The Organized but Uninspired Scrapbooker

Yesterday I finished reading The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker. If you're a person in need of organization or inspiration for your creative space, I'd highly recommend it.

For as much scrapbooking-related work as I do, you'd think I'd have a spacious room with plenty of work space. Wrong! I actually have only a corner of our home office dedicated to scrapbooking. While it's functional and organized, it's completely uninspiring. That's what I learned by reading the book: I'm organized but uninspired.

I teach organization classes and firmly believe that ANY space, regardless of size or configuration, can be organized AND inspiring. I have spent a lot of time organizing the "stuff" in my space, but little time thinking about the overall flow and "look" of the space...and that's the part that relates to inspiration.

So last night I set about re-configuring my little space so that it would be a little more inspiring (or at least less uninspiring). In reading the book, I confirmed that I can't handle a lot of "visual clutter". Lots of colorful items on my tables do not inspire me...they distract me. Take, for example, the stacking drawers in this photo. Last year I covered the insides of the drawer backs in tan cardstock so that the contents are not visible when you walk in the room. I felt MUCH better after doing that. In addition, over the past few months, I have also replaced my mismatched photo boxes with black, white, and tan. It's a little thing, but it helps eliminate some of that visual clutter.

So I've been on a mission to do more of this kind of thing: To put more items into closed, but labeled, storage containers. I'm re-purposing storage containers I already have because my budget for this little project is precisely $0. I moved my wood block stamps and punches (previously all on the tables) to shallow, stacking drawers under the tables. Labeled, of course.

Ahhhh....much better. Not inspired YET, but I think my day is coming. :-)