Evolution of a Scrap Space, pt 1

For what feels like the umpteenth time, I spent the weekend rethinking my scrap stuff organization. Not sure if it's late-pregnancy nesting, or frustration with the piles that keep building up in the dining room, bedroom, etc.

As part of that process, I was looking at where I've been, what I've done before, what worked, what didn't. So for my own edification, here is a pictorial history of my scrap spaces.

The Old Apartment(s)
Crop in Style Navigator, Jr and the Living Room Coffee Table, circa 2001

My tools lived in a computer desk drawer, my stash lived in a Crop In Style, Jr tote and I scrapped sitting on the floor at the coffee table, with some computer journaling at my nearby desk. Seriously, the *junior* tote held my stash. I carry a bigger bag to work every day. Would you believe I completed 3 gift albums, 1 travel album and about 10 chronological layouts in that first year of scrapping?

Tiny Room, circa 2002




The extra (6x9) bedroom in our new apartment. I spent a lot of time scrounging for furniture, organizing my growing supplies and surfing 2Peas, but not much time scrapping. The only lighting was a dinky 60w fixture on the opposite wall, no natural light, and I missed my honey. Also, the cabinets were way too deep and stuff got lost back there. Loved my $7 Amvets office desk (don’t ask Chris about it – it was a beast to get in and out of that room). I complained about the isolation and light, so Chris graciously traded offices and the tiny room became the Guitar Lair.

Enclosed Front Porch, 2005
(sorry, no pics)
For the room swap, we painted the walls and ceiling lighter colors, and Chris put up long shelves over the huge table a la Becky Higgins, since there was no wall space due to the 110” picture window and the French doors into the living room. I actually got a decent amount of scrapping done here on weekend mornings (great light), or dragged stuff over to the coffee table at night because this room was freezing cold for the majority of the year. But it was mostly gift albums and the mass reorganization of about 80 years of photos that I rescued from my parents damp basement.

Armoire in Living Room, 2006-07



The tiny bedroom was becoming the nursery, so Chris needed a new office space. I gave up the front porch, and decided to buy a computer armoire and use it for scrapping and computer, so we could lock up my unsafe stuff when the baby was bigger. I couldn’t find an armoire interior I liked, so we built our own over the course of about 4 months. Chris really put a lot of effort into this to satisfy his obsessive, pregnant wife. I’ll be honest - not much scrapping got done in 2006, just planning and organizing ad nauseum. Oh, and we took about 3,000 pictures of the new cutie when she arrived. For stash storage purposes, the armoire worked great – the big frustrations were that household paperwork accumulated because the file cabinet was in Chris’ office, and the scrap stash started to get too big for the armoire when I started buying all that cute Baby Girl stuff. And I found it frustrating to put the folding table away regularly when I was in the middle of my Library of Memories sorting.

But Amelia really liked the table while she was learning to stand :)


And this post has gotten long enough, so I'll save the new house for another one.