My Scrap Space

I love my Scrapbooking Room!  It makes me happy to just be in it.  I love the colors and the way it's organized.  Most of my favorite things are in this room.  When we first bought our house we realized that the first room you saw when you walked in the front door was supposed to be for a formal living room.

Well, we didn't have furniture for a formal living room and we knew we would never use the room.  We decided it was a perfect space for my scrapbook/craft room.  I had this fabulous chair that I had bought years earlier for my apartment in Michigan and I absolutely loved it!  I had no idea though where in the new house I would use it.  I seemed a perfect fit for my new scrapbook room.

I called my cousin, Kristin, who was majoring in Interior Design and asked her to come down to Ohio from Michigan and design my room.  She saw my awesome chair and used it as the inspiration for the color palette of the room.  We painted the walls an awesome yellow and I bought my fabulous desk from IKEA and the unpacking/decorating began.

It seems as if the room is constantly evolving.  Here it is in it's latest incarnation.

I collect Disney figurines and those are in the cabinet.  My Cricut is on the credenza behind my awsome IKEA desk along with my smaller embellishments and tools.  I used to work at a scrapbook store that went out of business so that is how I got the paper trays.

On top of the paper trays is where I keep my School of Life storage box and some clean pizza boxes I wrapped with paper, which serve as Material Files for larger theme album projects.

I also use the Karen Foster Snap Boxes to hold pages that are finished and waiting for a home (ie.  I ran out of page protectors for my albums).  I have also recently received Becky Higgins Project Life for my birthday which I am planning on using starting next birthday to chronicle my 40th year.

This bookshelf between the windows is kind of Library of Memories Central.  (more on Library of Memories in a future post).  This five shelf bookcase holds my Category Drawers, Memorabilia Notebook, embellishments, patterned paper, class notebooks and inspiration notebooks as well as my Storage Binders and Material Files.

These are my Category Drawers.  The drawers that Stacy Julian uses and recommends were a little to pricey for me so I decided to just by photo boxes in the colors of my Library.  Green=Places We Go, Pink=Things We Do, Red=People We Love, Brown=All About Us.   On this same shelf is a 3" binder that I use to hold Memorabilia that I have photos to go with and want to scrap.

Two other shelves contain these glass vases that hold embellishments like pieces of ribbon, flowers, and other miscellaneous items, sorted by color.  Another inspiration from Stacy Julian.  Not only does it force me see all the items I have but it also provides some color decoration in my room.

Last but certainly not least are my Storage Binders and Material Files.  The Storage Binders contain all of the photos from 1970 until today that I want to scrapbook.  Seems like a lot I know but there are only 6 binders and Binder 6 only contains photos from Fall 2010 until now.

These are my Material Files.  These folders contain paper, stickers, embellishments and photos that are specific to a theme album or project I'm working on.

This is my wall of color.  My favorite chair occupies a corner and then some cube shelving from Target takes up the rest of the wall.  This is where all my little toys, red-haired dolls, Emerald City and more Library of Memories stuff resides.  The colored bins are again inspired by Stacy Julian's Scrap by Color system.  All of my other scrapbooking supplies like ribbons, die cuts, chip board, pens, paint, ink and more are organized by color and stored in these bins.

This is my Family Words File that lives in my cube wall.  This is where I store favorites quotes, lyrics, poems, etc. to be used as inspiration for scrapbook pages.

This is my Cultural Memorabilia Box (also stored in my cubes).  This is where I store things like tickets, fortunes, tags, etc. that I would like to use as ephemera on a scrapbook page.

This is my large Memorabilia box.  This stores things that are too big for the Memorabilia Notebook.

These are my Family Tree Drawers and my Square-punch Picture Drawers.  I have nine Family Tree Drawers.  #1 is for Me, #2 is for Prince Charming, #3 is for my mom and her family, #4 is for my dad and his family, #5 is for Prince Charming's mom and her family, #6 is for Prince Charming's dad and his family, #7 is for People, #8 is for Places and #9 is for Professional Portraits.

There are three Square-punch drawers, one for each of us.

The final LOM element that is stored in the cubes are my Cold Storage Boxes.  These contain photos that I don't want to scrapbook or do anything with but at the same time I don't want to throw them away.

That's it.  That is my scrapbooking room.  Eventually, I will do posts that explain each individual element and the way I use it to help me tell our stories.  Hope it's been inspiring.