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!

Like any good crafter, I jumped on PInterest early. I loved having craft ideas at my fingertips. Then I started finding non crafty things. Like recipes. And pretty soon I had a bunch of recipes stored up to try out, but what good were they on my computer? I don' have a computer in the kitchen, so I had to print them. But what to do with a bunch of printed recipes? Put them in a binder!
Here's my recipe binder:

I actually have 2 binders now. One for sweets and one fore everything else. I have a lot of sweets recipes...

Moving on...

I sorted my recipes into different categories, then used some tabbed page protectors and my label maker to label the categories.

I wanted to decorate the tabbed page protectors, but I didn't have a lot of time or money, so I dug into my stash and came up with a whole set of old K.I. Memories paper. I used one color on each page, cut out randomly-sized rectangles and adhered them onto some black cardstock. I love that I was able to use so much of the paper that I had been hoarding for so long.

Once the title pages were done, I started sliding in my recipes. I try to take a photo of each recipe when I make it so I can see what the dish looks like when I'm flipping through.

Sometimes, I make notes on my pages so I can keep track of what has worked or what to try. Here is my Thanksgiving turkey recipe with notes on how big the turkey was each year and how long it took to make. That way I can plan the timeline each Thanksgiving.

When I get a new recipe, I put it in the front of the binder till I actually make the recipe, then if I like it, it gets a page protector. If not - trash! There is no special order to the recipes within the categories - none of them are big enough that I cannot find what I need.

How do you store your recipes?

Happy Crafting (and cooking!)

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)!