As part of my monthly resolutions I decided that in January I would try to eliminate negative words from my vocabulary and also clean out ALL of the paper in my house.  Well I succeeded at one of these goals 🙂  

 
I had planned to clean out all of my documents and bills from my filing cabinet but I decided to take it one step further and clean out the wrapping paper, cards, magazines, and scrapbook paper.  I wanted to share how I did it and how I’m organizing the paper to make it easier to know what I have.  
 
the filing cabinet:
 
I cleaned this out first because I was dreading it.  For this you might need your significant other’s help because some of the documents could pertain to him or her too. 
 
 Here’s my advice about the files:
 
Get documents OUT of the envelopes.  I bet I threw away 60 or 70 envelopes that my bills had been mailed in.
 
If you have bought a house and could sell it in the future, keep a separate file for that particular house to hand off to a new buyer someday.  This could have paint chips for all of the walls, manuals for appliances that stay with the house, or receipts for new windows, etc.
 
Keep a copy of your will in the very front of the file.  We are in the process of finishing ours up and I know it’s something no one wants to think about but it’s very important especially if you have kids.  Make sure a family member has the original or that it is in a box at the bank so they could find it if something ever happened.   
 
 
Here is all of the trash from the two drawers of the filing cabinet.   I felt lazy and didn’t want to sit there with the shredder forever so I thought I could burn them.  I was home alone but I thought that I could just light them and they would burn slowly.  
 
 
I lit the paper and wow…things escalated pretty quickly from there.  All I have to say is that if you are ever burning something in the fireplace, you should open up the vent to let the smoke out first.  I got to open the vent after a tearful call to my husband with an oven mitt on my hand.  Smoke filled the house and I got to spend some time out in the back yard 🙂  I guess next time I’ll leave the playing with fire to the husband!
 
 
Since most of what was in my filing cabinet was trash, I only had to use the top for documents.  This gave me a great extra drawer to store all of my scissors, brushes, and other supplies.  
the scrapbook paper:
 
My scrapbook paper wasn’t nearly as out of control as the filing cabinet.  However, it was just two big stacks of cardstock, paper, and scraps and it was a nightmare to find what I needed.  I use this paper ALL of the time so I wanted a better system for storing it.  My mother-in-law gave me these sets of drawers a few months ago and I realized they are the PERFECT size for the 12×12 paper. 
 
 I separated all of the paper into 9 different categories:
 
Printables, Calendars, Letters
Paper Scraps
Stencils
Printed Cardstock
Cool Colors Solid Cardstock
Warm Colors Solid Cardstock
Neutral Printed and Solid Paper
Cool Colors Printed and Solid Paper
Warm Colors Printed and Solid Paper
 
I also tore apart all of my packs of paper so that each paper was individually stored and organized.  I love this new system and it makes finding exactly which paper I need super easy!
 
Before…just one big stack


I just typed these little labels and taped them to the inside.
the notes:

My mom has been storing cards in a vintage suitcase for as long as I can remember.  I had an empty one that I had fixed up and so I decided to do the same.  I just separated them by theme and put little labels in that I made with scrap paper.  This is also a good place for your address book, labels, and stamps so it’s all in once place. 

There it is stored in my back closet with everything else from this post.  I also threw away all of my magazines and only saved a few Do It Yourself issues that I love and can’t part with just yet.  I stored them in the little orange container and decided I won’t have more than that container can hold…sad day I know 🙁

the pages from magazines:
 
I LOVE magazines and was keeping every magazine I got in the mail.  This obviously caused a storage problem and so I decided to create a file for ideas that I really loved.  I created some categories and when I love an article, recipe, or idea I tear it out and file it for later.  I started this a very long time ago, pre-Pinterest, and still do it.  It’s fun to look at every once in a while to get inspired!
 
How do you manage your paper?  Any creative storage ideas?