welcome to my scrap space. and, actually, the whole family's living space. it's not perfect, of course i'd love a bigger area in which to go about all our daily rituals, from dancing to Hi-5 on the sofa, to clearing off the textas and crayons so we can actually dine on the dining table. those textas and crayons usually then get dumped on my scrap table...
having said that, i love it. i know now that even in a bigger house, even with a spare room or study, i wouldn't want to move into a little room all on my own. i spend too much time at the computer and scrapping to do it away from the family, although there is the argument that my workload wouldn't take quite so long if i weren't constantly interrupted to help build a cubby house, find glitter glue for a fairy or provide regular drinks and meals, often as not for dolls as for real little people. but it's my experience that no matter how big the house, a close young family will still generally find themselves in the same square metre of space. whether you want to or not.
anyway. my scrap space has slowly grown and evolved over the last five or so years, from a couple of shoe boxes and an accordian file of paper, to a bookshelf and drawers and um. a wall unit (not shown in this pic).
most of my storage is still pretty primitive - covered shoe boxes or cardboard idea boxes, plastic drawers. i love my glass jars and jug of ribbons.
when an alphabet set gets too low to make any plausible words, they go in this fishing tackle box. great for mixed up title layouts.
these handy pots sit on my desk and occasionally hold what's on the labels.
it's more important, though, that these contain what's on the labels. if i didn't keep my patterned paper organised, i'd be in deep you know what, and the cropper hopper vertical storage is without doubt the most efficient - and space saving - way.
these were marked down at ikea to like $2 for the rail and shelf and $1 for each pot or something. and are brilliant for holding stuff i dont need every day, but i want to keep handy like stamps, paints, buttons and all the glues and punches that i might not actually use if you had to stand up and dig through stash to find.
without doubt though, this is probably my most vital thing in my scrap area. it's just a plastic storage box, but it holds these brilliant cropper hopper 'page planner' wallets. they have three separate little pockets, the centre one holding 12x12 papers, one at the back for smaller embellishments and/or photos, and a project card at the front. whenever I receive an assignment, i pull the basic products i'm going to need (this also means i don't forget and use them for something else), write the project and deadline date on the front, and put it into my storage box in the order that work is due. so whatever is on top is the next thing i need to work on. a simple system that works!
finally, i love that i can peep through the holes on my bookshelf and watch telly. and i love it more when it's not the backyardigans. :)
it's no secret i'm really loving working with tinkering ink papers, and they work so well in this layout about my scrap space i recently did for for keeps magazine, setting off the whiteness in my photos. the alphas are just quirky enough, and the flourishes at the top of the layout are a mixture of tinkering ink die cuts, hambly transparencies and cherryarte chipboard, to symbolise the point in the room from which all the creativity flows. sometimes.
journalling reads: "our home and my scrapbook pages share a few similar aspects in common.. a slightly eclectic simplicty, a shard or two of the rainbow, a backdrop of white, and a general unwillingness to commit to a single colour scheme. only nobody's allowed to mess up the scrapbooks!"
Products i've used here are Fontwerks 'George Outline' alpha stamps, Heidi Swapp White Bordeaux rubons, SEI Ally's Wonderland Expoxy Letters. Hambly overlay, Junkitz Salsa Chipboard Roundz, Heidi journalling spots and the odd wire of Queen & Co Beadifuls.