper organization isn't anything unique but it works for me.  I have a very tiny room so I have several areas with paper.  In my closet I have this from Target.  It is meant to be a wire grid 6 cube organizer but I made two cubes and wired the rest of the "sides" to use as shelves.  It was very inexpensive!  On the left is my cardstock and the left holds some generic PP that doesn't work in my regular PP section.  Most of the PP here is from the big box stores, not brand name, came to me as gifts, or single sheets of unknown origin.  I have a shelf for:  pink/red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, kraft/brown, white/cream, and black. 

 

The patterned paper that I always look to first is next to my desk on a wooden table and sorted my manufacturer in cropper hopper vertical holders.  They are divided and labeled alphabetically by manufacturer and the last two cropper hoppers have bagged kits in them.  The last file in the row holds irregular papers like transparencies, vellum, and chipboard. 




  

 okay the left side is the pp, by color, (vellum is on top of the) B&W on the top, browns and creams, red, orange and yellow, pink, purple, green, and last but not least is blue. The same colors are cs on the right side. Then the bottom verticle slits hold the Stacks next to my cuppies I love by color.

 Hmmmm I think I am going to have to mix it up. Do Christmas Halloween Patriotic Easter Valentine papers by theme and then do the rest by color. Organizing my paper is going to be a challenge. When using the cropper hoppers how do you keep your pattern paper from flopping over when its not full?

 When using the cropper hoppers how do you keep your pattern paper from flopping over when its not full?

LMAO!  NOT FULL!!  Haha... that's a good one!  pfff.

Ok seriously, I just started out with a few of them and added more when I got more paper.  That way I never had the floppy paper problem. 

 well- I sort my pp by manufacturer-- I kkep them in the 2 gallon ziplocs and then in the horizontal storage containers labeled with each company-- some companies get a whole container to themselves.
My CS is just in a cropper hopper type vertical storage unit by color. Sorta like a rainbow-.

I have all my patterned paper sorted by company and line, taking up one shelf in my craft cabinet. Basically I take it out of the ACOT box and put it on the shelf. lol I call that organized. I used to have a rack system where I mixed all the paper up, sorted by color. But I realize now that it only made it harder for me to find things that actually coordinated. I prefer to keep papers separated by line so all I have to do is grab the baggie off the shelf and everything is in there. Some companies, like Basic Grey and Chatterbox, I have combined a few older lines into one bag. Towards the right side of the shelf you may see I have a few bags sorted by color... those are the remnants of the shelf system and many of those papers came from slabs.



I have WAY too much Bazzill!! hahaha I think it all started when I won a big contest here at ACOT long ago and *no kidding* spent $200 on just Bazzill!!  So here it is in all it's colorful glory, a large plastic tub full of cardstock sorted by color into 2 gallon plastic baggies. The bag in the front is where I put all the large leftover pieces so they are easy to find.

 MamaK321 i am loving your system

 updated at top with information for the digi gals!

 My pp is supposed to be organized by theme in a couple of the Cropper Hopper organizers. However, lately, I've been storing non-themed collections in 2 gal ziploc bags and then putting those into plastic boxes. For my CS, I have some 12x12 plastic trays that stack together and the CS is arranged by color. I'll post a pic of it tomorrow.

 This is all very helpful because I have absolutely NO paper organization system at all! It's all in with each other no matter what theme, color, manufacturer!

 I have those metal cubes like other people have but I'm not that organized by seperating everything by color.