WOYWW Week 891/111 - Organising Stash

Hello Everyone,

I hope you've all had a good week whatever the weather. Here on Scotland's west coast we've had rain which has brought the temperatures down - much more comfortable to live with. 

This morning my desk is looking reasonably tidy. That's because I've been sorting through and organising papers, scraps and embellishments in the hope it's easier to make better use of it all. This started with me looking for what I call background papers, i.e. those with little or no pattern on them. I'm not sure how fascinating this is to you as it is to me all but here's where I've got to so far.

Up until now the papers in these trays were sorted by colour and I'd got into the habit of shoving all the scraps in with whole sheets. It got messy, and time consuming, to sort through. Now it's just whole sheets sorted by theme, e.g. the seasons, special occasions, and, on the top tray, suitable background papers. 

Sundry patterned papers are now easily accessed on a trolley to the left of the craft desk, out of the weekly shot. On the top shelf there's the full 12x12 patterned sheets together with a few full size sheets of stickers, and, of course, essential treats for Silver!

Larger sized scraps are now in the middle shelf and narrow strips on the bottom. 

That left all those much smaller ones that are too good to toss but difficult to file tidily. 

It's scraps like these that got me in to cardmaking years ago, but I don't make cards now so I am trying to incorporate as many as possible into my layouts. Being environmentally conscious prevents me from tossing them in the bin!

The homemade kit I pulled out yesterday included a fabulous paper from the 'Carefree' collection by Heidi Swapp which now forms the base for this layout.

The theme of the collection is of a dry sandy desert. I'm nowhere near a desert but there's plenty coastal sandy beaches. The two photos here, from 2022, are of scenes from Ayr. The boat is of MVF Watchful, a historic herring ring net fishing boat which, though it looked abandoned in the river estuary, was in fact intended to be a monument to all the souls lost at sea. Sadly, since the photo was taken the boat has been, having been found unsafe, demolished and removed.  The second photo is of the South Beach sand dune area that was used in the making of an episode of the TV series, 'Shetland'. Both photos are mounted on scraps of paper - that's a few more saved from the bin!

Finally, as Silver isn't posing in the desk shot this morning, here's a pic that made me laugh.

She clearly thinks I've no right to be laughing at her!

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth