Serendipitous Accident....

Oops!  I am back to cleaning this morning.  I went to pull this file drawer out this morning, to see what was at the back...I hadn't cleaned it out for a while.

It is one of my favorite storage systems and I was tired of trying to get to it where it was, so decided to move it....Mistake of the year...Thus the Oops!.

I started this system about 30 years ago, when I was pretty new at minis. It still works.  Why mess with a good thing?  Maybe some of you already do something like it.  If not, here it is.

I bought this old oak 6X8" index card drawer and was trying to think of something mini to do with it when a friend gave me all of these little plastic boxes.  They were from her husband's business of making eyeglasses.  I think that lenses were shipped in them.

You have seen them before as holders for rugs and other embroidery projects.  That started later.

I put them in this drawer to store and then it hit me.  I had been cutting out book covers, advertising signs and other small printables....Back then known as magazine clippings.

They were things like book of the month covers, advertising for magazines that were in scale for one inch and other paper products.  Back then you could buy sheets of color advertising signs at shows and shops.

When I got bored and had nothing else to do, I would sit and cut them out while watching television.

I had thrown them into envelopes and put a name on the outside of each, but the envelopes filled fast. I couldn't see at a glance what was in them.

Then it hit me that I could use the boxes instead of storing them in the drawer.  Ready made system for little things.  If you enlarge the photo, you can see the categories.  I used to have paintings and other artwork in there too.  Those outgrew the boxes and went elsewhere.

Anyway, when I gathered everything up and straightened I found several things that I had been looking for.  

Remember.  Drawer in the corner.  Out of sight. Out of mind...There was a reason.  I could only pull it out so far and then it would hit the side of the next cabinet....Some fool took out the stop blocks to keep the drawer from sliding out all the way....No.  It wasn't me.

That piece the is sticking up at the left of the drawer is miniature photos of our trip to London about 10 years ago...Does that give you some idea about how long it has been since I have straightened said drawer?  

I also found the patterns for three sizes of shopping bags that I haven't made for a while... 

Last, but not least, I found my favorite diner photo....This is on my list of "someday minis". 

This is, believe it or not, a blank greeting card.  I bought a whole box at the thrift shop one time. I guess that the original purchaser couldn't find an occasion to send them to friends. 

I think that I will go frame one of these and hang it somewhere.  All it needs is a little love and fixing up and it would be a cute cafe....Use your imagination...

See you tomorrow.