Plastics

In the movie The Graduate, young Benjamin Braddock is given advice by an older man at his graduation party.

 

"Plastics," the man says, explaining that plastics were the wave of the future.  That was 1967.  His prophecy has come true and plastics are everywhere.

Plastics have become my life.  It seems these days I have never seen a plastic container I didn't like.

Take this little tower thingy.  It is made up of three sets of three plastic shelves, each approximately 7" square (a little over 7" in length).   It is my new tower of stickers.

I use stickers.  Lots of stickers.  I decorate letters to the girls and send them stickers when I write to them.  I use them in creating pocket letters.  I send them to the Compassion kids.  I share them with members of Swap Bot.

Not only do I use stickers, I also get stickers.  People send them to me in SwapBot swaps.

Years ago, when I was making scrapbook pages, I bought lots and lots of stickers, many of which I still have.  So I am drowning in stickers.

They have all been in one big box and trying to find something takes forever.  

But now I have a tower of stickers.  It took me over an hour yesterday to set up drawers for:  Disney, Irish, "critters" (non specific animals), dogs, cats, smiley faces, butterflies, hearts and flowers.  Those are the categories of stickers I have the most of.  I still have a lot of other oddball stickers, but now the stack is much smaller and much easier to plough through when looking for just the right sticker.

Then there is the Washi tape.

I love Washi tape.  It's the Japanese paper tape that you can use to decorate anything.  The one really nice thing about Washi is that if you don't like where you positioned it on a piece of paper, you can pick it up and reposition it.  I always decorate the girls' envelopes with Washi and use it for lots of other craft projects.  I have lots and lots of Washi tape (I also get sent Washi tape).  Now I have two big boxes in which to store most of the rolls of tape.

I love those little plastic boxes.  I could fit more Washi into the bigger box without them, but I like having them in groups of 4 rolls.  They stay neater that way.  I have similar boxes for oversized patterned paper books and individual sheets.

I have plastic boxes for postage stamps, one drawer for forever stamps and one drawer for odd-denomination stamps, to make up extra weight envelopes.

There are boxes for post cards, both to send and those received and then there's this nice sectioned box

It holds various little things that I use for pocket letters.

These days whenever I look at the overwhelming mountain in the living room, I think about what I can store in plastic boxes to keep it organized and dust-free.

Plastics are not going to be the only answer for my office organizing when the room is finished (in maybe two more visits, Ned guesses), but they are going to go a long way to be a good start.  And there are still lots of shapes and sizes of boxes that I still want to get.

Benjamin Braddock would be amazed.