Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Organize those Stickers By Anita


It is that time of year again, when our thoughts turn to spring cleaning. So while we are making plans to clean our windows, air out our house, and wash those dreaded walls, let’s take a few moments to make a few plans for our scrapbook supplies.

Beginning with this month’s newsletter, we will tackle one area a month to clean out and organize. This month it is stickers.

The first step: Be brutally honest. Are you going to use those cute stickers again? Do you need them anymore? Take 15 minutes and sort your stickers in three piles – keep, donate or sale, and throw away.

Step 2: Immediately throw away or bag up those you are not going to keep (out of sight, out of mind – they won’t trickle back into your keep pile if you do this).

Step 3: Now take another 15 minutes and sort your keep stickers. I sorted mine in the following way: Alphabets, Animals, Biblical and Quotes, Children and School, Cooking and Food, fall, Family and Home, Floral and Gardening, Frames and sticker strips, Heritage and Victorian, Love and Party, Sports, spring and summer, and winter. (NOTE: In the season sections are any holidays which fall in those seasons).

This system works well for me, but you may find you have so many Christmas stickers that they need their own section, separate from winter, or Halloween separate from fall. Sort your stickers in a way that is good for you, not someone else.

Step 4: Now it is time to store our stickers for ease of use. There are several methods for storing stickers. Once again, you need to find the one that easiest for you. I chose to use hanging 12 x 12 file folders. This works for me as I can sit the file box next to me and just grab the file I need when I am working on a layout.

Another option is the Paper and Sticker Binder from Crop-In-style. This binder lays flat for ease of use and many options are available to protect the size of stickers you use.

Both the 12 x 12 file folders and the Paper Sticker Binder are available in our store.

Step 5: Now you are ready to scrap.

Drop us an email and let us know how you organize. We would love to hear your great tips.