4 Section System Details and Photos
by Tiffany Spaulding

Click any Image for a Larger Picture

Categorizing your supplies is key to your productivity as a scrapper. If you can find what you've got you’ll produce pages at record speed and save yourself lots of time and money. Using The ScrapRack ™ 4 Section System will simplify ever step of the Scrapbooking process from putting new supplies away to finding that perfect tiny embellishment.

The 4 Sections
 

1. Alphabets, Numbers and Punctuation

2. Themes A to Z

3. The Calendar

4. The Rainbow

The most important thing about this system is putting EVERYTHING in one place. I know for some of us, the initial reaction to this statement is, “There’s no way I could fit all of my stuff in one place.” Like most things there is no “one size fits all answer.” But, we know this system works great for the vast majority of scrapbookers.

What you’re trying to eliminate is “Digging and Searching,” getting up out of your chair and coming back to your chair. This means that you need to put everything you would ever put on a scrapbook page into your 4 sections. If you buy large quantities of things you might also need to have a “Back Stock” area for storage. However, it you put some of those things into your 4 section system and then restock when you run out you’re going to save yourself tons of time and energy.

Section One – Alphabets and Numbers
These items are used on almost every kind of page regardless of the style, season, event or page content. Put your alphabet, number and punctuation supplies in this section, Diecuts, punch-out, tags, brads, buttons, and stickers should all be included. If it is a generic; number, letter or punctuation mark this is where it belongs. The exception to this rule is theme specific alphabets or number, i.e. Candy Cane letters would be kept with the rest of your Christmas stuff in December.

	Chipboard in a Dream Dozen Sheet	Alphabet collections in a Perfect Six Sheet

Section Two – Themes A to Z
This is a section for keeping all of your theme or event specific papers and embellishments. Things like Art, Birthday, Camping, Travel, and Weather… It’s helpful when you are organizing this section to keep a Table of Contents. This will keep you more focused when you remember that you have Weather section instead of a Rain section.
 

	Baseball in a Fabulous 4 Sheet Single sheet shown off the ScrapRack	Travel in a Perfect Six Sheet Multiple sheets shown on a ScrapRack

Section Three – The Calendar Year
This is as simple as it sounds. January through December. This is where you will store holiday and season specific papers and embellishments. Using The Calendar allows you to store subjects you might use together, close together, i.e., Christmas in The Calendar would also be next to New Year’s Eve, Winter, and Thanksgiving, Easter would be next to Spring, etc.

January – Winter, New Year’s Day
February - Valentine’s Day, President’s Weekend
March – Spring, St. Pat’s Day
April – Easter
May – Memorial Weekend
June – Summer
July – 4th of July
August - Summer
September – Back to School, Fall
October – Halloween
November – Thanksgiving
December – Christmas, New Year’s Eve
 

	4th of July in Perfect Six Sheet Single sheet shown off the ScrapRack	Halloween in a Perfect Six Sheet Multiple sheets shown on a ScrapRack

Section Four – The Rainbow
This section should contain all of your solid colored supplies as well as patterned papers that are not theme specific (plaids, dots, stripes, etc.). This includes; Buttons, Brads, Eyelets, Fibers, Bows, Paper, etc. Remember the idea is to have everything in one place. When you need a red embellishment you don’t want to dig and search, you just want to flip to red.

	Blue products in a Perfect Six Sheet Single sheet shown off the ScrapRack	Blue Products in a Dream Dozen Multiple sheets shown on a ScrapRack

	Red Fibers on a Fiberboard™ in a Sideloader™ Single Sleeve	Metallic Embellishments in an Embellishment Storage Page

The Process of Organizing what you have now.

Here’s the $64,000.00 Question, How do I actually do it? How do I get from where I am to where I want to be?

Okay, You’ve got the tool (your ScrapRack™), You have a good solid system (4 Sections), how do you get from the countless; boxes, bins, rolling totes, binders, Tupperware, file folders, envelopes and piles, to a well organized and easily accessible place?

First Step
The first step is writing an index. The index well act both as a guideline for sorting and eventually as your Table of Contents.
We’ve given you some ideas for your initial categories but you will have specific categories that coincide with your life and what you scrap about. We suggest that you type your category list out on your computer. This will allow you to easily rearrange your categories into alphabetical order. Once this is done, triple space all the entries on your list, and print your list.
As you create your list think about some category titles that you might want to use to spread things out more evenly in your storage system. For example, it would be common to file all of your beach stuff under “B”each. But with Birthday and Baby also in the B this section will get quite full. You may want to consider filing Beach instead as Ocean, unless you do a lot of scrapping about Octopi, Olives, and Orangutans the “O” section is probably pretty empty.

Second Step
Choose an option for organizing

Option #1 – Don’t look back
Start now, today, with all your new stuff. Sort all of your new supplies into categories within your ScrapRack™ 4 Section System. Next, put the supplies into storage pages. Put the storage pages onto your Spinders and place the Spinders on your Base Unit. (See tips for loading pages listed below.)
Don’t worry about incorporating your current supplies until you begin working with them. Then as you pull out your red fiber from a box, bin or drawer, put it away in the red section of your system. Then as you begin to work on a specific themed layout, go through all of your existing supplies and pullout the things that fit that theme or category. Incorporate them into your system. This works well if you do it in conjunction with a set of photos you are working on. For example if you are working on Birthday photos you would go through all of your supplies and pull out all of the Birthday Stuff. Sort that Birthday stuff into organizer sheets and put it into your system. And then begin your layouts. You will have a fresh perspective on the materials you have and a good knowledge of what is available.

Option #2 – One Container at a time
Pick one container at a time and sort it into your new system. Whether it is a box, Tupperware or binder, remove the things from it, place them in storage sheets and integrate them into your system.

Option #3- All At Once Method
Pick a full day that you can plan on just organizing.
The night before: •Put together a “crockpot” meal for the next day, or better yet plan to order pizza.
•Make plans with a friend, babysitter, or significant other to keep the kids out of the house from 8 am – 6 pm
•Get a good book on tape or a selection of your favorite music.
•Write your INDEX of all your Themes.
•Make Sorting Guides. Using large sheets of construction paper 12x18works best, create the following Sorting Guides; Alpha-Numeric(1), A to Z (26 individual templates one with each letter. You can also group letters on one template based on your INDEX themes), Months for The Calendar(12), and Colors for The Rainbow+ Metallics (7). With the Rainbow you can follow the colors of the Rainbow Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, or use your colorwheel if you want to break it down even further. Don’t forget to add a Metals or Metallics sections.
•Gather your Storage Sheets, Dividers, Tabs, Spinders, FiberBoards, Embellishment Pages.
•Collect several large empty boxes, big enough to easily accommodate 12x12 supplies.

Then what?
1. Pick a large space where you can sort. If working on the floor is an option for you, it will usually work the best just because you will have more space on the floor then you do on any other surface. You may have to rearrange some furniture but it will be well worth it in the long run. Drop the Sorting Guides onto the floor in order. At the end of your trail of Sorting Guides place a big empty cardboard box.
 

2. Start Sorting! Pull your supplies out of the boxes, bins, drawers, rolling totes, etc, and drop them onto the appropriate Sorting Guide. Use the large empty box at the end of your trail as a place to put everything you will never use (outdated, damaged, ugly, whatever the reason toss it in the box.)
 

3. When all of your supplies have been sorted into piles, use the large boxes to stack your supplies for detailed sorting. Starting at the end of your Supply Trail, pick up each pile and place them into a box. When you have picked up all the piles you should have the Alpha-Numeric section on the top of the top box.
 

4. Move to your dining room table or other large workspace. Place the top box in the chair next to you and remove the stacks one template at a time. Sort each stack by theme (i.e. in “B” you will probably have Baby, Beach, and Birthday. Put the supplies by theme into your storage sheets.
 

5. Load the storage sheets onto your Spinders, close and lock the Spinders, then place them on your base unit. Once all your supplies are sorted you can add tabs and dividers.
 

	Red Fibers on a Fiberboard™ in a Sideloader™ Single Sleeve	Close Up of Tabs and Dividers

Adding Tabs and Dividers
Once you get your supplies divided into the 4 Section System and your storage pages loaded you will be ready to add tabs and dividers to your ScrapRack™.
Tabs – Use one of your adhesive tabs for each minor section. You will use these mainly in the Themes A-Z section, i.e. within your A Section you might have ART, ANIMALS, etc.
Dividers – Once you have added your Tabs you can add your Dividers. The Dividers should be spread evenly through your ScrapRack. We recommend 2-3 Dividers per Spinder. The Divider will add an extra layer of protection to your supplies, add stability to your ScrapRack and make it easier to flip from section to section.

Tips for loading Storage pages and Spinders
 

1. Load heavier or thicker items into the pockets which are closest to the 3 holes punch on your storage pages. Heavier items also work better in the bottom pockets.

2. Remove Spinders for the base unit before adding pages.

3. Lay the Spinders on a flat surface.

4. When putting pages in a section use smaller pocketed pages in the front, Dream Dozen, followed by Perfect Six, Double X-Long and finally the Supersized Single. This will allow for the best visibility of your supplies. R

5. Remember to keep whole categories together on one Spinder if you are using TheScrapRack. This is very important for the “Going Organized” aspect of this hobby.

Traveling with your supplies
This is the “GO Organized” which is so important to our hobby. Scrapbooking Crops have been equated to the quilting bees of yesteryear. These are the events which make this hobby even more enriching.

Taking Just What You Need
The ScrapRack™ TravelPack Plus makes it easy to take just what you need when you go to a crop or class. Simply remove the Spinder(s) you will working with (Theme, holiday, etc.) from the base unit and place it in your TravelPack Plus. You can actually take 2-3 Spinders in the TravelPack Plus if they are not overloaded. Use the tool pockets, and penholders to pack just what you need. Your personal paper trimmer will fit easily under the pen flap. Taking just what you need will keep you focused on the task at hand and keep you from feeling overwhelmed.

Removing a Spinder from your Base Unit
Use a blunt edged instrument like a bone folder or a true butter knife. Slip the instrument between the base Velcro and the Spinder Velcro at the top of the Spinder, then slide the instrument gently down the length of the Spinder. The Spinder will come off easily and you will extend the life of your Spinder. Careful removal of the Spinders will really reduce the stress on both the Spinder rings and the Velcro.

Taking it all
For many of us our supplies are like a security blanket (aka Linus Syndrome). We feel like we need to take EVERYTHING, “Just in Case.” If you suffer from Linus Syndrome, The ScrapRack™ will allow you take everything quickly and easily.
TheScrapRack™ folds down to almost nothing. It will store easily in a tote, box, bin or even a small suitcase. To breakdown your rack, take each of the Spinders off the rack and place them in the bottom of your storage container. Remove the wings and place them on top of your pile of pages in the storage container. Collapse the supports on the back of your rack and fold it flat. Run the “shepherds hook” through the holes on the back portion of the rack so you don’t lose it. Place the collapsed rack on top of the wings. Close up your storage container. When you are ready to scrap again, putting your system together will only take seconds.