random.on purpose.

Stamp Organization and Index Update

Since I've been moving my studio/workroom from the attic to the main floor, I've also been re-thinking some of the ways I store, organize and index my "stuff". 

I thought that I had shared my new stamp storage method, but I can't find a post in my archives, so maybe I was waiting until I finished, instead of sharing mid-project or something.  If this is old information, I apologize - consider it a reminder, I guess...

ANYway - I was tired of having multiple methods and containers and what-have-you for the different types of stamps (photpolymer, rubber, etc.)  I read somewhere about someone using laminated folders, cut down to fit in envelopes, to store their unmounted stamps on.  That was the seed that grew into my current method of storing stamps.

I bought a slew of the laminated folders when WalMart was having their back-to-school sales and they were CHEAP!  I cut them down into 4" x 6" cards (about seven per folder) and bought these Iris photo keepers, because envelopes sounded like too much work to find something to put them in:

The "keeper" contains 16 individual cases, and each case will hold seven fully loaded cards.  Here's an example of what the cards look like:

I have them all organized by category, and each case is labelled (P-Touch labelmaker) with the category of the stamps inside.  When I took this picture, I still had some of the stamps in their sets, but have since split everything up - Christmas trees all together, Santas all together, snowmen all together, etc.

If/when Greg and I decide to be nomads and travel around in an RV instead of living in a real house, my stamps are now portable if I put them in the keepers.  In the meantime, however, I've done this with them:

This is a 60" shelf on the wall in my "new" room.  The "cubbies" are CD crates on their sides with a strip of molding (I think it's baseboard.  I found it in the garage, it was the right length and I was too impatient to get in my car and drive to Home Depot to get a real board - Greg doesn't know I swiped it...yet).  Obviously, the cases on the bottom row are taller than the CD crates, so a little ingenuity was in order.  I have an entire box (the file storage kind) full of blocks that were intended for mounting rubber stamps, and they will NEVER be used for that purpose, so I took a few that were the right dimensions to support the top "shelf".  Here are a few more details:

This CD crate houses small alphabet sets.  The blue and green box is Stampin'Up! Little Letters, the box below is a Hero Arts harlequin stamp set.  The three ammo boxes contain EK Success small alphabets (four different ones).  These little alphas work best for me on the little wood "pegs" that they're on, so this is my answer, storage-wise.  The clamshell case above them is my JustRite monogram stamper and one of the circle sets.

These clamshell cases contain background and other over-sized stamps.  Above them are three JustRite pre-inked stamp thingies, and a couple of eensy teensy stamps from Sweet Stamps that I haven't made up my mind about storage-wise yet.

I have most of my inks elsewhere in the room (stories for another day), but these are a few overflow Stampin'Up! ink pads and my Versamark pads.  The VHS case above them has some foam Christmas sentiment stamps that I'm convinced I'll get around to using for something someday...

Just inside the door of my room is a litle niche created when we bumped the wall out to expand our bathroom, and a DVD rack fits there  perfectly.  It houses my unmounted wheel stamps (no longer "wheels", obviously) and other border stamps that are too long to fit in the photo cases.  Large alphabet sets (Close to My Heart and Inkadinkado, mostly) are here, as well.  They are in the DVD-style cases from Stampin'Up!:

That's the scoop on the storage aspect!  Moving on to the indexing...  I have two notebooks that have pictures of every stamp set I own in them, arranged alphabetically by manufacturer.  I'm keeping those, obviously, but wanted an index that had the stamps arranged in categories to mirror the way they're stored now.  I got an idea from THIS GIRL, but tweaked it a bit.  She stamped each image on a separate card.  If I did that, I'd need about twenty notebooks - not happening!  I opted to do "like with like", with as many images as would comfortably fit on a card without crowding or making it hard to see each image easily:

Now I can see all of my options when I need a specific word or image, and compare them size-wise and style-wise to see which will work best:

I stamped them in gray because it's not quite as stark as black and it's easier to clean up, but it's still neutral enough to leave my imagination free to fill in with the color of my project.

Lest you think that I'm all THAT, let me assure you - I'm at the beginning of this indexing project, and have - to date - completed only TWO of the SIXTY-FOUR cases you saw on the shelves...  I'm doing the sentiments first because it's harder to find them (although, with this new storage system, it's pretty fast-and-simple, anyway), and they will take MUCH longer than the images.  The good news is that there are only eighteen cases of sentiments.  I'm planning to do one case each night that I have available time until they're done...

And that's the update for tonight!  If you have any questions, as always, feel free to ask!  I'm gonna go watch the Giants/Forty-Niners game to see who pulls off a win.  They're in overtime now...  I'll be back a different day with crafty stuff.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great night/week!

Every now and again I have a lightbulb moment...

Had one today, as a matter of fact!  I'm in the process of relocating my studio/workroom from the attic to the main floor.  It will be warmer in winter, cooler in summer, closer to the bathroom, closer to the kitchen, closer to Greg - all major pluses, I'm sure you'll agree!

The down side is that the room is much, much smaller and has less storage.  There are two closets in the room, but one is the coat closet, so I can only use the bottom half of it.  The other is a utility closet where the vacuum and brooms and mops and such-like dwell, so I can only use the top half of it.  Altogether, I suppose I could view it as having one whole closet, but they're both very small, so it still doesn't amount to much...

ANYway - in trying to determine the best way to put all of my punches in this room, I knew that previous methods were NOT going to work!  I don't have enough closet space to do it this way:

and I don't have enough wall space to do it this way (plus, I don't want to put a bunch of holes in the wall to hang curtain rods):

so now what?

Light bulb:  there was an old DVD rack waiting to be discarded over at Greg's mom's house, so I went over to fetch it to see if it could be made into something useful.  Here's the result:

It fits perfectly wedged between the bookcase and the narrow strip of wall where the closet door swings open.  AND it doesn't interfere with the door's swing, either!  I did have to take the "feet" off and shim the front up so it would stay tight to the wall and not fall forward when I loaded it up (ask me how I figured that one out...).

This is one of those racks that has three dowels to rest the DVDs on, so I just hooked the lever of the punch over one dowel and let the punch itself rest against another dowel (the punches in front) or the wall (the punches in back).  You can kind of, sort of see what I mean here:

The Martha Stewart "Punch Around the Page" punches are stored together.  You can't really see the corner punch, because it's behind the border punch:

I also fashioned a shelf for the top out of some yardsticks I had laying around (cut to length), then put a CD crate and a little shelf/cubby thing and two pencil boxes on there to hold punches that couldn't hang on the dowels:

Ta da!  The only other punches I have are my Fiskars squeeze punches (they are in a bucket on a shelf) and some tiny ones (they are in a clamshell case in a drawer).  All the rest are here!  I'll show you the rest of the room after I get it all squared away...  Have a great night, and thanks for stopping by!

Organized Chaos

As with many of my fellow crafters, I find the need to revamp the storage system for all of my supplies from time to time to better suit whatever my needs - or the abundance of "stuff" - have morphed into.  Such was the case recently, and the impending visit from my sister and her husband (which was brief but wonderful) made it a bit more imperative.

I'll show you pics of what I've changed and explain what you're looking at as we go along...

The sliver of doorway you see on the left in this picture is the doorway coming into the room from the landing at the top of the stairs.  My studio is the finished side of our attic.  This snippet of wall houses my papers and inks, and the beginnings of the stamp storage revamp.  I've cut all of my older patterned papers down to 8 1/2" x 11" so that they can be put into a regular old filing cabinet, which - obviously - is what I have.  It seemed to work well with my Stampin'Up! cardstock to only have that size, so I figured what the hey?  Said SU! cardstock is in there, as well.  I cut 3" squares of all of the papers and wrote the manufacturer on the back of the square and punched a hole in the corner of each and put them all on rings, organized by color/pattern (just like in the folders), like this:

The three-drawer plastic unit houses cardstock scraps:  top drawer is warm colors, middle drawer is cool colors, bottom drawer is neutrals.  The one-drawer unit has doilies, labels, pre-made cards, specialty paper-y things, etc.  The cart they're sitting on (intended for a television) has Cropper Hopper holders with Stampin'Up! paper packs, 12" paper stacks, and 12" papers from the ones I cut up that were a pattern that made no sense if it was cut (like a scene or border or something).  8" pads and mat stacks are on a shelf above the plastic units, and there is a wooden CD crate next to them that contains envelopes and such.  Two CD cases turned on their sides and a repurposed cassette tape holder house my ink pads.  My acrylic blocks are in a wooden pencil case and a teacup on the shelf, as well.  The large plastic pin (designed for files) is going to house all of my stamps eventually, but it's a work in progress right now.  I'll post what I'm doing there when I get it wrapped up.

This is the wall adjacent to the one we just viewed.  It is a knee wall (my ceilings are slanted - attic, remember?), so it's only about four feet high.  The two thin metal shelving units at each end were intended for DVDs, and they hold the DVD-style cases from Stampin'Up! that contain many of my stamps.  Many of them have already been integrated into the new system, as well.  I have four of the JetMax cubes (or something similar - totally not sure) between them that contain 12" cardstock from DCWV and Close to My Heart.  I plan to chop them up if/when I get another filing cabinet. 

The other drawers have hand-held punches and decorative-edge scissors and various other small tools and adhesives and such-like.  The stacks of small drawer units are "color drawers".  I know that I mentioned in a previous post that I loathed drawers, and that remains true for deep drawers.  I bought small drawer units on purpose so that I cold see the entire contents at a glance.  They are organized ROYGBIV-style on the two ends, and neutrals and metallics across the two center sections.  Here's what the drawers contain:

The first drawer for each color contains ribbons and twine.  I take them off of their spools and roll them like this to save space.  A bit of freezer tape keeps the end in place so they don't unroll.

The next drawer for that color has small embellishments separated by type and corralled in small boxes and/or ziplock bags.

The last drawer for each color contains buttons.  If there are quite a few that are all the same, I put them together in a small ziploc bag before putting them into the drawer (just in case I need to make some matchy-matchy stuff for a swap or something).

The two drawer units in the very center contain all of my thread except the spools that are too large (jumbo Gutermann spools and upholstery threads).  They're organized by color, too...

This is a shot of what's in the little baskets sitting on top of the drawer units - glitter, embossing powder and flocking, again organized by color.

The two mugs contain Stickles and other glitter glues and Liquid Pearls.  The small white three-drawer unit has specialty pens and the book rings of papers and the purple thing on top of it is a magnetic pin holder.  The wooden sewing box was my mother's and has sewing, crocheting and other similar-type tools.  The small basket has a variety of scissors in it - sewing and other - and Betty Boop is there just because she needs to keep me company.  Along the shelf (which still needs painting) are a box containing wire and fishing line and other similar things, and my Stampotique loverlies (which will remain mounted on wood and stay there to make me smile every day).  At the other end are paintbrushes and markers and colored pencils and such, and in between are these:

My sister-in-law gave me the little traveling case, and it houses various tags.  The little metal lunch pail is where I keep my BowEasy, my mat pack (for piercing and such), and some distressing tools from CTMH.  The hibiscus-print item is an eyeglass case and contains - yup, my reading glasses ('cuz I'm old(er) and require them for close work).  The other things are sentimental, and here's a better look:

The cherry tin was my mother's - and maybe her mother's before her, the spur was my grandmother's (yes, really - she lived in Indian territory for a good long time, and rode for real).  The cartridge is from the 21-gun salute from my father's memorial service, the elephant is from my mother's extensive collection, and the pansy thimble was a gift I gave her once upon a time.  Pansies were her favorite flower and the symbol of her sorority in college (she attended what has since become UTEP - University of Texas El Paso).  The other two tins are reproductions that I love.

Moving around the room, I have a small desk in the corner where the television sits, with a storage footstool that my grandfather made underneath it, which holds the DVD player and contains alterable items.  It's not picture-worthy, so I didn't take one.  The next wall is this:

The only window in the room (which still needs a curtain).  The sewing table is flanked by bookcases (duh!)  where I put books (obviously), some select magazines, and notebooks containing alphabet stamps and stencils and other similar stuff.  I also keep the Cuttlebug and the embossing folders and dies here, as well as a few sentimental stuffed friends and my flowers:

That little bear came with me when I closed up a gift shop I used to own.  The flowers are - again, sorted by color - in clamshell cases (courtesy of Stampin'Up!), and stacked up here.  Underneath the sewing table are my pink toolbox (with real tools like hammers, a hacksaw, measuring tapes, screwdrivers, drill bits, etc.), my sewing machine, and various sewing tools and notions (a roll of zipper chain, a drawer unit with snaps and hooks and buttons-to-cover and all the rest of it).

And that pretty much covers what's been done to date!  I still have the dresser-turned-shelves unit in the closet with all of the punches and such, and there's a stack of plastic drawers in there with stickers and chipboard and other things like that.  The built-in drawers have been cleaned and organized and have bulky items like paper trimmers and rolls of freezer paper, contact paper, tissue paper, etc.

The wall that previously had the punch storage and all is now BARE!  I butt my table up to it when I'm not cutting out fabric, and pull it out to the center of the room when I am (so I can walk all the way around, and so I can more easily unroll the large bolts I deal with).

Next up is improving the lighting and making curtains for the closet and the window, and other "prettifying" stuff!  I'll be sure to share when that happens, as well as when I finish the stamp storage re-do!  Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!

One More Thing...

Okay, I completely forgot one more thing I wanted to share - doh!  Next to my Cuttlebug stuff that I showed in my previous post are these:

There are two of these plastic cases with magnetic strips in them to hold Nestabilities, like this:

 

I need to make covers or something so they're not so ugly, but hey - the magnetic strips were FREE (my favorite price), and it's working!  The cases themselves were designed for comic book collectors to protect their prized collection, but I sometimes never use anything for its intended purpose, so there you go!

Okay - I'm done now...

The Queen of Cheap Gets Organized

First, I must apologize for my absence of late - nothing worth sharing, so I just didn't...  NOW, I have NEWS!  Probably not a big deal for you, but I'm totally stoked over here!

In my last post I shared the shame and horror that was my workroom/studio when I "blew it up good", so I'm happy to report that the re-org is going well and to share some pics with you that are shame-less.  First I have to show you my amazingly wonderful SCORE:

This table was at our local Rescue Mission Thrifty Shopper (similar to Goodwill, Salvation Army, Deseret Industries - whatever your point of reference might be) for $35, which I would gladly have paid, but they were having a 60% off sale this morning, so I only paid $14!!!  It's big, it's solid, it needs a facelift (some sanding and some type of sealer will be enough, I'm thinking), especially since it got some new scratches from sliding face-down into the bed of Greg's truck (mortar chunks and such will do that...)  I wasn't about to complain, though - I knew it needed repair already, and Greg was kind enough to drive me out and load the thing and all the rest of it, so...  I purchased a couple of other things I'll share a different day.  This post is gonna be long and photo-loaded, so I'm sticking with the subject!

Just for orientation, I'll let you know that when you walk into this room, you're looking at a window in the gable end of the house, and there are knee walls on either side of the room, because this is the finished side of an attic, and there are no dormers.  To the left we have this:

What you do not see in the picture is a dresser to the far left that has "stuff" in it, and to the right is a sewing machine table/cabinet that has a TV and DVD player on it.  What you do see is two of the JetMax cubes for 12" x 12" hanging files flanked by DVD racks and topped with a shelf, which is topped with CD crates laid on their sides to house my ink pads.  The cases on the racks are all of my stamp sets (organized as outlined in this post).  The plastic drawers have adhesives, embellishments, etc.  On top of the four in the center is a wooden drawer organizer that houses embossing powders, Stickles, glitter, re-inkers, etc:

 

On the desk above this is my Xacto guillotine cutter (I turn it the other way when I'm actually using it).  Under the sewing table are my sewing machine and my patterned papers in legal size file folders (as outlined in this post - scroll down a bit), stored in those crates.  I have felt on all four corners so I can slide them out without destroying my hardwood floors.  The drawer above them has 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock in it.

 

Across the room on the right-side wall we have this:

I'm pretty much considering myself a minor genius here, because this configuration is totally doable for: a) someone on a budget and, b) someone who rents and can't put holes in the wall.  I figured out how far apart my shelving units (free-standing, on sale at Target for $15)needed to be to leave the outlets free, then cut my "Handi Panel" pegboard (2' x 4', $6.72 at Home Depot) to that measurement (3' in my case) and screwed it to the back of the shelves down the edge (high enough to clear the heat register), right through the existing holes (make sure your drill is level if/when you do this, so you don't have screws coming out in weird places on the shelves)  The top two curtain rods (28"-48" heavy duty, 2" projection, WalMart $2.32 ea) are wall-mounted, but if you wanted to, you could screw strips of wood to the shelves, and then screw the curtain rod mounts to the wood strips.

The third rod is a tension rod (slightly more expensive, but still cheap - can't find my receipt).  DO NOT USE MORE THAN ONE TENSION ROD.  If you use more than one, they wreak havoc with each other and everything comes crashing down (I know I do not need to explain how I know this...)  I have (obviously) put most of my punches here, and I used a tool holder for the few decorative-edge scissors that I do, in fact, still use, as well as my Corner Chomper, Cropadile, brayers, quilting templates (which have many, many other uses) and my "Absorber" (around $10 in the automotive section at WalMart) that I use instead of a scrubber for my stamps.  TOTALLY worth every penny, but large enough that I could cut it up and split the cost with several friends, if I were so inclined.  Read about it HERE.  The crate has two smallish drawer units that have my thread in them, and there are more punches on top of it, including hand-held ones in a basket robbed from a spice rack (the over-the-door kind), and small ones in a clamshell case:

 

There are more punches on top of the shelves:

A CD crate and a wooden pencil box are used to make things more efficient and easier to see.  There's a similar configuration (largely Martha Stewart punches) on the other shelving unit.

On the shelves themselves?  The one on the right has magazines, books, etc.  (still a little empty, as I'm still hauling up boxes from the basement) and the one on the left has binders with stamps, my stamp index, and stamp catalogs on the bottom shelf, and this on the top shelf:

 

The white photo storage box has clamshell cases of buttons sorted by color, the clamshells stacked next to them are flowers sorted by color, next to that are feathers sorted by color.  In front are recent flower and button purchases that haven't been integrated into the system yet.  The white drawer unit next to them has specialty pens, small tools, etc.

The center shelf has my Cuttlebug and the items that I use with it:

A few details here:  The black leather box has the cutting plates, embossing folders and texture plates, cardboard pieces that I use as shims, etc., and this:

This oh-so-expensive baby just happens to be the perfect size for small folders and dies:

The Sizzix Embosslit and Sizzlit dies don't fit, but everything else does!  On the other side of the Cuttlebug is another photo storage box with a couple of zippered cases and a clamshell in it, as well as a few other things:

The two boxes at the back are letterpress kits that I haven't had time to play with (except for a quick moment before Christmas), the clamshell has Dymo tape in several colors, there is a CTMH swivel stapler, A Dymo and a Fiskars shape cutter in front of them, and then the two zippered cases.  The front one has my Creative Memories shape cutting system templates and cutters:

The other has CTMH 3" mini-albums with brass stencils in them:

As well as a little plastic box with brass charms:

In the corner is a TV stand (under $20 at WalMart) that I removed the shelf from, and loaded up with 12" paper pads, etc.  This is only a temporary fix, as I'm working on a more permanent plan which will see them all moving across the room into the second (currently empty) JetMax cube.  On top of the stand, where the TV would normally go, I have:

Chipboard and such-like in a photo storage box on top of another photo storage box that has coasters in it.  There's also grungeboard swirls and Tattered Angels frames in there.  Next to this is a small crate that has 6" and 8" paper pads, gift tags, and these:

They are the photo organizer/keeper things that I have specialty stuff in, like this:

And that pretty much covers the progress to date!  Perhaps you noticed that all of my furniture is either cheap or hand-me-down, and that my storage solutions are to make the best use of what's at hand.  In my fantasy life I own The Original Scrapbox, but in my reality I have what I've just showed you, which works just fine for me.

Now, I know what you all are thinkin'... " If you have all of this stuff, how come you don't use it?  We've never seen a project with grungeboard or Tattered Angels frames, or even glitter, for that matter!"  I can only say one thing here: Out of sight, out of mind - which is exactly why everything is in plain sight now!

Alrighty, then!  That's waaay more than enough for now!  I'm gonna go back up to my new "studio" and MAKE SOMETHING!  Amazing thought, that!  Thanks for stopping by, hope you've gleaned an idea or two, and see you tomorrow, k?

Consolidate, Celebrate! Part 2

So... I carried on with the stamp organizing, consolidating project today...  ALL of my Stampin'Up! stamps are now housed in their new DVD-style cases, with Sailor 2-in-1 glue on the back, ready to use on acrylic blocks.  Here's the really, really exciting part:

This is a picture of three shelves on a five-shelf DVD rack.  There are 27 DVD-style cases on it, and inside are twelve (12) background stamps, sixteen (16) jumbo wheels, twenty-six (26) standard wheels, and one hundred forty-one (141) stamp sets!  I may have missed one or two somewhere in there, but you get the idea!  All that red rubber bliss in 27 cases total!  Can you say "STOKED"?!  Don't believe me?  Here's my index:

Download Case Index

In other happy news, here's what I did with my new I {Love} Love jumbo wheels:

 

The top row is the intact wheel (although unmounted) that I intend to use for borders and backgrounds.  The bottom row is the second wheel cut into 19 separate stamps!  I now have 8 "Love" stamps, 2 "I love you" stamps, 1 "Hugs & Kisses", 1 "Love you lots", 1 "Heart to heart", 2 "xoxoxo", 2 rows of hearts and 2 individual hearts!  Since each wheel is only $8.50, I got a BARGAIN, I'm thinkin'!

Lastly, here's my little review/plug for Sailor 2-in-1 glue markers (select supplies>adhesives, then scroll down).  This is NOT Sailor:

I believe I tried out Zig 2-way glue to see if it would work, and this was the result, sadly.  The stamps that had this sad stuff on it got cleaned up (this just rolled right off with my thumb) and re-coated with Sailor, which leaves no residue on the carrier sheet, but sticks beautifully to it and/or the acrylic block for use and storage. 

And there you have it - my progress so far!  I ordered 32 cases, and already had 8, for a total of 40, and got 2 more with a couple of the new stamps sets I ordered, so I have enough to house my other unmounted rubber from other companies, too!  I'm still deciding if I'm going to do this with the photopolymer (clear) stamps, as well - they're already fairly compact...  I'll report back on that when I make up my other mind, k? 

Okey-dokey - gotta jet for now!  Thanks for stopping by, and maybe some of this is useful for you!  If you have any questions, just email me - I'd love to hear from you!  'Bye!

Consolidate, Celebrate! Part 1

Welcome back - so glad you dropped by!  As I mentioned yesterday, I'm STOKED about my new stamp storage system!  The "powers that be" finally caught up with my thought process and produced what I've been wishing for!  Stampin'Up! just came out with DVD-size cases to store their new cling-mount stamps in, and they are AWESOME!  Not only are they extremely reasonably-priced ($4.95 for a set of four), but you can get a TON of stamps in there!  Here's what I'm talking about:

What you're looking at in the above picture is one of the cases filled the way I'm doing it, but open for you to view.  There is enough "wiggle room" for three (3!) layers of unmounted stamps in there, so I cut a transparency to 5" x 7" (the size of the case) to stick the third layer of stamps on.  I have 3 'wheels' (unmounted) and five stamp sets in this ONE case!!!  I numbered them so I could prove it - grab a Stampin'Up! catalog and follow along, if you care to:

1. Bold Snowflakes jumbo wheel
2. Bronco standard wheel
3. Boho Backgrounds (set of 4, but I cut the word strips that made up the fourth into individual ones)
4. Best Fiends (set of 6)
5. Bloomin' Beautiful (set of 5)
6. Bronc Buster (set of 4)
7. Boho Friend standard wheel
8. Boatloads of Love (set of 7)

Convinced?  FABULOUS, no?!?!?!  Just to further prove how THRILLING this is for me, here's another visual:

Yes, one of those standard storage crates you can pick up at Michael's, Joann's, etc...  There are sixteen cases in there, and no, this is not where they will live, I just wanted you to have a reference point for size.  In this teeny, tiny amount of storage space, I have - are you ready for this? - 26 standard wheels, 9 jumbo wheels, and 104 stamp sets!!! 

I am delighted, giddy, ready to do cartwheels!  I'm thinking that once all of my stamps are stored this way I will have one smallish DVD rack full.  Definitely an improvement over the random, mish mash, scattered way I have my stamps currently.  I still need to make labels so I know what's in each one...  They are loosely alphabetical - I put sets that are close alphabetically into the same case, but I'm more concerned about being space-effective, so I'm not being too OCD about it.  Sherry is planning to number her cases for an index - not a bad idea, so I think I'll follow suit!

This is where the re-think on my stamping storage system comes in, too.  Leslie mentioned that she was a-skeered to separate her sets like I was planning to (all the hearts together, all the Christmas trees together, etc.) and - while I was willing to do this in the name of efficiency - it was still a bit painful.  Since I will now be able to lay hands on any stamp set within seconds, and since I have each stamp stamped on an index and referenced as to where it came from, there is no need for me now to separate them, so I will leave them in their happy little families...

Okey-dokey, kiddoes!  I need to get some actual work-that-pays-the-bills done, so I'm signing off for now!  If you're all jazzed up about this system, call your Stampin'Up! consultant, or go to my friend Sherry's website - you can order online and they ship it directly to your door!  I'll be back another day with more storage solutions to our collective madness!  Ta!

Too Much of a Good Thing?

So - along about Halloween when I was wading through a bizillion stamps/stamp sets to find the image I wanted - I decided to get really serious about indexing my ever-growing stockpile.  I forget what I have sometimes, or it gets buried, or whatever, so I needed a way to keep track.  I started with Halloween, then attempted Christmas, but didn't really land on how I want to do it permanently until now.  Therefore, the "new and improved" method was implemented on my Heart/Valentine stamps.

Here's the low-down:  I am stamping EVERY STAMP I OWN, by category, onto an index sheet which is arranged by size (largest to smallest, then borders and extras - it'll make sense in a minute).  The index sheet is going to be copied onto transparencies for inkjet printers, and the stamps will be stuck to the transparency in their corresponding spot.  I haven't been anywhere to purchase the appropriate transparencies, so right now the stamps themselves are on the write-on kind, but still arranged the same way as their corresponding index sheet.  Here is a view of the index sheets themselves:

Yes, there really are SIX SHEETS of stamps (well, four+ and some stencils and punches)!  I was appalled amazed to see just how many heart stamps I own!  Bear in mind that this DOES NOT include the sentiments that go with these hearts - that's a whole different dealie-o!  In addition to the stamps, I also pulled out my dies and embossing folders and punches and brass stencils and used them on some kraft cardstock and added them to the index sheets:

Each stamp/punch/stencil is labeled with the manufacturer and set name (if there is one).  I no longer have the packaging for some of the brass stencils - and there's no marking on the stencil itself -, so I can't label them, but everything else is identified.  I just wrote the pertinent info with a fine-point journaling marker (so I could write tiny) and didn't worry too much about penmanship - as long as it's legible, I'm good...

I have a separate notebook that has copies of stamp sets still intact, so if I want to put a stamp back together with its friends in its original set, I will know which ones go together.  Sometimes I flip through it just to get ideas, too.  I also have a stack of plastic stencils that may or may not get included - I'll have to see how motivated I am...

Okay - It's noon here in upstate New York, and I have yet to do anything useful, so I'd best get to it!  Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by! 

Organization Update

I was reading the "Weekly Inkling" newsletter from Splitcoast Stampers yesterday, and there was a link to a thread about storing/using embellishments, and I read some of that, then clicked over here to the blog to find my posts on that subject so I could join the conversation, only to realize that all the information I'd shared previously was OLD and OBSOLETE!  Since I've shared the paper mess, I may as well update you on the rest, right?  "Say hello to my leetle friend..."

 

This handy-dandy little item is available at WalMart and AC Moore (possibly other places, but those two for sure), and has a price tag of around $9.  After you fill it up with your treasures it looks like this:

 

As you can see, it holds a TON of stuff!  I have paper clips, brads, dewdrops, sequins, buttons, eyelets, gems, etc. in there!  Here are the different-sized containers included:

 

I sort everything by color (obviously), and currently have five of these babies all filled up!  When I need an embellishment I can just pull the color I require and see right away what options I have.  One of the cool things about these organizers is that you can lay them flat, stand them up like a suitcase, or stand them on end with the handles facing out, so you can put them pretty much anywhere!

Since I don't mount my stamps, I also don't store them in the clamshell containers they come in, so I have a huge stash of them.  They're sort of like Scraponizers, and come in handy for a number of things:

 Flowers organized by color

  Chipboard organized by shape/style

  Punched/die cut shapes

  Small punches or other tools

  Stickles, embossing powders, etc.

Thread

  Sewing supplies

  Buttons

Any number of things, like I said!  Those buttons are two containers of about ten or twelve from the button-sorting episode - sorry I took so long to show you what I did with them.  I still have more buttons lurking in one of my Rubbermaid totes in storage, so I'll probably have about twenty of these babies when all is said and done!

What I like about these clamshells is that I can stack them on top of each other, file them in a drawer, or line them up like books on a shelf - so versatile - AND I can see what's in them in a quick second!  I'm contemplating ways to have all the everythings of each color together - not sure if it'll be drawers or shelves or what, but I know it'll be VISIBLE, at least when I'm crafting or working!  Maybe an armoire so I can close it up when I don't want to see everything...  Further info on that when I finalize the plan...

I'm getting a little stoked because we got word TODAY that it looks like we'll finally be able to close on our house - probably Monday or Tuesday!  Finally!  The down side is that we have to move everything out of the apartment Sunday and clean on Monday so we can turn our keys in and everything.  If we don't close until Tuesday, we'll be spending the night in a motel, I'm guessin'!  I've got a few things packed, but didn't really want to go nuts with the packing if this house deal fell through and we had to start over looking for someplace else to buy.  Guess what I'll be doing the next couple of days?  Can you say "frantic"?  Ah well, it'll be worth it!

I'll take "before" and "after" pics of the house so you can see what fun I'm having decorating my own place for a change, instead of everyone else's!  I don't know about the rest of the house, but I have the color scheme and general idea of what I want for my sewing/crafting/workroom - go figure!  Unfortunately, that'll probably be one of the last places I get to deal with!

Okay, enough of the blogging for today - I've got packing to do!  I hope some of this organizing info sparks a thought or two for you...  Have a great evening, and I'll be back when I can!  Thanks for stopping by!

Confessions of a Paper Hoarder

Wondering where I've been?  As Inigo Montoya says in The Princess Bride:  "Lemme 'splain...  No, there is too much - lemme sum up..."

We've been on hold for weeks waiting for the seller of the house we're buying to clear up some serious issues she had (back taxes, liens, foreclosure possibilities, etc.), but all of a sudden things are in motion and have to be done RIGHT NOW!!!  Phone calls galore, gathering documents, etc., etc., so there's that...

Greg's co-worker had a beautiful golden retriever that had twelve puppies(!), then passed away (ruptured uterus, anemia - very sad), so Chris and his wife have been playing mommy to all these wee ones.  Chris had to take this week off because some (maybe all) of the puppies are ill, and his wife already took a week off, so I stepped in to help with a huge painting job, so there's that...

Every time I say out loud that I'm caught up with my "regular job", it goes nuts and I'm buried again - you'd think I'd learn - so there's that...

Since it looks like we'll be closing (and moving) in the next week, I obviously have to get things at least semi-organized so I can pack and "shift house" as my friend from New Zealand called it, so there's that...

Elderly people have the same attention span and retention as the very, very young, I'm finding out, and therefore need constant reminding and help.  Much confusion about a form and where it may have gone to and who is it from and what am I looking for, etc., etc.- at least twelve calls between last night and this afternoon, seriously!  Also questions like "what's the best thing to do for constipation?  for diarrhea?" plus the update when the issue is resolved (apparently I need to know - yeah!)  It would be very comical if it wasn't so time-consuming and frustrating (for me and them)!  So, yeah, there's that...

Anyway, that's what has been taking the majority of my time, but as part of the getting organized I had to finish up the paper filing project (scroll down a bit in that post for the pertinent info) .  Here's the update on that:

 

What you are looking at in this picture is ALL of the paper I've been cutting and filing and hole punching and labeling.  The top two are monochromatics and solids (paper only - no cardstock), the lower left is color combos, and the lower right is seasons and holidays.  Here they are stacked up:

 

That stack is 4" high, which doesn't seem like that big a deal until you realize that a ream of paper (500 sheets) is about 2" or less.  Just in case there is still a question in your mind that this is a serious issue over here in Sue-land, bear in mind that this is only the DCWV and Provo Craft papers - I still have Stampin'Up!, Close to My Heart, Basic Grey, Me & My Big Ideas, Cosmo Cricket, etc.!  Yeah - serious trouble here...

The good news is that now I will be able to see what I have very quickly, and also not forget about it because it's too much trouble to plow through all the Cropper Hopper paper holders to see what's what, and I've re-discovered some old stuff that I really, really like!  Know what else?  Paper's kinda like clothes - hang onto it long enough, and it comes back into style!  Hooray for me to have some 'trendy" stuff without spending a penny (again!)

Okay, enough of this post - gotta go lay my weary head down...  But thanks for stopping by!  I really like the color challenge this week (there's RED), so I may have to knock something out quickly if I get a chance in between things!  G'night!