The good people at Brother sent me a P-Touch labeler (PT-1280) to try out and tell everyone what I thought; I know, lucky me! I have to say that I love organizing stuff and I love having a place for everything and everything in its place. I just think better when the area around me is nice and neat, it calms me. The reality is my surroundings are rarely like that - single crafting mom to three kids at home all day plus a dozen+ animals just doesn't make for a neat-as-a-pin kind of home and honestly I have had to work hard to find a comfort level that works for me - balancing my ideals versus reality. Anyway, one of the simplest things you can do to organize a space is to label everything. You might have a drawer for scissors, a can for markers, a plastic tub for yarn, but by putting a label on the container those items have laid claim to that space and it really does keep away the stray marker in the scissors drawer or stuffing in the yarn box because, after all, the label says scissors or markers or yarn and those labels mean business, darn it! So, onto the labeler; well, it couldn't be any simpler! I'm usually a read-the-directions-first kind of person but since I didn't have my reading glasses nearby, ahem, I just started poking around on it. Put in the batteries, add the tape, turn it on and start typing up labels. You can change the size and look of the letters which is nice plus there are different color tapes, even clear, if you want to get fancy. A little tip, when you are printing out a lot of labels, just put spaces between the words and cut them apart later rather than printing one label at a time - you'll save a lot of tape that way. It works just as well in the kids rooms as the craft room and letting the kids organize and label their own space is a great first step in learning to organize and keeping things put away in the right spot.
One day I'll share new photos of my studio. I moved all my things into a new space and it's workable but I don't have it prettied up enough to share just yet.
