Organization

You wouldn't know it from looking at my desk (or from talking to my mom about my childhood) but I really do like to be organized. I suppose, though, that I only like to organize things I like. Take scrapbooking for instance. All of my supplies are organized into Rubbermaid drawers - wedding scrapbook supplies, letters, rub-ons and stickers, embellishments, loose paper. I even have a supply caddy that holds my rulers, paper cutters, scissors, pens and pencils, stamps and stamp pads, adhesives, etc.

I also like to organize my scrapbook "thoughts," if you will. I'm still working on my wedding album but I know exactly what I want to do with each page. In fact, I drew out a page map for my wedding album!

There are just so many pictures from my wedding, the only way I could make sure I was using the ones I wanted was to create this map.

I've also organized my favorite sketches into a little notebook. You can pick up notebooks like this in the $1 bins at Michael's or Target. In it, I draw the sketches that I see while perusing Scrapbook.com or scrapbook blogs. I prefer to draw them by hand as opposed to printing out a picture of the original layout so that I don't focus so much on trying to copy what the original layout looked like and instead just let the basic idea of the layout inspire me to do something all my own.

I also like having my sketches in this handy dandy notebook (Blue's Clues, anyone?) because it's small enough to fit in my purse when inspiration strikes on the go. It's also very handy for those days when I'm too lazy to turn on my computer or if I'm going to a crop and don't want to lug my laptop with me.

I'm curious - what do you do to organize? It can be organizing anything - scrapbook supplies, kitchen utensils, your stamp collection. What are your favorite stores to shop for organization supplies? I'm quite partial to The Container Store. Yes, sir. I could pretend to live in that store for hours.