Him and Me...and FridgeBinz

Yay! Last night was another scrap opportunity!  We were supposed have a baseball game to attend, but just as we got there it started POURING.  So, oops, it got canceled.  :)  Yes. That's a smiley face.  I love watching Ted's games.  I go whenever I can.  But I don't mind the occasional two hour pocket of time that suddenly opens up when they get canceled.  So we came home and I scrapped:

This is another picture from our walk in the park last week.  It's probably not the most flattering of me, but I do really like this photo.  I think it catches our personalities - Kerig is very serious and focused most of the time.  I vacillate between very serious and focused (usually with regard to schoolwork) and annoyingly juvenile.  This works out well about 92% of the time, because sometimes Kerig needs to lighten the fudge up.  And sometimes I need to behave myself.  He keeps me from getting in trouble.  I keep him from imploding. Win/win.

If you're a regular visitor, you might remember that I went on and on about FridgeBinz from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I spent a couple of days cutting my paper scraps down to 7.5x7.5in and 3.5x4in to store in the two sizes of the bins that I bought.  This is the final set up:

So, I have two of the bigger sizes, one is for my slight minipad addiction.  And two of the smaller size - the second one is for color mists and ink pads.  I can easily see getting several more of these for glitter vials and embellishment packs.  Maybe one more for adhesive... and washi...and dies and embossing folders. :) Love them.

I really dislike hyperbole and most forms of exaggeration.  So I'm not saying this for effect:

These dumb FridgeBinz have changed the way I scrapbook.

I don't think that I'm different than most scrapbookers.  I have paper.  A LOT of paper:

(This is spot for whole, uncut sheets of patterned paper.  And some letter stickers, which I am not addicted to and therefore only have a moderate amount.)

And that's where all that uncut patterned paper is in relation to where I sit to scrap.  And what you don't see is an Iris cart that sort of blocks the way and a chair that also blocks but also serves as a place to rest as you go through stacks and stacks of paper.  (It also serves as a nice place for visitors -i.e. kids- to sit when I'm scrapping or working on homework)  So it's not as easy to get to as I might want, or within arm's reach.  (And that's just the patterned paper.  There's a foot and a half of 12x12 cardstock that's stored behind where I sit, and 8.5x11 in an Iris cart behind me.  A LOT of paper.)

Enter the FridgeBinz:

Okay, these are really crappy shots, showing that I really need to vacuum.  Don't judge. I know you have scrap bits on your floor, too. :P

Anyway, I also have this wooden stool that generally gets tucked in under the side of the table.  It's where my kids sit when they need help with their homework.  And...it also gets used for overflow when I scrap.   But since I got all my scraps organized I just pull the bins and put them on the stool.  This is immensely liberating!  Because I have literally dozens upon dozens of scraps of paper to chose from for punching, small dies and even running through my Cameo.  Right there. AT MY FINGERTIPS. And since they're already scraps, I feel absolutely no hesitation about cutting into them.  If I'm not sure if it would look better punched out of this or that, I don't have to try to guess.  I just do it from both and decide that way.  And if I try it out of those two and I'm not in love with either one, I simply flip through my scraps and see if something else might work.  

Clean up is easier, too.

I did bust into one of the whole sheets of patterned paper, but  it was easy to deal with the scraps.  I cut the biggest piece down to 7.5inches wide and put it in with the big scraps.  All the little pieces were cut down to 4inchesxWhatever (3.5 at the biggest) and put into the smaller bin.  Once everything was cut down, the two bins were put away.

Before I switched to these FridgeBinz I was just throwing all my scraps into archival 13x15 boxes.  I didn't cut the scraps down, and the boxes were always threatening to overflow.  Cardstock and paper got bent and creased.  Rifling through it was frustrating, because there was no easy way without being very ginger and going more slowly than I'd want to.  Now, if I need a big scrap, I go to the big bin; if I need a small scrap, well: duh.  But I can pick up a tidy 4 inch stack of papers and flip through them like you might flick through a deck of cards. When I've got what I want, I just bang them on the desk to get them flat-edged and tuck them back into the bin.

I feel less wasteful, more organized, liberated and even inspired, since the color and pattern combos that come out might not have happened otherwise.  

Ok. I'm done with my free advertisement for these things. For now. But I'm getting ready to move this month and when I have a new space to set up there's a distinct possibility that one or two more of these make their way into my setup.  Because they're rectangular they use space much more efficiently than the buckets that I currently have.  Plus, since they're see through, I can see that organizing some other items might make more sense in them.