Pretty Paper Party

I was so inspired by the bonus video that Shimelle gave all the 'Pretty Paper Party' participants.  I LOVED the principle of collecting up a bunch of papers and running from there.  However I ran into a snag when I couldn't find any tone on tone papers and was finding that I was spending AGES trying just to find paper!  My old early paper collection was still stored by colour and everything that had been released since Basic Grey 'Black Tie' was stored by collection.  Once I ran out of my thin plastic paper containers they were stored in their collection packs in a few vertical paper holders.  Trying to match papers across collections was a nightmare as it took me forever to look for them.  So the solution ... spend my day off re-organising my papers!!!!!

I thought to myself that it would probably take me 2-3 hours to organise my papers and then I could start the prompt.  HAH!  I should have known better ... try 10 hours!!!!!!!  But is was worth it.  I took EVERY paper out of packs, pads, containers and places that I never knew I had papers in and sorted them by colour.  Those that were heavily themed and multi coloured also had their own pile.  I found papers I had forgotten but thankfully still loved, papers that I hated, old nostalgic papers that were flood damaged that I had saved to remind me not to hoard paper again, AND paper I didn't even know I had!!!  One collection pack really brought that home to me.  It was a pack which had a collaged paper on the front with a forrest and a deer.  It was hugely popular in its time and for some reason I bought it.  I have never even used ONE paper from it as every time I picked it up I was put off by the cover.  But open it and I found some of the most beautiful paper I have ever seen!  I was missing out on pretty paper!!!!

My patterned paper!

This is my patterned paper collection.  In it you will find papers from very old to very new, popular brands to non branded.  The containers under the table stored the 'organised' papers and now hold organised embellishments.  I then put them all into Artbin Super Satchels (like the purple one in the picture) in colour themes.  While sorting I discovered something new.  I actually have lots of tone-on-tone papers, they were all still in collection packs and books of papers.  I also learned that I really, really like the colour blue-green and I may just have to take the blue pile and the green pile and spilt it three ways.  At the moment the bluer ones are with the blues and the greener ones are with the greens.  And here they are once I put them all away in their new homes ...

The big one at the bottom holds all of my multi coloured papers.  There are no plain or themed papers in this stack.  :-)  But my real challenge is in the pink container at the top.  That one hold my MME Lost and Found papers.  I just couldn't bring myself to sort them, nor it seems can I find a way to use them that doesn't involve mini books!!!  I am looking forward to the day this class covers those difficult papers.  They are so beautiful that I could just put one photo on each page and put it in an album, or of course photo-less just so they can be admired :-)

So now that my patterned paper was sorted I decided to put my cardstock into the vertical paper holders (I think I need three more!).  Ohhhhhhhhh ... so organised now!

And then I had to sort all of the other stuff that came out of those Artbins and all of the die-cuts, rubons, alphas and accessories that had come out of each collection pack!  Those are in the old thin paper containers.  WOW, such a lot of organising!!!!  But now I feel that I may just be able to find things and USE them!  I will be quite busy between now and the craft-a-thon so it may just have to wait until Tuesday, but I am looking forward to trying out my new system.  It may seem crazy, but I feel inspired now that I am organised.  I will let you know how I get along with it.

On another note, I died my hair tonight for our craft-a-thon.  It is now a black/purple.  I actually love it, even if it is only an 8 wash rinse.  But now I have to alter my costume.  I was going to be just purple but I couldn't find any in a rinse.  My costume was purple, silver and white.  Now it needs to be purple, silver and black.  I should have time change all of the white to black as I am only recycling an old costume.  I will be a fairy with lots of home made bits and a pair of my daughters wings.  I will share pictures after the event.

Chipper