Workspace Wednesday 7/30

There is a thing in blogosphere called Workspace Wednesday where you share parts of your crafty space. I figure, if nothing else, if I participate it will give me a reason to do a blog entry each week.

First up:
my new stamp and die storage

I had originally left stamp in their original packaging and flipped through them, but that became cumbersome as I got more stamps, especially since a lot of them are bigger or smaller than the standard 4x6 size for clear stamps. After that, I did the  8.5x11 transparency sheet storage, a la Mercytiara (blogger, Youtube scrapper):

Essentially, you mount a transparency sheet to a sheet of cardstock, then move the stamps to the transparency. Glue the image sheet to the front of the cardstock, and then sandwich the stamps between another sheet of transparency (using tape at the bottom only, to make a flap) to keep them relatively in place and dust free. I put mine in page protectors and in binders. I loved this system! All my Christmas stamps were together, all my spring and Easter stamps were together, all my journal stamps were together, etc. and I could flip through them with ease. The only problem? I had 4 full 1.5" binders and not much grow room. (and, when I wanted to put a stamp set with a page kit, I had to move the entire sheet or make myself a note, which didn't always work). Then, I decided to sell some of my stamps, and it ended up being about half of them, which left the cardstock ripped up when I removed the image sheets. I figured since I was undoing half the system, I might as well undo it all, plus, with  my new set up, I wanted the binder storage area for something else.

I have now moved to the Jennifer McGuire system:

Avery Elle envelopes for each stamp set (or group of smaller stamps).

And Office Max 5"x8" clear pockets for larger stamps. They do stick out the top a little, but it doesn't bother me too much and I'm not ready to cut them down, in case I do decide to sell them later.

Now, a lot of people are switching to this system, and are cutting down acid free cardstock for their backing piece. I had no desire to do all that cutting, and I found these at Walmart:

They are perfect width wise, and just needed a small bit cut off the top. I was able to grab and cut small stacks at a time, which was a real time saver. I know the office supply stores sell cards that are unlined on both sides, but I just flipped them over and put the lined side toward the back.

As for the acid free issue, it tested pH neutral with my pen and 1) most of my stamps are between two pieces of transparency and don't touch the paper, and 2) the stamp sets that I do have that have yellowed, did so in their original packaging and there is no rhyme or reason in terms of company (although most are Technique Tuesday) or age (just as many new sets have as old ones, and I have several that were bought at the same time where one set has yellowed and one hasn't), so overall, I'm ignoring the issue.

The system also works for cling stamps:

We were discussing this on a message board, and someone showed how they also used it for thin die storage...and I knew I was going to do this for dies before I ever made the decision for stamps. I had been storing my thin dies in Artbin cases like these:

These are nice, but I had two problems with them...1)it gets heavy and I wanted to store them either in an overhead cabinet or with my regular dies and 2)I had the hardest time getting my dies to stay on the magnet sheets. The nesting sets were particularly bad and I had to resort to using a stretch of washi tape over them to keep them from shifting and falling off. Others would fall off when I would flip through the sheets.

 

New system:

 The Avery Elle stamp pockets with pieces of magnetic vent covers cut down (much less expensive than magnet sheets from the craft or office supply section). Each package makes 15 sheets for under $5. Even though they are thinner than the Artbin magnet sheets, I have had no problems with them standing up or dies staying on them. Right now, they (and my bigger dies) are in an Jetmax cube drawer, although I may move them closer to my BigShot.

For the few stamp and die sets that I have (and will end up with more, since I signed up for the TT Memory Keepers monthly set for at least 6 months), I use the magnet sheet for the backing sheet and just slide the stamps in the same envelope:

They get stored with the other stamps, in baskets in an overhead cabinet:

I think selling a lot of my stamps was a good idea. Some were ones that were given to me that I would never end up using, some were from kit clubs that never got used, some were ones I got for specific projects that I was done with, and some were just inexpensive impulse buys. Now I'm whittled down to the ones I wanted to use, use a lot, or have in mind for something. I don't have anything on the top shelf yet, so I may end up getting a couple extra baskets and separating them out a little more and storing the thin dies (and cut samples of regular dies) all in one cabinet so I can see what I have.

50 layouts challenge, weeks 22-26

week 21:

 

 week 22:
This took forever! I was playing around with some scraps and started die cutting some diamonds. Then I decided I wanted to do them across the whole background. It took a couple hours to cut, place and glue them all down. After that, I wanted to keep the layout simple so I didn't cover up all that work!

week 23:
Super simple, since I had started boxing up all my supplies.

week 24: made just before I packed the last box and took the table out.

week 25: first layout made in my new room.

 

And can you tell I like wood veneers? I used at least one on every single one of these layouts.

 

2014 in 2014 total: 881/2014. I need to step it up, lol.