organization idea from Leslie

Leslie sent me an email this week describing a new system she's developed to keep track of her MMSA swaps.  I was so impressed by her description, I asked her to take pictures so I could share the idea with you all.

Leslie is an avid swapper, and has participated in an impressive 29 MMSA swaps so far this year.

With so many different themes and deadlines, how does she keep track of it all?

With file folders!

Here's what Leslie said about it:

"I page thru magazines all the time, looking for likely collage material, keeping your swaps in mind, and the other night I had piles all over the end table - white, brown, food, birds. Then the dog knocked it all on the floor. 

As I was fishing little pieces out from under the couch and picking it all up and muttering bad words to myself, the thought of file folders popped into my head. I'm uber-organized at work with file folders for everything. Don't know why it never occurred to me for collage items. I have all sorts of other organizational stuff, just nothing for small cut-out items. So I made one for each of the upcoming swaps, labeling them with the name of the swap and the due date, then set them on my art desk in due date order. When I come across something good, I cut it out and drop it in the correct folder. By the time I'll start working on some of these, I'll have a whole folder of goodies to choose from."

Here's a glimpse of her "white" folder:

and her "food" folder:

So simple, so brilliant!

Thanks for sharing, Leslie.