Lately, I've been feeling so cluttered and disorganised! Look at the inside of one of my bead drawers - no order, hard to find what I'm looking for, and a bit of a tangle. Unfortunately, most of my bead drawers look like this so it's time to bring some order to the chaos of the contents. I have some fabulous Effektiv drawer units which I've posted about before (alas, they are no longer available). Some house my stamps and papers and others house my beads and findings - and that's where I'm at, at the moment. I finally came to the conclusion that I need dividers to help organise this drawer and so off I went to Ikea to see what I could find. There were a couple of options such as the dividers designed to fit into the Effektiv drawers but I took a chance on the Rationell cutlery tray and it fits perfectly inside the drawers.... There is even a slot at the front of the drawer that the lip of the tray slides into and there is enough overhang on the sides to suppo......

When I assembled the Effektiv height extension unit last week, I also bought some tempered glass shelves for the inside of the cabinet. The assistant at Ikea couldn't find the Effektiv ones catalogued on the computer system but thought that the Rationell ones would fit as they were the same measurement. Alas, they are not the same measurement and were too short for the cabinet and so I had been unable to make use of the new storage space. But yesterday, I returned to the store to exchange the Rationell shelf for the Effektiv one. This time the assistant located it in the computer system and arranged for someone to get it for me - how helpful! Once home again, it was a simple matter of placing the lugs into the predrilled holes and sitting the shelf on top. And then came the fun part - filling the shelves with my collection of paints and mediums. I love that the shelf is glass - it will make it so much easier to see things!...

In a household of 2 adults and 4 teenagers - (whoops, that's now 3 adults and 3 teenagers - my 21 year old would never forgive me for that!), storage really is a challenge and that's to be expected. But with no built in storage (other than a linen cupboard and kitchen cabinets) all storage has to be free standing. Yesterday, I posted an image of the Ikea Effectiv drawer units I have finally assembled... but on Wednesday I made a great discovery at Ikea - they make height extension units in this range. You can imagine my excitement when I saw these as my drawer units are no longer available. Yet here were these height extension units which will fit on top of my drawers. So yesterday morning, I took to assembling the first one. Easy, peasy..... Ikea furniture always fits together so well! But then I hit a hitch. The holes on the top of my discontinued drawer units don't align with the pre-drilled holes on the bottom of the height extension units. No worries - I'm handy wi......

What's the best thing to do when you have no idea where to begin? You just jump right in............. so here goes. I thought I'd begin by sharing what I've been doing this week. I'm waging an ongoing battle with the mess I've created in my studio and I'm trying to get it into an organised and workable space. So in recent months I've organised my woodmounted stamps and my ever increasing collection of scrapbooking papers into some wonderful drawers from the Effektiv range at Ikea. The shallow drawers are ideal for storing paper and stamps and also for stowing my jewellery making supplies. But don't rush out to buy these units as they are no longer available. I had this trio of drawers stowed away under a bed for a couple of years waiting for this day to come. But my battle with the mess continues so check back later this week for the next report on my progress........