Last May, we upgraded to a bigger condo, and in it was a perfect little corner for me to build an all-new scrap area. The laundry room I used in the last place didn't work out as well as I hoped...it ended up being more of a storage closet than a scrap space, and part of what dampened my mojo was having to keep running back and forth from the laundry room to the kitchen table and then back again...and nothing ever got put back where it was supposed to go.
The wonderful thing about the new scrap corner is it's quite separated from the rest of the living room, and I can keep it a perpetual scrapmess without having to worry about it offending anyone. As a scrapper you learn with each time you reorganize your scrap space, and I think I have a pretty good idea what works best for me now, so even though it's not a big space by any standard, I have still been able to create 14 pages there without having to clean up after myself.
Here's some pics!
I couldn't fit in all the wall boxes from my old space, but am making better use of the ones I did keep. The long box closer to the desk is great for keeping things close at hand but not buried, like my paper trimmer. It's also great for keeping a cup of coffee within arm's reach. I can also reach my tool drawer chest, where most of my embellishments are kept, without having to climb on anything. Ink, adhesive and stamps go in the square space, the rest of my plastic containers fit nicely underneath the desk, along with my 3-drawer unit which I use for projects in progress and Christmas pages.
This desktop and paper tower were my own creation, put mostly together from scraps I found on the curb. The shelves in the paper tower are the wire squares that used to form my old paper storage cube, only with a wooden frame around them they hold their shape much nicer now. I also made them wider apart as my paper collection has increased. I keep them all in extra large Ziploc bags so scraps can be kept with their proper collection. The desktop I had cut at the hardware store to fit exactly into the space, with the paper tower as its support. Getting it in was a challenge.
My Ikea wire thingies have made a comeback for large photos, magazines, and some of my cross stitching stuff. The homemade "clip-it-up"s were one thing that worked out well from the last space so I made more of them for the new space. Yes, that's all my ribbon in tiny bags. I don't know how this will work out yet, but so far I haven't found an efficient way to store the stuff so it's worth a try. The white shelf I made again from scraps from the curb. It helps when your neighbours are renovating.
It's hard to see, but the 2 smaller squares on the wall I just filled with little plastic 3-drawer units which are great for storing embellishments that don't fit in the tool chest like big flowers, chipboard pieces and my massive collection of My Mind's Eye transparencies and die-cuts.
This is my scrap corner from the stairway. You can see there's a rail on one side, and a window on the other, so even though it's a small area it seems spacious.
Eventually I may repaint the area and hang a few more lights, but it's still pretty soon after we moved in and there's time yet to think of that. So far it has been a very usable space for me and when a small space is organized well, it can be easier to use than a large one because you can reach everything. And for me, that's a big deal.
