Retreat 2013 Project: Desk Organizer

Well, it’s time for a post on my annual trip to Paper Mecca, Club Scrap’s annual Retreat I went to in August, but while I’m assembling photos for that, I thought I’d post about one of the projects this year, which was inspired by a project suggested by … moi …!

Here’s my finished project… I will be making a second one, modified a bit to hold ink pads, and they will sit side by side on my work table

I thought it might be interesting to share how something like this comes about. Here’s the genesis of that project…

Back in mid-February, I was doing something that I only did a couple of times — and never since! — browsing around Pinterest. I came across a post of a neat idea, a hand-made desk organizer.
http://stempeleinmaleins.blogspot.com/2012/01/desk-caddy.html . I thought it was pretty cool, and that a variation of it might make a cool Club Stamp project, so I forwarded the idea on to the powers that be at Club Scrap. I was surprised to get a response that they were interested to research it! So that made me even more interested, and I began working on a sample of what I had in mind. I cut out several little “cubes” and varied the heights of them…

Beginning organizer cubes I started out with in 3 different taller heights.

So far, so good. Looking pretty useful…

I thought it worked pretty well, but that it needed some more cubes to hold smaller items that would get hidden and difficult to retrieve if put in the taller cubes. So I made a shortie version, and thought it would be good for gelatos and glitter glue, etc. …

Adding on some “shortie” cubes, too

So I made more of them to surround the taller cubes in the middle. I almost went all the way around–that would be 12 shortie cubes–but stopped to consider that I would really LOVE somewhere to store my rulers, too–and especially Club Scrap’s 8″x8″ ruler. So I just make up my own “pocket” to insert behind the taller cubes. Originally I was going to continue attaching shortie cubes around the back of the ruler pocket, too, but in the end, the square geometric configuration was interrupted by the addition of a 1/2″ wide ruler pocket; and also, I figured that doing that might make the whole thing look too big and cumbersome. So I left it with the 8 shortie cubes, and the ruler pocket forming the back side…

I covered a piece of chipboard for a base, and even intended to put it on a lazy susan base, but never got that far!  LOL

So that’s how my prototype looked, and I was proud of it, so I sent it off to Club Scrap. Tricia even mentioned that it had retreat project potential! Woo hoo! I was so stoked! I really, really wanted to make a blog post about it back then, in February, but in case it turned out to really be used at the Retreat, I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, so I waited.

So I was very happy at Retreat to see that they had indeed taken the idea and worked it into a special project like only Club Scrap does. I’m much happier with their version, because the chipboard sides made it much, much more sturdy. Even though Club Scrap has the thickest cardstock, the back ruler pocket as I had made it would end up taking a lot of abuse by the rulers, and would in time, tear somewhat. But not in that beautiful Retreat version!

You know, there are so many ready-made desk organizing tools available on the market today. But when you’re a paper artist, it just feels so much neater to use one that you made with your own hands! Thanks, CS, for making such an awesome project!

(p.s.: These projects are now available for sale HERE if you want to make one yourself! I don’t think they will last very long, though…)