art supply organization

Well, if you've known me for two minutes, you may know that I like to organize things. My drawers and closets and cupboards may not stay organized, but I love the process, I love the sorting and finding a home for each thing. I love purging. This trait has actually surfaced itself in funny ways. Rory has been known to say late at night, "Tonight could you not bring a bin of papers to sort on the couch and just sit here and watch tv with me?"

On Sunday night we had a women's event at our church that was all on home organization. Lovely. I ate it up. And I came home motivated and inspired. So I took myself to Target, bought some new storage bins (the little boxes are a buck!) and for under $20 and in under three hours, got my art supplies in order. Check out the before:

I had stuff everywhere...on a wheely cart, in moving boxes, in a filing cabinet. But I wanted to centralize all of it. Much of it had to go (to my nieces! Who will be getting a super fun and random box of art supplies the next time I see them). Mixed in with the supplies were all sorts of projects I want to tackle. I organized those too and have currently taken over the kitchen table with all of my pre-wedding pictures and invites and wishlists with hopes of throwing it all in a book. Speedy style.

I used nametags to label everything. I like how uniform it makes everything feel. And I like that they say, "Hello my name is" How very friendly. Unfortunately I ran out of the nametags and it is hard to explain how much this bugs me. I can't wait to "finish" this project with proper labeling...

I bought bigger tubs for my ever growing paper and fabric collections. (This was where Target socked it to me...The bigger tubs are $6! Come on! The little tubs were just a buck!)

I am pleased with the result. And super inspired. I currently have three diy art projects going. It is so fun to play in a clean workspace. My mom used to say she could tell how well she cleaned her kitchen based on how quickly I wanted to bake and mess it all up again. That's my plan with these bins. I'll play hard, mess them up, and then some night I'll bring my tubs with me to the couch and have the joy of sorting it all out once again.