The craft room was really a craft closet, but still tons of fun!! There is no "before" picture just because it looked mostly like this after pic--we just added the tower of drawers on the right.

The issue was more of a time/space continuum issue (small grin). The homeowner had set up the closet when she moved in, but it was not working for her. Although it looked pretty neat & organized, most drawers were empty or held more of an "assortment" than a "collection". And she had never had the time to go through it....

So we went through her things and sorted them, then came up with assigned living quarters for them.

The drawers are one of my favorite organizing tools because when you want to work--you just bring the whole drawer with you & then put it back when you're done.

Some of the drawer assignments:
1. Tools (paper piercer, cutting tools, stapler)
2. Punches
3. Ribbon (she had a new system that is hanging on the side but we left coordinated ribbon on their backing and put it in the drawer)
4. Embossing--wet & dry.
5. Letters (rub ons, stickers, etc)

We also put her "Antonius" system in the adjoining room for her stamps. ..but that particular system (new fave) I'll save for another blog post.

I love to scrapbook and have been known to get over-enthusiastic and scrapbook for friends and family. Often the hindrance to scrapbooking is that your photos are jumbled and out of order.
Having organized my fair share of photos, I will share my techniques for sorting (use only the ones you need).

1. Use the envelopes you pick them up from from the store in. Even though sometimes we might take months (or years) to develop our photos, this will give you a starting point for chronological order. In a corner of the envelope make a note of possible dates (and events) inside.
2. For the ones not in envelopes, sort first by size. Recent photos will be 4x6. Older ones will be 3x5. You might find polaroids, smaller pics with rounded corners, ones with a white border, or black and white. This will be the most basic sort to help you put them in some order.
3. TURN THEM OVER.
Don't confuse yourself by looking for faces and events just yet. -Sort by batch numbers and then by print order (which puts them in chronological order). If they are not numbered, sort them into piles based on the paper they were printed on (fuji, kodak etc). Put your sorted photos in envelopes like step one.
5. For unnumbered prints or to date a photo: look for context clues. Check for same clothes on the same person, what's going on in the background, what's the setting? (inside or out)
6. Figure approximate dates by considering things like-who is the baby in the photo? How many candles are on the cake? Has someone changed their appearance since then?
My mother-in-law gave me a pic of my husband dated Christmas 1972. My husband was born in the summer of 73. By factoring in that what was on the mantle behind him was Easter baskets and not stockings....we relabled the picture-Easter 1974.
Hope this helps you get organized...email me for scrapbooking tips