As we get further into Mixed Media Arts we find it harder to throw things away, starting to see the potential in everyday objects, beautiful papers, shiny embellishments and other things. So we need to think about how to store them so they are easy to find when we need them and stored safely so they don’t get ruined.
Part 1 – Good Papers
I have collected gorgeous 12″x12″ and A4 papers for many years (sometimes I even use them). My best / favourite / most expensive pieces are stored in a display folder, grouped loosely in like types, rather than colours. The folders are stored flat.
The groups of paper include:
– printed and plain vellum
– good stickers
– words and sentiments
– velvet papers
– metallic
– Japanese papers
– teabag folding preprints
– musi papers (fibreous)
– natural papers – with flower petals and leaves anthem
– embossed papers
If I use only half a sheet or even have a piece that is more than a quarter of the original size, I will return it to this folder. For pieces of paper smaller than this, stay turned to the next post.
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I would love to hear about how you store your good papers ~ please leave a comment!
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I buy 12inch square white drawer containers when they are on special at Target. They come as a set of four. They are slightly bigger to fit a 12 inch scrapbook paper and about 2 1/2 inches deep. I store all my speciality bought and hand made papers in these including, stickers/ rubons/ vellums/ plant papers/ paints etc/photos/ specialty papers pictures/collected old books & papers/ andrhinestones, german scrap and felt cutout stickons.
For paper thats been cut I have a cardboard concertina file that is perfect and colour coded.
And for paper that is about 6 inches and under in size I have a shoebox. Filled with glorious little pieces of paper too good to get rid of. Scraps after that get bagged and sent to the local kindy or primary school..
I buy ‘The Really Useful Boxes’ they come in a vast array of shapes and sizes…Papers in two (Almost 3 but don’t tell my hubby he doesn’t understand my addiction), embelishments in one.. I keep a look out in Ikea for tins and jars to put ‘bits’ in. I love their CD and DVD storage boxes..
Scraps (depending on size) go in a plastic folder. They have to be a decent size thats the new rule for this year.
My daughter has a box full of my smaller scraps and when I clean out the folder.
Fabric gets stored in a tuff crate. When that gets too full I clean it out and donate to the nursery.
I am a self confessed horder xx 🙂