The Good, The Bad, And The...No Way She Worked Like That!

I'm finally organized! Woohoo! Ok...that's a little bit of an exaggeration. My space is cleaned. Everything has a home. But I'm sure over the next few weeks I will figure out new ways to keep things straight.

I will say that I truly enjoy seeing other peoples stamping spaces. I love seeing how you guys work and how you store things. I've seen some really amazing ideas, some of which I have utilized with my new space. So thank you so much for sharing! :)

First up I want to share the before. My before is not for the faint at heart. I had a mish-mash of furniture and not a lot of storage room so things were everywhere! Seriously...EVERYWHERE! I would often wonder how I could get anything done! Well, for sure how I could find anything but all of my 'piles' had order. Wow. That's going to shock you in a second! ;)

Take a peek at the before.....

The big 'L' desk is my main workspace that I kept. I really love this desk. I picked it up a couple of years ago at a used office furniture store. It was such a good deal and is super sturdy and really roomy! Of course before it was always covered with stuff! I would have to move things to have a work space.

The brown desk in the background was a free find. By that I mean that my hubby's office got new furniture and he was given this one to take home. Can't beat free! I used to keep my punches in the top middle drawer...the one that is made to hold a keyboard. That was great except that they would always fall out of the back of the drawer. A couple of them broke because of that. I also kept a big rubbermaid container with my 12X12 designer paper in it...that's sitting in the opening of the desk.

There are also some of those modular cubes that I had been collecting from Michaels with my coupons. On top of those I have this giant marker holder that I picked up from a LSS that was going out of business for $1! How cool is that! This I kept and is now hiding behind a cabinet...but it houses my copics.

One more....I had a paper holder from Office Max that housed my card stock. Well, and you can't miss the floor! It was always covered with stuff! I would pull out all of the boxes of stuff when I was working. Ribbon, embelli's....all of that stuff....

And I had this giant metal cabinet that housed some stuff....and I would pull out a card table to work with as well.......

The trouble is, I stamp every day! EVERY day! So I really never put anything away. The kids would get into stuff. It was always a mess! Seriously, my stamping stuff had taken over the basement!

Now the after........

....and keep in mind....I am working in this space. I did clean the desk after I stamped last so it's not a shot of 'in progress'....but cleaning the desk was just a matter of throwing the paper pieces in the trash and putting my stamps back!

I kept both of the file cabinets that I picked up from the used office furniture store. One is sitting under my printer and houses things like my heat gun and crop-a-dile. The other sits under my Sizzix and Cuttlebug and houses the plates and dies for those.

The cabinets. Holy heck, I am so excited to finally have a place for everything!

Everything now has a home. That is such a great feeling. ...and finally Hayden isn't pulling everything out! ...and I am no longer having to have the furniture cleaned because he's gotten his hands on a marker! Yikes! I have painted over marker and cleaned the furniture a couple of times!

This is the ribbon storage. I have seen so many of you use the jars for your ribbon scraps. I LOVE this! The containers are Making Memories. I have been collecting them for a while now for storing other things. I used the smaller containers for my buttons....

This is truly my favorite part of the whole thing! I LOVE ribbon and buttons and just love the clean look of it now!

I also have slat board in between the cabinets. I bought some little hooks from a local hardware store to hold my punches.....

One last thing...a filing drawer now holds my stickers and other embelli's that come on the long sheets. I have them in hanging files now so it makes it soooo much easier to find everything....

That's it for now. I'm still marveling over the stark contrast. It's like night and day. ;) See why it took so long! First we had to disenfect....then there was the whole clean up..... lol. I will say that is nice not to have to fish buttons out of my sons mouth...or to step on a brad with my bare feet....or to find a gem stuck to my backside....(yeah...that has happened to me!)

Hope you all have a great day! I will be back soon! Hugs! :)