I know its a bit early for spring cleaning, but when I have finished all the Christmas cards, while I am putting everything away, I usually do a bit of re-organising.
So this first picture is what my desk looked like a few days ago:
As you can see I have a bit of a problem with ribbon. I knew it needed some sort of organisation, but I didn't really know how I was going to make it user & space friendly! That is, until someone posted a link on Splitcoast Stampers, to this lady, Becca's blog, where she had come up with her own solution. She used foamboard to make 'bobbins' to wind her ribbons onto. So I purchased some A4 sheets of 3mm thick foamboard online, 30 sheets, as I would need quite a bit, and that was the cheapest way to buy it.I found that I could cut it into 7 x 7 cm squares, and have next to no waste. Each A4 sheet gave me 9 squares, and a little strip. So I started with 270 squares, and believe it or not, I have 2 , yes 2 squares left over!
3 days of sorting and winding, and this is the result. 3 drawers filled with neatly wound ribbon, and 1 drawer that has metallics, leftover 'bits' and a few reels. The ribbon on each bobbin is held in place with a rubber band, and in some cases there are more than one ribbon on a bobbin, if there was not a lot of that particular piece.
I am amazed at how little space this takes up now.I went from these three tubs, to these drawers.
That sort of looks like it takes up the same space, so here they are side by side:
The three large tubs all fitted into 4 small drawers. Almost 90 bobbins per drawer! And now I can find any colour I want- easily. I can't tell you how many 'bits' I found, because I could never find the skein I had started! Had a bit of a stress sometimes over some colours- is Teal green or blue? and when does orange cease to be orange and become apricot?When does grey become silver? Then I realised that it only mattered to me- as long as I could find them, does it really matter if my orange/apricot/peach are all together? :)
So I am off to post, and start visiting, as I am still on holiday until the 3rd of January!!! Yipee!!!
P.S.
By the way, I bought my foamboard from The Foamboard store, and I got the 3mm white, in A4 size. If you need quite a bit, this place seemed to be the cheapest, and they shipped really fast too- I think I ordered one Friday/Saturday, and it arrived on the Monday.
