Lori Gentile Gets ORGANIZED!

Our blogger today is Lori Gentile. I came across her blog and just fell in love with all her cute projects and stunning scrapbook layouts! I asked her to do a post for us, and she offered to show us an example of how she organizes her creative supplies using products we carry at Roberts and at robertscrafts.com. I loved that idea, as I am currently trying to organize my creative CHAOS at the moment. ;) Swing by her blog and show her some love! :) 

Hello Roberts Crafts blog readers. My name is Lori Gentile and I’m really excited to be a guest on the blog, today. Thank you for having me!

I’ve been scrapbooking for over 11 years and in that time have accumulated just a tiny bit of scrappy stuff. Ha! Over the years I have struggled with keeping my stuff organized in a way that, also, keeps me motivated and inspired. It took learning what my scrapbooking process is, to understand how to organize.

A sample of my scrapbooking, using Crate Paper Restoration Collection found HERE

 Once I had established my process, organizing my space became very simple. In short, my process boils down to color. Whether I start with a product, a story or a picture, my next step is always building my page around a color scheme. Because of this, I knew I had to organize by color. The other important thing I learned about my process is that I’m lazy. If it’s too much work to find something, I just skip it. So, that meant I needed to store items in a way that would provide quick access.

I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite color organizing tips with you,
today, and give you a peak into my organization style.

I use color totes as my main stash storage. I have one tote for each of these color categories; reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, pinks/purples, whites, browns and blacks/greys. This works really well for my style because when I am working on a project that uses blue and yellow, I can quickly pull out my blue and yellow totes and find everything I need to complete the project.

I got the red Rubbermaid canvas totes from Target. This is my blue tote. I tie a piece of ribbon onto each tote so I know what color is inside. Inside I have two floss boxes (one with loose embellishments and one with ribbon), a ziplock bag of flowers, all of my blue alphabets and all other types of embellishments that will not fit into my floss box, such as stickers and tags. I leave everything in the tote loosely. I like to pull it out and flip through it quickly.

These floss boxes are the best organizing investment out there. They come with 17
divided compartments and include the floss/ribbon cards for winding ribbon.

Find them on the Roberts website HERE

They work perfectly for any sized stash. I love that they are see through, so I can easily scan what’s inside before I even open the lid. I love being able to root around in the box for the little doo dads I want to use.

I’ve been using these Cropper Hopper Vertical Paper Holders since they came on the market. I love them! I do not put them on the shelf the way they are intended. I flip them onto their side, so the top of the holder is looking at me. This way, I can flip through my paper and pull what I want without having to pull the entire holder off the shelf to get inside. I don’t use a lot of cardstock, so it’s pretty simple to color organize my stash. For my patterned papers, I also organize by color. If the paper is multi-colored, I sort it by type (floral, stripe, etc).

Find these jars HERE and HERE

I have a thing for buttons. A girl can never have too many of these, at least not this girl. I like to keep mine in clear jars by color. Since I use buttons on everything, I keep them out and readily available. I, also, like using different sized jars to store my buttons.

Find this tote HERE

Along the lines of open, easy to find storage, I use a tote for my desktop to store all of my adhesives, tools, pens, brushes, rulers, pencils, etc. It’s really messy looking, but it houses everything I need to create projects and it sits on my desk right next to me when I create. Because the tote is open, I can easily find everything I need. This is one of my favorite pieces in my room. It’s made my crafting so much easier!

That’s a peak into my organization style. I hope I helped at least some of you find a little bit of inspiration. Thank you for taking the tine to read my post.

Lori