I'm back once again with another peek at my ever-evolving storage solutions. This time, we're talking ink. Specifically - Distress Ink.

I don't have a lot of regular ink pads - maybe a dozen or so. But I have every color of the Distress Inks in the mini size. And as you can tell from my many posts about them, I love them!

When I first starting buying the minis, I was able to keep them easily filed in rainbow order in one or two of the storage tins that are made for this particular product. However, as my collection grew, so did the need to keep them more organized and more easily accessible.

I decided to split the tins into color families. My first order of business was to sort out all the minis to see how many of each color I had. I decided that as long as the color family was together, it could share a tin with another family - if they were both small enough. So pink and red share, as do yellow and orange. Purple and black/grey also share as they are both very small families.

As you can see, there are spaces left in the tins - enough that I could get rid of a whole tin, but I want the colors grouped together, so I decided a few dollars for another tin was worth it. Plus, I've got room to grow now, if Ranger ever decides to come out with more colors!

Since I store the tins stacked on a shelf, I used my label maker to label the sides of the tins with the colors inside. I made sure that each color had it's own label, in case I ever have to re-arrange the minis into different tins.

All-in-all, this is a pretty simple solution. After all, I'm using the tins that are meant to store these mini ink pads. It's not like I came up with a whole new system, I just spread out the inks over multiple tins. But it works for me, and that's all that matters when you organize craft supplies. Do what works for you!

Happy Crafting (and Organizing)!

A few months ago, I shared with you my solution for wrangling my wafer-thin dies. I have been loving my mini binder idea for my dies, so I thought it would be a perfect solution for my clear stamps as well!

Supplies: half-size binder, half-size page protectors, white cardstock cut in half, and a label maker. Put it all together and you get a super easy, super accessible storage solution for clear stamps!

The stamps stay in the page protectors well and slide out easily when I need them. I have each page labeled with the name of the stamp set and the company so I can reference them later if I need to.

The only problem I ran into is that my mini binder is too full! I don't have that many stamp sets, so I thought they would all fit, which they technically do... But it looks like I'll have to get another binder and split them up.

The binder fits nicely on my hanging file shelf in my craft room right next to my die binder.

I do still have a few stamp sets that I did not put into the binder. One Stampin' Up set I just bought for Christmas and a couple alphabet sets that I put into CD cases years ago. As I rarely use these stamps, I figured a few in boxes on my shelf is no big deal.

I'm hoping that by having the stamps accessible and visible, I will take them out more often instead of reaching for the ones I always reach for.

How do you store your clear stamps?

Happy Crafting and Happy Organizing!

Crafters have lots of tools, and I am certainly no exception. I've spent many years being frustrated with options for storing those tools. If they were out on my desk, they were often taking up way too much room, but if they were neatly sorted into bins, I would never use them!

Then one day, I was browsing Michaels (like you do), and I found this amazing and adorable lazy Susan/carousel thing!

I immediately brought it home and started playing. I have collected many little buckets and jars over the years, so I just popped some of them onto the carousel and started organizing.

One bucket holds all the adhesive I use on a regular basis; tape runners, glue pens, liquid adhesive, and a small roll of foam tape. Specialized adhesive (like glue dots and my sticker maker) are in bins on my shelf - if I need them, I know where to find them.

Another bucket holds all my crafting tools. Several scissors, a bone folder, hole punch, poke tool, Quik-stix, X-acto knife, tweezers, and a brayer. These are tools I reach for very frequently. Again, the tools that I don't use often or that have a very specific purpose (like eyelet setter or a stapler) are in bins on my shelf.

Turning the carousel a bit, I get to my paint brushes. I put them in a small mason jar so they'd stand up straight. I know I'm not supposed to store wet brushes pointing up like this (the water can seep down and rot the wood from the inside), but I only put them in here when they are dry. I let them dry on their sides on my desk. I just don't want the brush tips to get bent if I put them into the jar pointing down.

I also have a mason jar with pens and markers. I don't have a lot of markers, so I only need the one jar.

The back of the carousel holds some misc items that I use regularly, but have never found a good place for. My branding stamp, some post-it notes, my CM corner rounder, some business cards, and my small lenses for my phone camera.

I love this carousel! I love the color and the little birdy in the middle, even if I don't see him that often because he's hiding behind all my tools.

It holds a ton, but because it's raised off the desk on a small foot, it doesn't take up that much real-estate. Check out how clean my crafting desk is! What you don't see is the pile of work that got put on the floor for this photo. :-)

I got the carousel at Michaels, the buckets at Target, and the mason jars from my local grocery store.

So how do you store your tools? Is it working for you?

Happy Crafting (and organizing)!

I've always been kind of a plannerd (planner nerd). In high school, I used a simple student planner I got from probably Target to keep track of my assignments. In college, I got the official planner for our college (it had the college logo on the front and important campus events already listed inside) and I used that religiously for years. In fact, that's where my color-coding planner system began and where I first fell in love with post-it notes. I used the highlighting post-its color-coded for classes. The assignment would get written down and 'highlighted' on it's due date, then when I completed it, I would take off the sticky so it didn't stand out anymore.

Once I graduated, I went back to a basic planner on and off for a few years, then switched over to electronic calendars (Google, color-coded, very pretty!), but I never really found a good system to keep track of everything I had to do. I had a place for appointments, sure, but what about my to do list? Where was I supposed to put the note that some time this week I needed to call my grandma or go to a certain store? And when I got to said store, how was I supposed to know what to buy? My list was most likely at home on a sticky note on my desk. 

*sigh* This was not working.

Then last summer, I started finding Facebook groups and blogs and You Tube videos about Filofax and other planners. I was intrigued. Could I function effectively in a filo-type planner?

I had already made my own lesson planner for my preschool teaching, why not make one for my home life as well? So I started putzing. And printing. And tweaking. And reading. And the more I worked and actually used my planner, the better I got at developing a system that worked for me. And I think I've finally achieved "planner peace"!

Here's what a typical week look like in my planner before anything goes in it. It's very minimal. I put a strip of washi tape down the middle to break each week into 2 parts - appointments and to-dos. 

(I just realized I used the same washi tape for both of these weeks - one is from May, one is not till October!)

I use the outside edge for appointments - things that happen at a specific time or only on a specific day. Things like holidays, birthdays, work schedules, appointments, and events go here. The inner edge of the pages are for to-dos. I use color-coded post-it flags for my to-dos. This lets me see at a glance what kind of week I'm going to have - heavy on personal stuff, work stuff, errands, craft, etc.

I keep all my post-its on a divider in my planner and I have a fly-leaf opposite so I can stick re-occurring events there (like going to the bank - I know I'll need to do that again, just not sure when. So I keep it back here).

The nice things about the post-it flags are; 

1) When I'm done with an activity, I can just take it off and throw it away - so satisfying!

2) If I don't get something done on  Monday, I can just move it to Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whenever I have time to finish it on another day. And I don't have to keep re-writing it every day.

3) If there is a repeating event (grocery shopping every Monday or paying the phone bill every month), I can move the post-it to the next instance of that event when I'm done with it this week/month.

I also use the slightly bigger notes for lists of things I need to buy or get from a certain store or person. Or things I need to bring to school the next day. Or any small list that isn't a to-do.

So that's the calendar portion of my planner. I've been using this version of it since April and it's worked really, really well so far. I've made a few minor tweaks, but it's pretty much as you see it here. I'm going to make a video soon walking you through my calendar so those of you who like more visuals can see everything!

And if you've read this far, thanks! I know I can be quite verbose at times. As a reward, here's a free download of my planner pages:

It's for half-size paper (8.5 x 5.5), so cut your paper in half before sending it through your printer.

You can decorate it any way you want! That's the beauty of blank planner pages!

Please let me know if you have any questions or if you want to see more of my planner or if you want clarification on anything. I hope to be sharing more of my planner in the future, so stay tuned!

Happy Crafting!

About half way through my 2012 Project Life album, I realized that there were a lot of things that I wanted to include in my album that I didn't have a page protector for, I hadn't seen anyone do it before, or they just didn't fit. So I began to experiment. Here are some ways I deal with my 'extras'.

I make a lot of cards. Mostly to sell, but I make many for myself or friends as well. I wanted a way to display some of these cards (I always seem to make 1 or 2 (or 5) extra!) in my PL album, so I just slipped it in. The cards don't fit exactly, but close enough. Plus, it becomes interactive! You can flip it open and see what's on the inside or I've added journaling on the inside, too. 

I collect pressed pennies. I have since childhood. And I have those fancy penny books to keep them in. Trouble is, the books are tucked away somewhere in my basement storage room (I think...) and I never see them. When my family visited Disney in 2013, I collected many, many pressed pennies and I wanted to incorporate them into my PL album, after all, I spent a good portion of the trip tracking down the machines! So I just used glue dots to adhere them to a plain piece of cardstock!

I've also begun including single pennies right on journaling cards. It adds a bit of flair, displays my souvenir, and it looks pretty neat!

I use Foursquare. It's fun for me to keep track of where I've been and who else has been there. Plus, I get to collect digital badges for visiting certain places or certain types of places. The scrapbooker in me was sad that these badges were purely digital, until I realized it would be easy to just print them out! So I did, and not every time I get a badge, I make a small journaling card about it.

Most of the time I don't keep pamphlets, flyers, maps, etc. But sometimes I do. And I don't always have a page protector to fit them. So I say, forget the page protector! Unless the pamphlet is really important, just punch it and put it in!

I've been feeling guilty for years every January when I have to take down all the Christmas cards I've received and throw them in the recycling bin. No more! I cut out the best part of the card and slide it into a multi-pocket page and now I can remember the cards and senders for years to come! I do the same thing with valentines from kids at school and birthday cards!

Another use I've found for the baseball card-style pocket pages is to showcase a series of photos. On December 12, 2012, I took 12 photos (12 on 12/12/12) and put them into this insert to set them apart from my regular weekly photos. I've also used this technique for things like December Daily photos, birthday party (or other event) photos, and all my random cat photos. Yeah, I have a lot of those...

So, I hope I have inspired you to take all those extras that you weren't sure about and include them in your PL book! Don't tuck them away in a box or an envelope at the end of the book, put them in where they are relevant to the story! To your story.
After all, if you don't tell your story, who will?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with washi tape, it is a fairly new to the crafting world. It originated in Japan as a masking tape used in bookmaking. Crafters got a hold of it and begged for more colors and patterns, and manufactures have responded!

I have become quite addicted to washi tape. I have quite a few rolls in many colors and patterns. My collection started small and was easy to store in my project life supply tray, but when I reached about 15 rolls, it became harder to store. So I searched Pinterest for washi tape organization and found the best idea ever! Put it all on a thread organizer! So easy. And I love how I can see all my tapes and there's still a lot of room for more! (Shhh! Don't tell my husband!)

I've used washi tape for a lot of things so far:
- Christmas cards - this was my first real time using washi tape in any sort of project - it really got me hooked on washi.
- Project life - I've used it on many inserts and photos.
- Perpetual calendar gifts (see below)
- Gift wrapping (see below)

I want to use it for a lot more in the future.
- scrapbook pages
- cards
- mini books

Do you use washi tape? For what?