Cat's Scrap Room : Before & After

Good morning Blue House Fans!!

 

Cat here.  Today we are going to take a peek inside my scrap space!  It’s my little slice of heaven and I love it.  Well, NOW I love it.  A few months ago it was a pit of disorganized despair that gave me cold sweats and heart palpitations every time I thought about it.  For reals y’all.  I TRIED to get it organized on my own.  I would go in with good intentions and before I knew it, hours had passed and all I had managed to do was push piles of paper around and cause more chaos.  Ugh.  I had resigned myself to scrapbooking at my dining room table. 

 

I was discussing my dilemma with my dear friend Michelle when she foolishly graciously offered to help.  She even said she liked to organize.  She said this after she had seen the shambles that was my scrap room. Ummm, ok.  I will take you up on that!!

 

***I am interrupting this post to tell you who Michelle is, because she’s awesome and I want you guys to know just how awesome J  Michelle’s Mom, Wynn, is a close family friend of Nat’s from way back.  So when I met Nat, I got the bonus of Wynn and Michelle.  Nat and I affectionately call Michelle our little sis.  Not because she doesn’t have her own awesome sister, but because we are older than Michelle and it makes us feel better about the age gap.  Tee he.  Anyway, Michelle is just about the most energetic, thoughtful, spirited and funny gal you will come across.  She is a crafter, a new scrapbooker, geek-chic & wedding know-how blogger and all around cool chick.  We just love her. 

 

 Now back to the originally scheduled post***

 

I can’t believe I am about to show you the BEFORE pics, but I am.  I really need you guys to understand how truly frightening my room was, in order to appreciate how lovely it is now. 

 

Ready?  Don’t judge me.  Please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shame. 

 

So Michelle came over to help.  We started bright and early on a Friday and worked into Monday.  All. Weekend. Long.  We only took breaks to eat & sleep y’all.  (And one quick trip to The Little Blue House for some retail therapy).  One of the major things that had to occur to get my room in order was to purge and that was the hardest part, but after deciding to part with a few things, it got a little easier each time I tossed something into the purge pile.  As the room started to take shape and I could see the progress, it got even easier.  So, we worked and worked, and stacked and straighten, and organized and purged.  After all of our hard work, this is what the room looked like:

 

 

 

 

Do y’all hear the angels singing?  I swear I did.  I am happy to report that this transformation occurred in January and now in June, it pretty much looks the same.  It is not in this pristine condition, it looks ‘worked in’, but it is organized and usable and it makes me happy.  HAPPY!!!

 

As far as organization goes, I use a lot of the same techniques as Nat.  You can see those here on her scrap room post.  She also recently did an overhaul on her room and we each took ideas from each other and used those for our ‘new’ room. 

 

One thing that is a little different in my room that I really love and would highly recommend to do if possible, is removing the doors from the closet.  The ones that were on my closet where French doors that swung wide open into the room, and prevented me from utilizing some of the space effectively.  Now that they are removed, I can have shelves near the closet and the closet itself becomes a sort of built-in storage area of its own.  I added some shelving units and a rolling cart to store stuff on. 

 

 

Eventually I would like to get better storage system put in there so it looks more like this:

 

 

Ha!  I don’t think that Pinterest perfection is possible in my life, but it’s what I strive for.  Le sigh.  What I have set up right now works, but as my scrap style and preferences change, so does the configuration of my room. There are some more storage and organization things I am working on transitioning too, and once those are complete, I will post pics and show you all what I am doing. 

 

Here is a snapshot of what’s currently on my scrap desk.  My Daddy & Step Mom Patty plant a huge garden every year and my nieces love to help plant and pick and prep.  I am using Herbs & Honey by Basic Grey to scrapbook these memories.  I am in LOVE with this line for this project, so fitting and so cute.

 

 

 

 

I want to know: What’s the state of your scrap space?  Tidy?  Worked in?  Uninhabitable?  Also, tell us your fave organizing tip that you use in your space is.  I would love to hear about it (and possibly use it in my room.) 

 

Stay True Blue,

Cat