all my decades o' divine livin' i have struggled to develop a way to do up all my art supplies 'n doo dads (the real life doodads as opposed to the digital ones)... a way where they are all divided out by departments, ready for me to dive into dependin' on what i feel like dabblin' in that particular day.
my mother - who handed down to me the genetic desire to create and collect doo dads - spoke o' havin' the same dream but apparently, from what i discovered after she died, just plum gave up 'n let her supplies and delightful doo dads co-mingle in large drawers here 'n there thru out our house. to give you an idea of the magnitude o' minglin'...in one drawer i found dainty antique die-cuts dwellin' deep under a duo o' disney dwarves and in another beautiful bunny buttons beneath fabulous faux flowers made outta feathers. because of this system o' storage, it always took her quite some time to dig out whatever tool or doo dad she deemed desirable for whatever art project she was doin'. at some point i had introduced her to my
mason jar set-up and even traveled back to the lone star state to set the whole system up for her...but all it took to destroy the order i had jarred was a neighbor runnin' out o' masons in the middle o' the night while picklin' up a bumper crop o' cucumbers...once again all the doo dads were poured out and blended together. i have come to think my mom preferred her doo dads as well as her art supplies mixed as she got to run her hands through many treasures each time she only needed one.
i think i have tried just about everything for storin' 'n organizin'.....bins, boxes, barrels, buntings...nothin' has been perfect and all now are buried in the basement. all the things i have tried worked fine for fillin' up and holdin' but failed miserably when called into action. a hard workin' artist 'n doo dad collector doesn't need just storage - we also need easy access and even easier clean up. if it doesn't povide both it's just no good.
my search for the perfect solution recently came to a joyful halt when mini's daddy showed me i had the solution right here in the doo dad den for some time but just didn't know it. see, a couple o' years ago i mentioned to him that it might be nice if i had a set o' flat files. while i imagined a nice lil set to store larger printer paper and big photos and art and big things waitin' to be scanned - maybe 11 x 17 would be the largest - a few days later i opened the door to a delivery of what are probably the largest flat files ever made. i'm not sure how big these drawers are....i'll just say they are huge in both width 'n depth. ever since then i have hated them. everything i wanted flat files for could fit on ONE o' the drawers. the rest were just wastin' a large amount o' space i could use for somethin' else. there was no real way to keep things other than paper divided up and i couldn't find any container that would fit and the drawers still close.
then, outta the blue, mini's daddy - who could easily be a professional shopper and feels ill if he doesn't hear the sound o' a cash register at least twice a day, brought home a couple o' sacks from that texas based shop - the container store - filled to the brim with clear plastic bins that fit perfectly in the hated flat files.....and suddenly my lifelong search for the perfect doo dad collecting system was over!
i know the word perfect might sound like an exaggeration....so i will now blog up some snapshots of a few of those big ol' drawers so you can see that no other word but perfect will do.....
