Im a file-a-holic

I love love love Tinas cute displays and storage from yesterdays blog post. Its all so natty and pretty. Im afraid my storage is all too prim and proper in some respects to be that pretty. I so dream of having a room where storage is uniformed and in neat little wicker baskets with fancy tags denoting whats inside the box. I dream of a WINDOW with white surfaces and more cupboards to disguise the clutter! I dream and I dream big!

I'm grateful that my husband converted our adjoining garage when I outgrew the small box room upstairs almost 2 years ago. I had amassed so many supplies from working on various DT's that I simply had to expand. It doesn't help that Im not very good at purging because I like to hold onto things, especially when lots of it was donated by manufacturers and magazines. But I did purge this year and gave away a lot of supplies to friends and family plus I donated a huge box of paper and card to a local nursery; that felt so good. And yet I still have all this staring at me and making me feel guilty for not using it all at once! My excuse for having so much is that its my job to make stuff everyday as I am a freelance designer working for Crafts Beautiful magazine plus various manufacturers in the UK.

So, my storage...........I work in this office every single day. As I open the door I see this down the left hand side
It is here that I also work on both on the PC/Mac for most of the day as I do graphic design work for some logo companies and web sites.
And this is down the right hand side. Those Ikea expedit units were totally made for scrappers. TOTALLY. I have three x 16 cubby units and that table at the end? It was designed to attach to an expedit unit; also available from Ikea. Long live Ikea!
This is what lays on top of the units. I know its all cluttered but this room is full of my stuff and I love to be surrounded by my favourite objects and pictures.
My favvo part of the room is within this work station here. This is where all the creating happens...in the far left corner of my office
And the the right of that corner is more workspace... so I can spread out a little (or a lot!)
My favourite view in the work station is this. It is by no means uniform but its colourful and all my tools and nick-nacks are to hand.Along the long left hand counter of my room I can lay 5 layouts and work on them simultaneously to keep the creative juices flowing evenly. And so to my Studio Calico kit storage. Well, you see that cubby hole with what looks like long flat, stacked boxes? All those are packed to the brim with every single leftover of my kits since Oct 2007. I will not throw anything away, these kits are far too delish for that.
Each box holds like for like items such as card stock, stickers etc and you can see some of that in these boxes below:

This is my embellishment box. Im sure you will recognise all the bits in here!My stamps - oh, my stamps. Im not a BIG stamper but I will keep these forever. They are far to unique and special to toss in the binI store my papers in two ways. Large sheets in one box and cut offs in another.
My ribbons, felts and threads box
I have two chipboard boxes. I love chipboard to death!Rub ons and strip in this boxI promise to make a huge "mini" with all my lefts overs again this year like I did last year HERE with all my leftovers.

Parting with these pieces will be such sweet sorrow.