Organization Monday

I am not at all good at this kind of thing. I should be since I am a Virgo and by nature Virgos are supposed to be great at keeping things organized. But whenever I try to organize a space, I seem to make a bigger mess than I started with . . . and have less room to put things back. How is that possible? Above is a conglomeration of stuff that is in "limbo-land" while I try to figure out what to do with it all. By the looks of things, I may not even keep half of it as I am quickly running out of storage space. I have way too much stuff as you can see, but it is so hard to part with anything because I have that typical, "I may need it someday" mentality. That way of thinking is just so paralyzing for me and I end up not making any progress at all. I have discovered over the years, the supplies I tend to use the most in my artwork are the ones that I can easily see. If it is stashed away in a box or behind something else, it is out of sight, out of mind for me. The problem is when you have a teeny-tiny space you can't have very much out in full view, so therein lies my dilemma.

I have made a little bit of progress, as you can see above. I have three of these shelving units inside the closet. (We removed the closet doors years ago to accomodate these units.) There currently are doors on the shelving units, which I am considering taking off. The Rachel Ashwell fabric showing on the right side is actually curtains which I have hung over the closet so I can hide it all if I want. The top shelf shows 2 of my paper scrap drawer units. There are two more on the shelf above. I throw all my little scraps of leftover papers into these color coded drawers. This system works great for me when I am working on a collage and need some pink paper, I just take out the pink drawer, bring it to my desk and make a selection. Because these drawers work so well for me, I went out and bought more of them to organize some of my vintage ephemera items. The boxes on the bottom shelf hold things like my melting pot and beeswax, glass and metal pieces, etc.
The jar pictured above is an important piece in my art room as it holds a fresh supply of pink peanut M&M's. Each year during Breast Cancer Awareness Month these beautifully colored M&M's hit the store and I buy up a bunch to replenish my jar. Of course, they don't last me an entire year. Sometimes I fill the jar with pink strawberry cheesecake Jelly Bellys or pastel colored dutch mints when the pink M&M's are not available. Afterall, a girl's got to have a little sustenance to keep her going during those late night creative sessions. . . or in this case, late night organizing sessions.