10 Tips for Moving Your Scrapbook Stash
DT member Michelle Roycroft recently undertook a household move in a very short period of time. We asked her to give us her best tips gained from the experience of packing up, moving and unpacking her scrapbook stash.
10 Tips for Moving by Michelle Roycroft
Whether you’re packing to move to a new house or to a new scrap room down the hall, the more thought you put into the packing, the easier it will be to get everything out and organized once you get to wherever you are going. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up through experience.
1. Boxes, labels, and packing paper – Oh My! Get a variety of boxes. The more sizes, the better. But most of all, make sure you have something that your 12x12 paper is going to fit in!
Now for the labels. You can use a sharpie to write straight on the box like me or you can be the crafty little thing that you obviously are and make some cute little labels. Either way, just label it.
You can go buy that wonderful packing paper or you can be cheap and use kitchen towels and dishcloths. Speaking from experience, the kitchen towels work just fine! If you do use packing paper, keep some of it because it makes great drop cloths for kid’s projects or for the glimmer mist projects that always tend to leave little droplets everywhere.
2. Clean out before you pack. Don’t waste your time packing up stuff that you know you are never going to use. This is one piece of advice that I wish I would’ve followed. I’ve been scrapping a long time and for some reason I still have some of my first scraps of paper. I know in my head that I’m never going to use those papers or stickers or embellishments. I should’ve given up those papers before I ever put them into a box. Take my advice – donate, sell, or just trash the stuff you’ll never use.
3. Pack albums vertically. You should never store or pack your completed albums horizontally. It smushes your beautiful embellishments.
4. If you have something already stored in some sort of container, leave it there. There’s no point in repacking something that is already practically packed. My magazine holders, baskets, and jars just got wrapped up and put straight into the box with the contents still inside. It made it so easy to pull the containers out and set them on shelves at the new house. One warning – if you are storing something breakable in those containers, take it out! Don’t pack something that might rattle around inside and break.
[caption id="attachment_1389" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Keep items in their containers"]
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5. If something unbreakable is in a drawer, keep it there. I store my stickers and rub-ons in drawers in my hutch and instead of taking them out, I just stuck some crinkled up packing paper in the drawer to keep everything from going crazy in there and let the guys move it the way it was.
6. Pack your paper wisely. If you are like me, you spend a small fortune on paper. One of my biggest fears of moving was that my pretty paper would get all wrinkled up. Check your boxes and whichever box will give your paper the least amount of wiggle room will be the best. Horizontal or vertical doesn’t matter. Just fill the wiggle room with packing paper (or tea towels) and mark the box as clearly as possible. You don’t want your paper box getting turned upside down and messing everything up.
[caption id="attachment_1388" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Carefully pack your paper"]
[/caption]
7. Keep similar things packed together. Punches and scissor; brads, buttons, and eyelets; you get the idea. This way if you forget to include something on your label you’ll be able to use you mighty powers of deduction to figure out which box it is in.
8. Heavy things should be packed on bottom. But you already knew that!
9. Little things should be contained. I have millions (well, not quite) of pens and they are never in one place. I hunted them all down and stuck them in a ziploc bag. Now at least for once, they are all easy to find.
10. Be prepared to rearrange! Even with the same furniture, much of my stuff has been moved to a different spot. But that’s ok. If you don’t like it, you can always move it again!
[caption id="attachment_1387" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Unpack and rearrange"]
[/caption]
Thanks Michelle for all the great tips! I know I will be using them when I move later in May! Good luck with settling in to your new house!
10 Tips for Moving by Michelle Roycroft
Whether you’re packing to move to a new house or to a new scrap room down the hall, the more thought you put into the packing, the easier it will be to get everything out and organized once you get to wherever you are going. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up through experience.
1. Boxes, labels, and packing paper – Oh My! Get a variety of boxes. The more sizes, the better. But most of all, make sure you have something that your 12x12 paper is going to fit in!
Now for the labels. You can use a sharpie to write straight on the box like me or you can be the crafty little thing that you obviously are and make some cute little labels. Either way, just label it.
You can go buy that wonderful packing paper or you can be cheap and use kitchen towels and dishcloths. Speaking from experience, the kitchen towels work just fine! If you do use packing paper, keep some of it because it makes great drop cloths for kid’s projects or for the glimmer mist projects that always tend to leave little droplets everywhere.
2. Clean out before you pack. Don’t waste your time packing up stuff that you know you are never going to use. This is one piece of advice that I wish I would’ve followed. I’ve been scrapping a long time and for some reason I still have some of my first scraps of paper. I know in my head that I’m never going to use those papers or stickers or embellishments. I should’ve given up those papers before I ever put them into a box. Take my advice – donate, sell, or just trash the stuff you’ll never use.
3. Pack albums vertically. You should never store or pack your completed albums horizontally. It smushes your beautiful embellishments.
4. If you have something already stored in some sort of container, leave it there. There’s no point in repacking something that is already practically packed. My magazine holders, baskets, and jars just got wrapped up and put straight into the box with the contents still inside. It made it so easy to pull the containers out and set them on shelves at the new house. One warning – if you are storing something breakable in those containers, take it out! Don’t pack something that might rattle around inside and break.
[caption id="attachment_1389" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Keep items in their containers"]
[/caption]5. If something unbreakable is in a drawer, keep it there. I store my stickers and rub-ons in drawers in my hutch and instead of taking them out, I just stuck some crinkled up packing paper in the drawer to keep everything from going crazy in there and let the guys move it the way it was.
6. Pack your paper wisely. If you are like me, you spend a small fortune on paper. One of my biggest fears of moving was that my pretty paper would get all wrinkled up. Check your boxes and whichever box will give your paper the least amount of wiggle room will be the best. Horizontal or vertical doesn’t matter. Just fill the wiggle room with packing paper (or tea towels) and mark the box as clearly as possible. You don’t want your paper box getting turned upside down and messing everything up.
[caption id="attachment_1388" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Carefully pack your paper"]
[/caption]7. Keep similar things packed together. Punches and scissor; brads, buttons, and eyelets; you get the idea. This way if you forget to include something on your label you’ll be able to use you mighty powers of deduction to figure out which box it is in.
8. Heavy things should be packed on bottom. But you already knew that!
9. Little things should be contained. I have millions (well, not quite) of pens and they are never in one place. I hunted them all down and stuck them in a ziploc bag. Now at least for once, they are all easy to find.
10. Be prepared to rearrange! Even with the same furniture, much of my stuff has been moved to a different spot. But that’s ok. If you don’t like it, you can always move it again!
[caption id="attachment_1387" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Unpack and rearrange"]
[/caption]Thanks Michelle for all the great tips! I know I will be using them when I move later in May! Good luck with settling in to your new house!
These are great tips, thanks! I especially appreciate the tip to pack albums vertically. I would not have thought of that, but it makes perfect sense to preserve those nice dimensional embellishments that I love so much!! I'll definitely be referring to this list when we move this summer...
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