For many of us, our passion for scrapbooking has turned into more of an obsession; so much so that our supplies seem to have taken over every available space in our home.

My scrap space is in this state. I have supplies strategically placed in various locations of the house. My husband has ever so kindly asked me to do something about my stash. He feels like we live in a warehouse or it always seems like we are about to go away on a really long trip.

Why? Because I store all my scrap stuff in luggage, traveling bags, and boxes. I figured in the event of an emergency, I could easily grab the bags and boxes and throw them all into the car and off we go. But wait - reality check! Each bag weighs an average of 10-15 kilos! I only have two arms - one would definitely carry my daughter and so that leaves me with just one available arm to grab all my scrap stuff. Hello! Not exactly an ideal scenario. Another thing - with all my papers and other materials kept in bags and boxes, I could barely remember what I have or which bag I had placed them in. When it's time for me to scrap, I spend so much time looking through each and every bag looking for a particular paper or material I want to use. I realized then that it was time to make some changes.

I knew this was going to be a huge challenge for me if I did this project by myself so I enlisted the help of my two scrap buddies, Aggie Rarangol and Alidz Bono. It took one entire Saturday for us to do a makeover of my home office. I wanted to make my existing home office to also serve as my craft room when I'm not working. My friend Aggie, aside from being a topnotch scrapper, is also a talented interior decorator. She managed to work on whatever furnishings I already had. Plus, I only had to spend an extra thousand or so for additional storage items which we purchased from Japan Home, Gourdo's and National Bookstore.

We divided the task at hand into several missions.

Mission 1: Unpack ( 8:00-11:00 am )

Papers, embellishments, magazines, books, bags, and basically every other scrap supplies scattered around the house were all placed in my soon-to-be home office/craft room. Aggie wanted to see everything I had so she could plan the organization better.

Mission 2: Shop ( 11:00-1:00 am )

We went shopping for additional supplies to decorate and organize the room. Here's a breakdown of how much (or should I say how little) we spent:

• 5 pcs. Stacker Boxes (for solid cardstock & stickers) P88 x 5 = P 440.00
• 1 pc. Trash bin P88 x 1 = P 88.00
• 4 sets Round magnetic containers (for flowers) P88 x 4 = P 352.00
• 1 pc. Green corrugated paper P45 x 1 = P 45.00
• 1 set Push pins P13.50 = P 13.50
• 2 pcs. Cork board P88 x 2 = P 176.00
• 3 pcs. Ceramic alphabets P95 x 3 = P 285.00
• Total: P 1, 399.50

Mission 3: Re-arrange & Organize ( 1:00-10:00 pm )

Books and Magazines – I have tons of books; from reference books to fiction to scrapbook idea books. When I pull one book out, I would normally just stuff it back at whatever slot I could find on the shelf, unmindful of the fact that all my books have gotten all mixed up. The books were re-classified according to subject matter and then were arranged by height on the bookshelf to make it visually appealing. We also allotted space on the bookshelf for my magazines which were organized according to title and filed chronologically.

Paper – I'm a self-confessed paper hoarder. When I fall in love a new design line, I make sure I have the complete set of papers. So you can imagine just how much paper and cardstock I own. To make my scrapping life easier, patterned papers were separated from the solid papers first. Then the patterned papers were further divided according to design and color. Each set was placed in PE plastic zip lock bags and organized in my existing stackable wire racks. Solid papers and stickers were also stored first in PE plastic zip lock bags and then placed in my newly purchased paper stackers.

Embellishments - I like to keep my embellishments in their original packaging even after they've been opened already. But this eats up a lot of space said Aggie so I eventually gave in to her logic and agreed to remove the embellishments from their packaging. The embellies were then stored in various organizers like bottles, stackable drawers, and even in microwaveable food containers.

Mission 4: Decorate ( 10:00-11:00 pm )

There's a huge hole on the wall where a window type aircon was supposed to be. But, there's no unit there right now. To cover this very unpleasant sight of the room, Aggie cut out the word C-R-E-A-T-E from a corrugated board. She then pasted the letters to the backs of push pins for a three dimensional effect. The letters were attached to a cork board and the board was finally adhered to the wall.

The final touch was the ceramic alphabet letters that spelled A-R-T. Aggie filled the hollow portion of the ceramic letters with some of my colored alphabet and number beads and voila! – It was a perfect décor for my otherwise boring table.

At day's end, I couldn't help but be amazed at what we accomplished! And, it didn't cost that much; all you need is a little creativity and a lot of help from your friends!