Organizing Paper

When organizing your paper stash you have to decide whether you will go horizontal, vertical, or both. How you work and what kind of space you have will help determine that. I use both methods. I store my solid color cardstock horizontally using the ROY G BIV (for the colors of the rainbow). It makes it easy to find coordinating papers. I like the trays by Display Dynamics found here:
http://store.scrapbook.com/dd-st-011.html?w=perfect+paper+stackable+paper+trays


I store my patterned paper vertically using the Cropper Hopper vertical paper files that come with dividers. You can finds these at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. I usually wait for their sales and get them for at least 40% off. I prefer these for my patterned paper, because they offer many options for sorting them.



I sort/separate my patterned paper in several ways: by theme, by manufacturer, and by color



Theme is my first sorting method. Since there are certain themes I know I will work with this makes it easier later for me to find them. Plus I can store the scraps for those themes there, instead of my scrap file. Here are some of the themes I use:

Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter (with subcategories for the holidays that fall in those time frames. A holiday will get it's own file if it's one that I scrapbook a lot, i.e. Halloween and Christmas)
Baby
Party
School
Specialized (these are themes of my interests... for me that's birds, owls, and because of my son robots, pirates, and monsters)


After I've put my papers that belong to a theme away, I sort my remaining paper by my favorite manufacturers. I only do it for my favorites or ones I have a large amount of. I tend to favor Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon, Little Yellow Bicycle, BoBunny, just to name a few. So I have a file for each of them.


Any pattern papers that don't fit the categories above will be sorted by color. Color is always my go to organization method, because it makes it easy to coordinate for pages and projects.


Lastly I store paper packs and page kits separately from my other paper. When I'm not feeling particularly creative I go to these paper packs and kits. I have found that sometimes when I confine myself to a set pallet or base of supplies it forces me to work on techniques, which ultimately lead me to feeling inspired for another project.