Organizing Scraps

One of my stamping resolutions is organizing this craftroom. I have done really well with organizing ribbons, unused paper groups, plain cardstock, stamps, embellishments and so on. But under my crafting table were 3 baskets of scraps. Everytime I glance at them I felt soooo disorganized. It bugged me forever but I just couldn't cope with doing anything about it. Even worse is that I would never use any of these scraps because I couldn't stand the thought of dealing with the mess!! I'm not kidding, I NEVER used any of those scraps!! I even thought about throwing the whole mess away.

Over Christmas I finally tackled (why during the stress of Christmas, I have no idea) my scrap mess.
Here's how it went:
1. I sorted plain paper from patterned paper. It was sooo BORING!!!!2. I sorted the plain paper by colors.
3. I sorted the patterned paper by predominat color and a misc pile for those papers that didn't fit any color.
4. I had three rectangular wicker baskets that are about 12X16 and probably 10" deep.
5. I bought two boxes of Ziplock gallon storage bags. ( brand name as the store brands aren't as big. I labeled each using a black permanent marker by color.
6. I put the baggies with the plain paper in one basket, the patterened paper/baggies in another basket. In the third basket were baggies for designer groups. For an example, I keep all the scraps to each of my Basic Grey groups together. I labeled each baggy by the Basic Grey group (or whatever the designer is) such as Basic Grey: Eva.
All of these baggies stood on end in the basket.

Why am I telling you all this???? Well I started to make a card and I actually went to my scraps FIRST!!! And it was EASY!!! Wow what a big development for me!!! I figure I won't have to buy white cardstock for at least a year....lol I have two gallon baggies full of it!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that this really did work for me. Good luck with organizing things your way, it's worth it!!
Candy