Amy Kingsford

Tami Taylor is a dear friend and colleague of mine who I have had the privilege of knowing and working along side for the past three years.  She is one of the most creative women I know and when I decided to start my new organizing series this year–she was one of the first people I thought of approaching to share with us all.  I love the way her mind works and I knew she’d have some great tips for all of us on this month’s topic of ”Organizing Your Paper Scraps.”  

When Amy asked me to share with you how I handle my scraps, I was excited!  It’s one of the few areas that I have organized into a system that works for me and my system has worked for me for quite some time.  Below I’ve shared a glimpse into my system and a few ideas to help you organize your own paper scraps in a way that will help you to use them.

I only keep scraps that are large enough for me to use.

I keep any scraps that are of ‘significant’ size in a drawer unit.  By significant I mean a piece that can be used:

• as a strip across the page (2×12)
• as a photomat (4×6)
• or even a decent sized square (4×4).

Anything smaller and I don’t even bother putting it in the drawer.

Organizing by color makes it easier to find what I’m looking for.

The drawers in my unit are organized by color as follows:

• Red
• Orange/Yellow
• Green
• Blue/Purples
• Neutrals
• Multicolored

I store my paper scraps with my full-sized papers to keep them in the forefront of my mind.

A long time ago, I decided that keeping my scraps with my paper stash meant I was more likely to use them.  If I needed a piece of orange paper I would go to my orange drawer; and when I look in the first thing I see is  the stack of scrap papers lying on top–which reminds me to look through those before cutting into a fresh 12×12 piece. 

Smaller scraps are perfect for creating die cuts and shapes for your pages.

If I have a smaller piece of a scrap paper I will sometimes just use my punches or scissors to cut it into shapes.  My pink buckets on my Making Memories wall rack hold shapes I get from punches.  (I even store the punches that fit right in the bucket).  The red buckets hold shapes I’ve cut with scissors.

You can check out Tami’s video tutorial on making these collage shapes by signing up for the Free Sampler Membership at Masterful Scrapbook Design.  The video is part of the May 2011 “Stash Busting” Sampler and is called “Reinventing Your Flat Stash”.