Organizing with Style: Tips with Nadine and Susan Tidwell

Nadine's Organize with Style Tip

 

Once upon a time I had a major addiction to ribbon.
I just couldn't get enough of it and every time I would get another 1 yard of ribbon (1 yard since that is how my local scrapbook store sold it) I would just throw it into my ribbon basket with all the other yards of ribbons. Looking for the perfect ribbon to match the project I was working on was such a chore digging through the basket. Eventually I ended up with one big ball of ribbon and was nearly impossible to see what I actually had.

Then I discovered this amazing system online called the Ribbon Ring to organize it all. It took quite a bit of time to organize it all by colors, but once I did.... I LOVED IT!! I like being able to see exactly what I have without having to dig forever through a basket and also that it hangs up on the wall instead of taking up space on my scrappy desk.

The only negatives I have about my ribbon organization is
1. I really need to start using my ribbon again and 2. Sometime my cats think the ribbons are a fun toy hanging on the wall for them to play with. 

 

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Susan Tidwell's Organizing with Style

Hi Everyone,

This is Susan with a storage idea for small wood-mounted alphabet stamp sets, the kind that come mounted on small wooden “pegs.” The original box these come in usually don’t have a cover and they get all jumbled up if you put them in other boxes. I like having the alphabets in order.

My solution? Ammunition boxes! These boxes are small square boxes with individual dividers sized for different calibers of bullets. The ones I bought are for .44 or .45 (whatever that means!), are about 5-6’ square and have 100 sections, enough for 3 complete alphabets plus extra punctuation. My box is named p-100 Series and the website listed is: http://www.mtmcase-gard.com/.
I purchased mine at a sporting goods store in the hunting department several years ago… lol at the time, I couldn’t find them at Walmart. Just be prepared for some strange looks if you go shopping for these with your kids in tow!

 -Small Wood- Mounted Alpha Stamp Storage-

Here are photos of the box closed and open. These are perfect for the little $1/$1.50 sets of alphabet stamps from the craft stores. I also have set from PSX, Image Tree and Hero Arts that fit. And, as I said, there are different sizes so the larger boxes might also fit larger stamps. Just take your stamps with you when you are shopping for the boxes.

 -Wood Stamp Storage Solution-  

And here is my storage system for wood stamps.
I think I have tried just about every system for storing stamps- each time I am satisfied with a storage system, I buy more stamps and outgrow it or a new comes along. I have been most happy with storing my wood stamps in 11 x 14" acrylic box frames.  When you take out the cardboard box inside the frame you are left with a great tray the perfect depth for one layer of stamps.  Here you can see part of the tray of my greetings stamps.

And here you can see how nicely they fit inside the tray.  I've never gotten around to doing this, but once the tray is filled, you could stamp each image on the paper below so you would always know exactly where the stamp should be replaced after using!

The one problem with this system is having them stacked several trays high. When I wanted stamps from the lower trays it was inconvenient to have to remove the upper trays.

When we moved and downsized about eight years ago and I was dismantling an old bookcase to throw away, I had an AHA moment!  The upright sides of the bookcase were already drilled with holes approximately two inches apart from top to bottom.  Since this was a 12-inch deep bookcase, I figured it would be the right depth for the trays.  There was only one stationary shelf, along with the top and bottom, so I had a friend cut them down to a little over 14” wide.  Once I reassembled the bookcase, I had a cabinet with an interior width of about 14.25", just enough to slide in the trays over shelf pegs inserted in the pre-drilled holes.  Not only is the bookcase much sturdier, it is perfect for 25 stamp trays!

Here is a photo of the inside without the trays.  You can see that I used every other hole so there would be space for the trays to slide in.  There's also some clearance above the trays so I can slip in clear stamp sets or the occasional extra stamps.

I hope you find this tip useful. I love having my stamps stored this way!

 

I hope you enjoyed our Organizing with Style Tips this Week!

You can find all the tips HERE!

 For more great organizing tips check out our Pinterest Page!

 

 

Organizing with Style Nat & Susan Liles

Nat here sharing my Organize with Style Tip!

Ikea is a great place to go to help get organize!
I found this Raskogs, a 3 shelf rolling cart there. I use this for all my go to basic supplies.

 The top shelf holds my 12" paper trimmers, my go-to smaller scissors (cutterbee), my go-to adhesives (glossy and scotch), my crop a dile, corner rounder, small hole punch, scor tape and a few boxes of adhesive roll refills (for quick grab).

The 2nd shelf holds all of my Quick Quotes ink, stamp scrubber and cleaner and my acrylic blocks.

The bottom shelf holds my heat gun, personal size paper trimmer (for photos) and a caddy for my glue gun, glue sticks and foam brushes.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the RASKOG. it holds so much and is very portable moving around a scrap space.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Susan Liles here with my Organizing with Style -Craft Space Tips!

 I don't really have a "favorite" organizational solution. 
As many of y'all know, I don't like to spend a lot of time on "organization".  To me, as long as everything has a place, gets put back into its place when I'm done using it and those things don't exceed the boundaries of the space I've set up for them, I'm organized enough.  The less time I have to spend organizing and setting up organizational methods, the more time I have to create!  That is SO NOT to say I'm unorganized, because I totally am, but by keeping my space neat and "a place for everything and everything in its place", the "organization" takes care of itself. 

My Elfa drawers and shelves from The Container Store help me do this.  I keep most of my things in the drawers and the little bins on the shelves.  My space is right when you walk into my home and there is no door to close and hide my mess, so I have to keep it looking somewhat presentable! 

Some of the drawers are messy but separated by types of products (one for inks, one for paints/adhesives, ribbon/fibers and dies). 
I know what's in them and don't mind having to move a couple things around to get to something. 

 
I do like this drawer where I keep my inks and blocks. 
It's the top left one under my Silhouette and I just swivel in my chair to get to it.  (I like everything that I use constantly to be within reach.)  In this drawer, my inkpads fit great, all stacked up inside these plastic open containers called "Like-it" Bricks also from The Container Store.  They easily stack, can be removed, and the smaller ones slide along the tops of each other, so that I can make the most of the space.  There's enough open space to the side of them to keep my heat tool, charger and Silhouette cords in that drawer as well.

Let us know if you'd like to see more of my space. 

Since we just moved into our new home about 7 months ago, it's a work in progress!

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Now we all need to take a field trip to the Container Store and Ikea! hahaha... That would be fun! :)

Thanks for reading along today! Check back tomorrow from our last day of Organizing with Style!

Organize with Style: Tips Day 2 with Angi & Valerie

Hi it's Angi here sharing with you a great tip on how to organize your small embellishment leftover pieces :)

When I craft I often have loose embellishments all over the place.
Instead of placing them in my stash pile, I put them in mini 3 ring albums. The 3 x 3 albums are the perfect size for me.I use the Instagram albums from We R Memory Keepers. You can use any size or brand for this type of organizing.

You can find the 4x4 Insta Albums at The Little Blue House
or on our LBH Online Shop

The photo sleeves are just the right size to hold fabric letters, flair, buttons, bows, and any small sized embellishment. When working on a project I just flip through the pages and find the perfect little embellishment to finish off a project. You can even take this a step further and organized by color, size, or type. 

I hope you all like my fun little way to organize my embellies. 

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Hi it's Valerie here to share my favorite organizing tool from my craft space! One of my favorite storage solutions (I actually have 2 of them!) is a revolving storage bin that I purchased at Harbor Freight Tools. (Melissa Frances also have a similar product)
 Here's the before photo of what it looks like after it's put together from the store

And here's mine after it's been painted, washi-ed and filled.
They are only 12" tall but I can get lots on each of them!

I spray painted them both and then I decorated around each bin with washi tape. On the yellow bin, I actually attached magnets to hold my flair buttons around the bin.
Here are a few close ups of some of my stored goodies

 I filled a couple of small vintage bowls with roving wool and stuck all of my stickpins in them and keep them on the top of the bin

This is a small amount of my sprays...  

this is a bin of paper flowers and you can see the twine in the bin above it!

I have each stored with my most used goodies and I keep them at either end of my work table so that I can see and grab whatever I might need from them! If I can see it I will use it!

Thanks Angi and Valerie for showing these great organizing tips!  

Add these ideas to your Pinterest page and see more great tips on our  Pinterest Board "Organizing with Style"

Organizing with Style: Tips Day 1

The Little Blue House Organizing with Style Tips

Lindsey here with some Organizational Tips from a good friends studio - I recently went to meet my crafty friend I met via Instagram in Baltimore.  Her studio is so amazing and her organization ideas were too great not to share.  My "studio" is my dining room table and not exactly an organizational dream.  At my house, you'll find a lot of vintage tins and boxes stacked a different way every day- my friend Patti's studio, is a dream.  It's amazing.  I'm a very sentimental person, so my favorite idea she has is using her mothers spice rack to hold spray inks.  What a great way to reuse something that reminds you of a loved one.

Her collection of salt and pepper shakers includes her mothers, vintage and some new.  I love this idea, not only is it a great way to dispense glitter.  It sure looks pretty all together.  You may also notice she has tons of little plastic jars from Ikea to organize brads, flowers, buttons, etc.  They are grouped by color so when you are looking for an embellishment, it makes it way easier to find.   

My dear friend Patti is as sweet as they get. Her studio is magnificent.  She permenantely has 4 workstations set up so friends can come and create with her easily. Such a warm, welcoming space filled with beautiful things.  Thanks for checking out her great ideas, and thanks for letting me share them Patti!

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Hi friends, Vicki here to share one of my favorite organizational tips with you today. Stickles is a common glitter glue that everyone loves. You might have several colors like I do of this product...

 I saw this somewhere years ago, and knew as soon as I saw it, it was happening in my room.  I think it’s amazing!  Here is how I did mine.  I just picked up a metal tray at the dollar store, and screwed the tray to the underneath of the shelf right above my desk.  Once that was done I glued the little round magnets you can find at the craft or hardware store to the bottom of each of my bottles of stickles. I used a cool temp glue gun.   I added all of them to the tray, and now when I go to use one, there is no waiting for it to reach the tip, or trying to shake it down, because it’s always right there, ready to go.  Of course it doesn’t just have to be Stickles, I have my small bottle of clear wet adhesive , my Glossy Accents and a number of other things done this way also.

Another little tip I thought I’d share, since you can see it in the photo is about my bulletin board in front of my desk.  I have a HUGE bulletin board above my desk under that shelf, which comes in handy for many things. But  I have a few digital image CD’s that I use very often, so instead of always putting them away and having to get them out  again constantly,  I keep them hanging right there.  I find I use everything much more if it’s out and in view.

I hope these two organizational tips help you in your craft space! Thanks for reading and make sure and follow along all week as we share more great tips!! :)

Lindsey & Vicki



Recap from Scrapbook Expo in Grapevine

We had so much fun sharing about our store with you at Scrapbook Expo this past weekend. We were lucky enough to get a booth at the last minute thanks to Scrapbook Expo!
 We sure did appreciate it!!

We hope you enjoyed our Reverse Confetti Make & Takes and Faith Journaling Demos with Miss Tracy! We loved seeing our True Blue Friends at the show and meeting so many new friends over the weekend too!

Our booth even made a quick appearance on
 Good Morning Texas on Friday morning!
Did you see us? They are going to send us the link of the broadcast soon so we can share it with you.

Overall it was a great weekend!

We hope to see you all in the store soon...
Make sure and Subscribe to our Blog and Follow along
with us everyday!  

Stay Warm,

Miss Tracy & LBH Gals

www.reverseconfetti.com
www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com
www.facebook.com/The-Little-Blue-House


Be Inspired : Dear Lizzy's Serendipity- Die-Cut Tutorial

Hi---Valerie here!!  

I was thrilled to receive the die-cut set from the
Dear Lizzy Serendipity Collection to try out!

Using die-cuts are one of my favorite ways to make my embellishments customized to whatever project I am working on. And I love when I can use parts of the die-cut pieces in different way like I did with my favorite piece in the Dear Lizzy Set - the fringe piece (It looks like a comb!)!!
I first used it the way it is intended to be used - as the center of the flowers that are part of the set. You simply roll the fringe up and then spread the ends out to look like the stamens of a flower. For this run roll up flower, I first die-cut the pieces and then edged all the pieces with a pink Wink of Stella glitter brush before rolling them into the flower. I haven't decided yet where I'll use it, but it will be a gorgeous embellishment edition to whatever I use it on!

I used it next as the actual fringe at the bottom of my tag

I just cut two pieces and then layered them one on top of each other to create the fringe.

I also used the layered flower and leaves from the set on my tag. I used the Wink of Stella pink glitter brush on this flower too - I love the subtle glimmer it gives the flower!

Here is a list of the supplies I used that you can find on The Little Blue House online store where you can order them:

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Die Cut Set

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Enamel Dots

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Puffy Stickers

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Lucky Love Paper

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Serendipity Love Letters Paper

Wink of Stella Pink Glitter Brush

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great day!! :)
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If you are in the Dallas Fort Worth area...
Come out and see us at Scrapbook Expo this weekend!
It's being held at the Gaylord Texan Hotel in Grapevine! We have a Little Blue Booth at the Show full of great products and LBH Kits to purchase.We also have Free Make & Takes and Demos
going on all through out the day in our booth! :)

If you are visiting for the show, The Little Blue House is also open tomorrow (Sat 2/21) from 10am-5pm
we are located about 20 minutes away from Grapevine!

118 W.Olive Street Keller, TX 76248