Workspace Wednesday | Suzy Plantamura

I have a dedicated room for scrapbooking. It is full to the brim with supplies I have accumulated over ten plus years. It overwhelms me to enter this room. It is tucked in a corner of the house without a lot of light and away from my family. About a year ago, I decided I wanted to be with my family when I am scrapping and I wanted LESS supplies to choose from when creating. So I moved only the supplies I really NEED AND USE to my bedroom and I scrap on a tray wherever my family is at that time.

This is ALL of my supplies that I use. If you are organized they can fit in a very small area. I am not overwhelmed because I left most of it in my room downstairs. As I accumulate more, I move what is no longer used to my scraproom. This keeps things simple for me. I can put what I need for my current project on my tray and move about the house without any trouble. The key to this method is to be VERY organized.

This container is from Home Depot to hold tools. It is the “hub” of my organization. It holds all of my embellishments. Along the top are my sequins and my favorite colors of Mister Huey’s and Zing embossing powder. On the bottom is a shoebox with my favorite most used ink colors. On the left are some of my most used washi tapes. You don’t need ALL of them out – only the ones you reach for the most.

My sequins are organized by color using small plastic containers I purchased at Staples. They hold all the new colors in the Color Theory collection and the Essentials collection. I buy every color of sequins made – I’m a big fan!

I used to keep all my buttons in jars by color and all my brads in more jars by color. I decided to simplify (again). I put only my favorite brads, buttons and small embellishments by color in these little drawers. They make up the top row in my container.

The next row are stickers and die-cuts by color. I cut many of my sticker sheets apart keeping only the ones I would use on my project life. Drawers and drawers of stickers became manageable when I only kept the ones I loved the most.

Another row contains wood and cork. I have a lot of wood veneer collected over the years (and you can guess where I keep it!). I only keep the shapes I use the most like hearts and arrows here. And I mix in brand new with older so I make sure I use up my stash!

I keep embellishments from new collections in the larger drawers. I like to keep them together for projects I will make with these collections intact. These are used currently for the two newest SC collections, Lemonlush and Wanderlust.

The only collections I buy anymore (besides every thing SC makes!) are the ones by my favorite designers – Maggie, Liz and Amy. By limiting supply purchases to only my favorite lines, I keep control of my desire to have everything made! I keep all of the embellishments from Liz, Maggie and Amy in separate drawers weeding out older products to replace with newer ones. If you look in the top right corner of this picture, I keep all my printed SC labels in one drawer sorted by size and color.

I buy a lot of little plastic organizers at the Organizer Store, Staples, Michaels, Hobby Lobby – or wherever I can find them! I love this one with rows made for embroidery floss. It holds my wood veneer letters. And the little one next to it holds all of my SC digital printables cut out and ready to use.

I bought this caddy at Target and it houses all of my favorite letter stickers and packaged embellishments usually from SC kits. I have baskets of Thickers in my scraproom, but it was so difficult to sort through them all when making a project. So this way, I only keep the most recent or most loved in one place for easy choosing.

Small containers are perfect for storing things you want visible. I used this big clear jar from pistachio’s I received at Christmas for my trim collection. I keep my favorite fabrics folded in a small tin. I use tins for my markers and crayons as well.

I keep my watercolor brushes and papers in another tin – if I want to use watercolor on the page, I just grab this container and don’t even need water since it is stored in the brushes! So easy! My watercolor pencils are right next to the watercolors so I can use the same brushes.

A Tupperware container holds all of my Copic markers and another tin holds my favorite drawing pencils and markers. I keep my pencil sharpener and an eraser in with these so I have everything needed to grab and go.

I love this container Deb Duty gave me at CHA, so I keep all of MY stamps that I designed in it for my viewing pleasure – haha. I keep my embroidery floss in a clear glass jar because it is so pretty!

Baskets are another great option for holding supplies. These were purchased at Michaels. I keep my most recent SC stamps in one basket and my SC enamel dots in a smaller basket.

The rest of my stamps are held in this 12x12 album inside project life pockets. The 4x6, 3x4 and even 6x6 pockets are perfect for almost every stamp set made. I also use coin protectors for 2x2 sets and baseball card holders for the 3.25” x 2.5” sets. I can flip through this book easily when I need a set and they don’t take up much room.

I bought this container on the left at Hobby Lobby and it came with six 4x6 plastic containers inside of it for storing photographs. I took them out and store things like SC letter stickers in them. I used the box to hold my 6x6 papers organized by color and my 4x6 papers and PL cards. I perge papers from this box often so it only holds my most recent kit papers and my favorites I use often. This keeps it easy to pick papers for project life and other projects. My favorite PL cards are in one of the drawers from my caddy and again, organized by color.

When you are on a DT, you want all of their products in quick reach. I design stamps for My Favorite Things, so I keep one box for all of their stamps and another for all of their dies. I just purchased these boxes at Target on clearance last week and love them. They hold even the largest size of stamp sets.

I keep all of my Mister Huey’s (except my five most used colors) in this box sorted by color. They are in another plastic container available at most hobby stores. My 12x12 papers and cardstock are in 12x12 plastic containers below my mists. I only keep the most recent purchases of patterned paper as well as some old time favorites in one and the most used colors of cardstock in another. Rather than go through my racks and racks of paper in my office, I can easily find what I am looking for this way.

My washi tape is in another 12x12 container sorted by color. I use my washi A LOT, so most of my collection stays in my bedroom for easy grabbing. Luckily washi doesn’t go out of style and all patterns and colors are often used by me and by my girls for school projects.

I have a chair in my bedroom across from my supplies that I often scrap on. I love that the room has a big window letting in lots of natural light making it a perfect place to photograph my projects. Add a bed where the girls do their homework and a TV, this has become the gathering place for my entire family! I keep my most recent project on the tray table next to my chair so when I do want to follow my kids to other areas of the house, I just grab it and I’m off. Keeping our supplies organized and purging often allows the process of creating to be so much more pleasurable and easy! I hope these tips were helpful to you and please ask if you have any questions!