Looking for ideas on storing multiple items by (SU) color

[winniethepoodle]

Does anyone store ink, paper, ribbon etc grouped together by color? I've got a good system for storing my 8x11 card stock but everything else is a mess so I've had a hard time finding ribbon, ink, and dsp that matches the cardstock. I've got a few color sets in a big Iris box but it takes up such a large footprint that I dont have room (or money) to do that for 50+ SU colors.



I would love to hear other ideas for organizing DSP with or without matching cardstock as that is my biggest challenge.

[JBgreendawn]

Are you willing to do all the blues together all the greens together?

and I dont know if I would want to store inks or wet things like sprays with dry things like textiles actually


but, if so what I did was go to some clear stacking tackle boxes and I have like one that is white & black ( mixed) one that is brown, tan, cream ( 2 green boxes lights and darks) one yellow & orange box ( your getting the idea right?) ( this is all forms of embellishments in those boxes because I do not think to my self I need a brad I think I need something copper...


( I also do not save packaging) so you can get a lot of things in one box that way.


but, full sized inks are in an old cassette tape holder on the back of the closet door and spray bottles are in a kitchen tired holder thing on a side cart.

eta printed paper is in hanging file folders sorted loosely by what color looks dominant to me when I squint at it. ( I tear apart 6" printed pads once I've used a few sheets out of them ) So one blue, one red, one pink, one orange etc etc.

[stamphappy1650]

I store like items together without consideration of who makes it. I use divider boxes to store small items like buttons, brads, etc. by color. Ribbon wrapped on mat board stored by color. I have baskets for larger items. I also remove packaging so I can fit things into the applicable storage.

I store DSP by color in Display Dynamic trays by general color. When there are multiple colors on a sheet I decide which color I like the best and store it in that tray.

If I buy supplies for a particular project then I will store them in a 12x12 iris box. Once I make the project the left overs get stored with everything else. If I don't make the project within a year then I'll store the supplies with everything else so I'll use it up and not hoard it.

My system works for me because I can easily go to the item and see what I have - no hunting. I often see something I never thought of using.

[fionna51]

My upline has a lovely stamping area, and she stores all the SU colors by color. Paper, designer paper, ribbon, inks, refills, markers, embellishments...the whole nine yards. And it is all in drawers by color.

This picture would be overwhelming to anyone. But there's 210 drawers there, and you wouldn't need anywhere near that many. Some of her drawers are other stuff.



I would suggest using sterilite drawers (from walmart or hobby lobby with coupon) and stack. Label them by color and put everything in drawers by color. Designer paper could go in with the predominant color, and you could have a scrap of paper that lists the other colors in the paper too. These drawer units are smaller than the iris boxes and much more manageable space-wise.

I have seen a similar idea of Stacy Julian's where she keeps all embellishments...sequins, brads, ribbon, paint samples, rhinestones and pearls, and so on...in color drawers. Oranges, greens, turquoises, blues, reds, etc. Her papers are kept in paper sorters.

[staceylovespaper]

I have a drawer cabinet (similar to Ikea Alex drawers) and I once arranged them all by color. So all my blue items (buttons, brads, twine, ribbon-not ink or paper) was in the drawer. I changed it back after a few months. The way I work, I want to add a specific item to my project, like ribbon, not necessarily something blue; so I would end up opening all my color drawers to find ribbon that matched my card. I very rarely make a card that is all one color. I also like to try out different add-on items; will ribbon look better or a nice twine? In blue or white? That is my thought process.

DSP is a big problem for me, so I just sold most of it, since I realized I only use it once or twice a year. I even tried to cut down some of my favorites into 8 1/2 by 11 so I can store it with the rest of my cardstock, still don't use it.

[winniethepoodle]

its nearly 2 years later and some of my organization issues are solved but I know that there are creative people with fabulous solutions and I would love to see and hear about them. Any and all paper crafting organization ideas are welcomed. Pictures are a huge bonus.

[wavejumper]

I am visual too.
I have to say my organization is an organic living thing and keeps changing over time as either I get more/less product or I find other storage concepts...just fyi. I am on my third way to store dies now for example.

If you like pics-go to our gallery here-there is one for organization/rooms. I know I still have not discovered all the goodies here myself.

Also if you you tube "craft room" you should get tons of ideas.

Bottom line-you need to do it the way your brain works. Some work by color, some by thing (ie ribbon). In the past two years what have you discovered? How are you looking for things?

[gregzgurl]

I used to do "color drawers", which were basically the Iris three-drawer units with each drawer dedicated to a different color. I put ribbons and buttons and such into those locking compartmented units and smaller items into pill organizers and small ziploc-type bags, then put everything into the drawer (no paper or cardstock). Here's a visual of the stuff that would typically go into a drawer:



If I had a small enough quantity of a color to make using an entire drawer wasteful, I doubled up - yellow and orange, for example. I have everything organized by type now, but it's pretty much all visible at a glance, anyway, so no biggie...

[bjeans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by winniethepoodle

its nearly 2 years later and some of my organization issues are solved but I know that there are creative people with fabulous solutions and I would love to see and hear about them. Any and all paper crafting organization ideas are welcomed. Pictures are a huge bonus.

What have been some of your solutions?

[bjeans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregzgurl

I used to do "color drawers", which were basically the Iris three-drawer units with each drawer dedicated to a different color. I put ribbons and buttons and such into those locking compartmented units and smaller items into pill organizers and small ziploc-type bags, then put everything into the drawer (no paper or cardstock). Here's a visual of the stuff that would typically go into a drawer:



If I had a small enough quantity of a color to make using an entire drawer wasteful, I doubled up - yellow and orange, for example. I have everything organized by type now, but it's pretty much all visible at a glance, anyway, so no biggie...

Sorting by color is a the method Totally Tiffany uses, and it's visually gorgeous. I mean, rainbow, right?

But I don't think color first. I think thing, like Stacey So it's "enamel dot," and then looking at them deciding if white or black or pink worked best. Otherwise I'd be opening three or seven different color boxes or drawers.

OT I've taken Totally Tiffany's free, live on-line organizing class (or videos can be watched after the class is over), and while I don't use her Scraprack system, found the sessions helpful, since she also talks about other methods and storage ideas, plus it sometimes gave me the oomph to get going again. Of course she's selling her products but the class goes beyond that, and into the psychology of sorting and even purging, as in paper.

She's really nice - spent focused time with me at a Stamp & SB Expo despite a ton of people at her booth, and let me return something purchased the day before to get something different. (I like her different sizes of buddy bags for some products, and even got over my fear of the sound of velcro. ;) )

[gregzgurl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjeans

But I don't think color first. I think thing, like Stacey So it's "enamel dot," and then looking at them deciding if white or black or pink worked best. Otherwise I'd be opening three or seven different color boxes or drawers.

Exactly why I switched to organizing by type, lol. My drawers now look like this:


Yes, it's the same photo collage from another thread... The lower right photo is what three of the drawers look like. I have the eyelets or brads or photo turns or what-have-you all jumbled together color-wise in the containers (Harbor Freight), but since I can see all of the containers at a glance, I can grab anything very quickly and then decide which color will work.

As far as cardstock and papers go, I have the cardstock sorted into color groups and the papers sorted by pattern (stripe, floral, beach, bird, etc.) and roughly ROYGBIV within that category. I do have a reference index that I made, and the SU! papers are labeled with the name of the paper pack and which colors of cardstock coordinate with it. The others I just sort of fly by the seat of my pants...

[Rebecca Ednie]

I sort some things by colour like Cardstock scraps, Sequins, buttons, ribbon and gems/rhinestones. I store paper packs and Cardstock by manufacturer tho I subdivide by colour. Embellishments, dies and stickers are by theme. Markers, pencils etc are sorted by manufacturer first then my bigger collections are by colour. My card stock is in hanging files with scraps are in sturdy zip top plastic bags by manufacturer then sorted by cool colours, warm colours and neutrals. Sequins and gems in 2 Craftmates Lockables binders. Buttons and ribbons in jars with the larger ribbon jars in back and the smaller button jars in front in rainbow order on top of my huge shelving unit. Embellishments are in stacking jar containers by theme or type. Dies are on magnet sheets in stamp storage pockets then in a box meant for CDs. I store as many as I can per sheet (not one sheet per die set) with all of one theme in each pocket. I add more than one magnet sheet if need be. Nuvo drops are arranged by colour on a tiered dessert tray. They look so pretty!

Other things I don’t have large enough collections of to really need to sort them. For instance, sprays, embossing powders, alcohol inks etc are all in one place together.

[jeanne3579]

I sort everything by color within each category. Cardstock is all together in roughly AlGBIV order. I don't have that much patterned paper, but that also has a drawer and is sorted by main colors. My ribbons are in guttering on the back of my door divided by type of ribbon and then by color. All eyelets, brads, etc. are in stackable jars by color. Ink pads are in separate drawers by type---dye inks, pigment inks, permanent inks and then by color---neutrals, yellows/oranges/, reds, purples, blues, greens. My reinkers are in two drawers with dye inks in one drawer with each color having a row of it's own. Spray inks, liquid pearls, glitter glue, acrylic paints are all in separate drawers and arranged by color. I think by color, but also like the different types of crafting materials to be sorted by type, so if I need navy brads, I go to the drawer of brads and grab the stack of blues and unscrew the lid for the navy ones, pick the size and number I need and go to work. One must find what works for them after learning of different possibilities. I have helped many people organize their stamping rooms (organizing is my second hobby), and it's amazing the various ways that work for different people. Good luck in finding the perfect arrangement for you.

[jnsyr]

I frequently kick around the idea of organizing my SU items by each individual color. While there are some sturdy clear pouches with velcro closures, I'd want something I could store flat and with a variety of items for each color (ink, paper, ribbon, other embellishments). With that in mind, I bought this 10-pack of thin latching Iris boxes, although I haven't used them yet. (The webpage is currently showing them as unavailable, but I know they were still available recently, so hopefully they will have more soon.)

[BashfulStamper]

This is slightly off-topic, and probably won't help the OP, but this thread gave me an idea, so I thought I'd share...

When it comes to stamps and dies, if I'm looking for something, I will usually check my Evernote inventory. If I want to make a card with stars, I'll search "star", and everything with a star in it will pop up. I'm thinking that maybe I should do this for colors, too. I could inventory my DSP, listing all of the compatible colors. I could do this with embellishments, too. If I find that I have a lot of Cherry Cobbler cardstock, for instance, I could search Cherry Cobbler and find all the patterned paper that includes that color. Or if the card is almost finished, but it "needs something", I could find some matching glimmer enamal dots this way... or ribbon, etc.

Thanks for starting, and re-activating, the thread!

[Doris B]

Yup Evernote, I have done this for colour and feel it is worth doing for DSP and embellishments, etc
If you have a lot of stuff it certainly reminds you that you actually have brads in that colour. It narrows down which Designer Paper to look at when doing a project instead of looking at every pack.
I am all about Stampin Up! and have always kept the DSP in its original packs, it would take me forever to try and sort by any category system like Christmas - fall, or colour system or stripes, dots and flowers because some paper would fall into several categories, so Evernote using tags to the rescue. My DSP is sorted alphabetically to be able to find it. The Tags in Evernote allow you to sort it several ways, I still have to tag my DSP by the categories I just mentioned, so far the DSP I have is only sorted by colour in Evernote via Tags, I used the Stampin Up! colour names when DSP was released and also added if it was whisper white or very vanilla because that was not always noted. AND I also created tags called "SHADES OF" for blue, teal, orange, red, yellow, etc, definitely recommend adding the shades of as over the years some SU colours are similiar

[Doris B]

Back to the OP
Of course I love Evernote for everything

Like others, I think ribbon before colour, but I have found it very beneficial to have all my ribbons together but in colour order, same with ink, it has just made the stamping process so much easier.

I am a SU hobby demo so keep the current colours for 8.5 x 11 cardstock by family groupings, but all my retired colours are in colour order, it is so much easier finding the colours by shade, example greens, in the retired section. However I do have a separate file folder for each colour which I am rethinking as file folders take a lot of additional space.
My ink, current and retired, are all sorted together -again so much easier when looking for a green, etc

If you are into organization you might want to click on my Rolodex Color System Rolodex colour system by Doris B at Splitcoaststampers
something I use often when I stamp
the only thing I may change there is just to put the name of colour on my labels and remove which colour group it was in, such as Old Olive which has been in different groups since I started stamping in 2004

[jnsyr]

For those of you that use Evernote, do you just use the free version and still get all of those features?

[BashfulStamper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jnsyr

For those of you that use Evernote, do you just use the free version and still get all of those features?

I am using the paid version, but only because I've fallen in love with Evernote, and I use it now on all of my devices, for all sorts of things - not just crafty stuff. And everything I put in there is automatically stored in the cloud - it's a great back-up system.


However, I would strongly recommend starting with the free version. It works the same way - it just limits the amount of data you can put in it, and the number of devices you can use it on. If you decide you want to do the paid version down the road, you won't lose anything. But until you are 100% sold on it, there's no point in spending the money.

[Doris B]

I also am on the Paid version just the middle package as wanted access offline, and definitely more than 2 devices (iPhone, ipad, computer) plus use it for other things, and feel it is definitely worth the subscription, with free version, you have a limited space per month 60mb, but should give you a feel for it. It resets every month
however
If you sign up under someone or get people to sign under you via referral I think you can get Premium (10GB) for first month, double check this link, https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/a...nd-to-Evernote

[AbbyRose1995]

DO you have a blog?

[Doris B]

If it’s me you are asking, no blog