When I started getting crafty last year, I bought one thing here and one thing there and I found I was only looking to store that one thing.

But then it started annoying me because I had these craft things all over the study and I knew I needed everything to be together (store like with like).

So I pulled it all out and realised there was enough to fill a whole drawer.

I can’t remember what drawer 1 held before, but drawer 2 is my card drawer and drawer 3 holds kraft paper gift bags.

I took some measurements and got someone to make this little unit for me (and another for our CDs and DVDs) – I must say, there is nothing quite like having something fit exactly where you want it.

I’ve found that I can’t function in disorder. It’s much easier for me to create if I know exactly where to find my things.

my 3-drawer unit fits right next to my desk

this is a pic of the whole top drawer – from the bottom left moving clockwise: punches, small bags, two layers of washi tape, twine and a spare roll of masking tape (I LOVE masking tape), glue, another punch that didn’t fit with the others, some glue sticks and next to the washi tape, my beloved binder rings. I’ve made things a bit messy so you can see them better

punches

the two baskets of washi tape – I need to go through it because I see I have many rolls never touched- baskets were 3 for R12,99 at PEP

blues and grey, and some fabric tape too

organised by colour

binder rings – all sizes

I use one big ring and keep the other similar sizes together

this pic is easier to see how I organise them

these are D-rings I still haven’t used

As for my scrapbook paper, I simply stand those on a shelf in the wardrobe (it takes up less than a cm).

I do have a small plastic box to store the 6 X 6 squares for the mini books I make but I forgot to take a pic. Nothing exciting though.

How do you organise your craft supplies?

PS remember my secret fantasy? I don’t ever want to expand to more than I can fit in, say 3 drawers.

PPS click on the links above – they are old posts from when this blog was on Blogger, in the good old days.

Whenever we used to travel overseas, I’d keep a little notebook with me and divide it into 3 sections:

1. things to do
2. day to day notes – there’s nothing worse than getting back and whole days of your holiday are blank because you didn’t take notes
3. budgets or what we spend daily (we like to have an average daily budget)

Sometime last year I saw a scrapbook travel journal and I was inspired. Hers was a lot more scrapbooky for my taste but I loved the idea of capturing memories on the day itself and just putting the photos in when you get back from your holiday.

After all, I was used to doing the daily writing anyway.

So eventually I had all the supplies and to be honest, I only assembled the book on our first night on holiday but at least everything was ready.

Supplies

1. Chipboard covers
2. Binder rings
3. Two-hole punch
4. Scrapbook paper
5. Cardstock or project board
6. Notebook paper – I used a graph book for the budget papers
7. Stamps
8. Glue
9. Photos
10. Number stickers (before I saw these, I was going to use plain circle stickers and write the numbers on them)

How to make

1. Decide how big you want your journal. I initially used one double spread per day we were away but then later after going through all the pics, added another four pages.
2. Lay everything out first to make sure what’s in your head works out visually too. I had to change some papers here and there because the colours didn’t look good together.
3. When you’re happy, punch the paper and bind with binder rings.
4. I saw the idea for the cover page ages ago (I think on Becky Higgins’s blog) so I made sure to take that photo on day 1.
5. I wrote in my book every night, sometimes I had to catch up two nights.
6. I made a separate folder within my Ballito folder called scrapbook and dragged the pics I needed to print. Sometimes I cheated and made collages when I couldn’t decide on one pic.
7. I tried various methods of sticking the photos to the pages – the one that worked best for me was putting glue on the page and then affixing the photo.
8. A normal glue stick works better than liquid glue, double-sided tape or those sticky dots. Nice to know cheaper is still best
9. And there it is – a quick way of capturing our memories – in all its imperfect glory.
10. We all LOVE it – me, D and the kids keep paging through it and best of all, because it’s not perfect, I’m not at all precious about people (two and a half year old twins!) touching it

bakers twine from In Good Company – I won’t tell you how much I spent when I went but it was three times what I’d budgeted.

examples of the extra pages I added

the “splash” card is a free download from Monika Wright

I had a little man wanting in on the photo action

this is what all the journalling pages look like – words on one side and pic on the other

 

This was undoubtedly one of the best ideas I’ve ever had and I will definitely be making more for gifts and for our future trips.

I still have not blogged or posted pics of half of our travels from 2008 and 2009 but if I’d had little books like these I know they would have been DONE by now! I used to blog ours but it got away from us.

How do you document your travel (international and domestic) adventures?

What do you think of my little book?

PS please spare a thought for my friend, Beth. It’s one year today since her son died so tragically.

I found these cleaning caddies at a gigantic homewares store and immediately had to have some.

Not for cleaning, mind, but for crafting.

They’re so useful because you can easily carry your stuff to wherever you want to play.

These pictures are from when Kendra was in the hospital over Christmas.

I took lots of stuff with me to make some mini books, washi tape books, notecards, etc. 

Where do you re-use containers for other purposes like organising?

Now that I’m making these beaded bookmarks all the time, I needed to have a cheap solution that took up very little space and kept things organised.

I took a box and used 2 ice-cube trays from a set of 3, and used the partitions to keep all the beads and my other bits and pieces separate. The box is quite deep so I can easily put another layer or two of trays on top of a piece of project board as I get more and more beads (although I am not keen on just buying and buying).

BTW, if you look on the left of the box, you’ll see the gorgeous purple ones that I (almost) don’t want to sell. I am crazy!

For the moment, this really works for me. I can see at a glance when I’m running low and I can see which I need to make more of

I actually need to declutter as well (don’t laugh) because I bought some big bags of assorted beads and I can see I’m not really into some of them so will donate to my friend’s daughter.

Imagine my shock and horror when I saw that Annie awarded the Creative Blogger Award to me. Then I read what she wrote and it really is very sweet of her.

Marcia has lots of blogs and even a professional website full of creative ways to organize your life. She always has pictures of food she has made or organizing tips. She is very creative!

Thank you, Annie.

I browsed my Google Reader and thought that this is the ideal opportunity to introduce you to some really creative gals I stalk I have a thing about gorgeous photography and though I almost never comment (some of that is due to Typepad), I am always lurking. In fact, I’ll let you in on a secret: I read my creative folder first every day because I love the yumminess of colour and art.

So I bestow this award on these 5 bloggers:

1. Chronicles of me – Boho is a photographer and jewellery designer.
2. Superhero Journal – Andrea makes the yummiest necklaces and is a photographer too. I wrote about how I love one of her posts the other day.
3. The simple life – I’ve been reading Mindi’s blog since before I even started blogging. She is a super-talented photographer and has the most GORGEOUS kids.
4. Elizabeth Harris – I don’t quite know how I stumbled upon her blog. Also a very-talented photographer. She took some baby pictures on her blog recently which are just GORGEOUS.
5. Jennifer Deaton – I “met” Jennifer through Menu Plan Monday and went to visit her creative blog. I drooool at the cards and other gorgeous things she makes. Jennifer has a post which I’ve bookmarked because the baby gift she made is so beautiful. And she was so encouraging when I was trying to do something similar (in my non-artistic) way.

Go ahead and visit them – it is well worth your while

Have a great weekend everyone.