All my punches are stored under the desk in a hodge-podge of storage. The three white laminate drawers are from Target. What a pain to put together! That holds my circle, square, and oval punches in a whole bunch of sizes. On top are oversized tag and border punches, my Bind-It-All, and office three-hole punch. The green photo box holds odd punches, like corner punches, slot, slit, and word window. The sterilite drawers hold all the other punches (flowers, leaves, snowflakes, mittens, stars, hearts, etc.).
Beside the punches are my magazines. The only ones I keep are the last full year, plus the current year. So I'll clear out 2008 in a few months and start collecting 2010.
To the right of my desk are more sterilite storage units. The little drawers on the left hold sharpies and bic mark-its, sorted by color. On top of that is my bulging prismacolor pencil holder. The set of larger drawers in the middle hold stamping accessories (sponges, stipple brushes) coloring media, embossing supplies, chalks, acrylic paints, and (oddly enough) BIA wires.
The stack of drawers on the right is scrapbooking-specific stamps and alphabets. I know, I know. I have a lot of alphabets. The clear stamps are in the CD case on top. The green photo case holds all my reinkers.
This sort of organized storage compensates for my absentminded brain. Keeping all the "like" supplies together has helped me actually use my supplies, rather than hoard and forget. For example, on those occasions when I want to color something in, I check all the coloring supplies and take my pick. Sometimes, I think I want one thing and end up stumbling across something else that works better. This rarely happened when my stuff was all spread out in several rooms and in boxes.
I'd love to hear of other organizational strategies that have worked well for you, especially if you're absentminded like I am. Being mildly AR/OCD (please stop laughing...I can hear you!), I'm always curious about how other people organize their "collections." Yeah, that's what we'll call them. Collections of supplies.
I also store my supplies by likeness. :)
ReplyDeleteheheheh, I love your choice of words ... collections, yeah that's it!!! You already know how I do most of my storing :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about those alphabet stamps I have many, many sets - and I don't even scrapbook. This "collection", is stored mostly in an Iris cart, although I have a few small ones in a drawer of a toolbox organizer too.
ReplyDeleteI have no tips, I just love seeing how organized you are!
ReplyDeleteNever having had an alphabet stamp makes me curious....do you really use them enough to own a "set"? Also I wonder about the magazines. I've never had one of those, or even seen one. Do you have a favorite or one you would credit with having ignited your genius we all so admire?
ReplyDeleteThanks for this fascinating peek at how to get an enormous amount of gear into a relatively small space. Just remembering where you put "odd" things like Tortillons or Versamark pens or Exacto blades would be a challenge, I would think.
I would LOVE to play in your "studio"!
About alphabet sets: I use them for scrapbooking...on almost every page, actually. Yes, it's well worth it IF you use them. I love that I never run out of vowels! I do feel that I have too many sets and may eventually purge about a third of them. Most of the ones I use regularly are basic fonts. Fancy, specialty ones hardly ever get used.
ReplyDeleteAbout magazines: I subscribe to Creating Keepsakes magazine. My favorite was Simple Scrapbooks (big surprise!) but it went defunct early in the summer. SO SAD!!!! I don't currently subscribe to any stamp/card magazines, but I plan to subscribe to Papercrafts soon. I buy issues at B&N when there's lots in them i like. Otherwise, I pass. I'll need to write a whole blog post about my love/hate relationship with magazines.
Hope that helps!
Funny that you would post about your stamp room--I just reorganized mine again today. In fact, it needs to be kept up with constantly, this time of year especially with Christmas and Fall cards going. If you're looking for some ideas, check out my blog on the January 14, 15 & 16, 2008 posts after my major renovation. (Today was mostly just cleaning, sorting and putting away.)
ReplyDeleteCraft room? Craft room? What craft room? Now...that would certainly be a luxury!! I'm currently sharing the far corner of the Living Room with a computer sitting on an old army desk, 4 iris carts, a dog, only 2 walls of which 1 has all windows (no stacking) and a corner china hutch!! I've managed to squeeze in a comfortable chair and an old, small formica table to work on! I look at it this way... once I sit down, at least my supplies are all within reach without having to move :-> I kind of feel like that DaVinci sketch..if I stretch out my arms I can type on the computer with the right hand, color with my left, pet the dog with my right foot and then punch out images with my left!! Oh...and all while being able to listen to TV and talk to my husband at the same time. Gotta' love it... wouldn't trade it for the biggest basement dedicated to stamping!
ReplyDeleteI also use a drawer system for my organization. One thing I did that I like a lot is to keep embellishments in drawers by color instead of type. So instead of all the brads being in one drawer and ribbons in another, now I have color drawers. So my "green" drawer has every piece of green ribbon, every green brad, eyelet, tag, etc is in there. I have 7 different "color" drawers. This makes it so much easier to find the embellishment I want because I don't have to go searching.
ReplyDelete