Storage

There have been a bunch of threads on SCS about storage for various stamping supplies, so I thought I would share what I do.

We turned an unused guest bedroom into my craft room a while back, and organizing it has been a work in progress. When I am working on a project, I like to have everything I need in arms reach so I don't have to get up and possibly lose my focus (or lose my seat to one of the cats...).

My "desk" is just one of those hard plastic tables with the folding legs you can find at Wal-mart or Sam's. I believe mine is the 8 foot model. I have a Sterlite 2 drawer file cabinet at each end, which I use to store my cardstock. The cardstock is in hanging file folders, divided by color family / brand, and then by color.

On my desk, (starting from the left) I have my paper cutter , my box of SU markers, dollar store flower pots repurposed into holding various other tools, markers, paint brushes, etc, and then 3 towers of drawers (also by Sterlite) that serve as catch-alls for anything small.

On the wall above the desk, I have my ink pad / copic marker holder, and 4 metal strips that I use to display projects. I purchased the metal strips at Staples, and got the ink/marker holder from www.kingdom.com (note that it is actually a cassette tape holder).


I've caught the copic bug, and wanted storage for them that not olny was easy to reach, but also made it easy to see what color I was reaching for. After doing a lot of research, I decided that donating 2 rows of my ink pad holder for my copics would work best for me. The slots in the holder weren't quite deep enough to hold the markers in place, so I bought super thin wood sheets at ACMoore (I think it is used for modeling?) and used my exacto knife to cut them to the correct length. The sheets are 4 inches wide, so they are perfect for holding the copics in place.


Now on to the problem of knowing what color marker I am reaching for... I own a mixture of Copic Ciao and Sketch, and as you know, the Ciao markers don't have the number on the end like the other styles do. My solution was to scribble each marker on a piece of cardstock, write the number in the scribble, punch it out with a 1/4" circle punch, and glue the punch out to the end of the barrel. This has the added benefit of showing you what the actual marker color is, so I went a head and did the same thing to my Sketch markers too.


I highly recommend printing out a blank color chart for your Copics and coloring it in each time you get a new marker. Not only will it let you keep track of what colors you already have, but it also makes a nice reference when you are trying to match marker color to ribbon or paper. Sharon at Paper Fection has one that is all but identical to the one I use (I forgot where I downloaded mine from, sorry). Make sure to print it on whatever cardstock you usually use as the color can vary slightly from cardstock to cardstock.


Now onto punch storage. I don't know about you, but I just can't have enough punches! I got tired of digging through a drawer looking for the right one, and decided to wall mount them instead. After looking at various options, I decided that curtain rods were the best option for my space and my budget. The rods shown below are mounted on the wall on the left side of my stamp desk, so now my punches are at arms length whenever I want to use one. I got mine at Target for around $5 each. I started out with two, and quickly needed to buy a third. I think I'll be picking up another one soon - I'm almost out of space again. I swear those things multiply like bunnies!