How to Organize your Mixed Media Collections

All the nature surrounding Ann Strecko Koeman inspires her artwork being a Mixed Media Artist working in the capital of Canada. She collects a lot of ribbons and trims, yarns, cords, and threads in a variety of places. She will buy all things on sale or in clearance bins as well as visiting thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales and ebay. Eventually there is the free stuff she finds through friends and family, Free Cycle, and anything that enters her home and can be recycled such as string, shipping bands, rubber elastics around the vegetables and old clothing unfit for donating but fine for recycling.

With all the above it becomes easy to put away the new items so long they are stored in labeled drawers, shelves and bins. Items that come in tangled messes of pieces she tackles them differently. She dumps them in a big see thru purse that she found at a local thrift store and hangs the bag from one of the drawers in the Studio until she is in need of them. Once in a while she will plunge into the treasure bag and do some organizing.

She has a larger than necessary collection of fibers. She will keep a sample of 3 metres while the rest is stored in a storage closet. More of her work can be viewed on her blog Annmakes.