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Need ideas for organizing die cut-outs (not the dies)
I am pretty good with organizing but I'm having a heck of a time thinking of something to do with my sentiment die samples. I make white cardstock samples of all of my dies, and store them in binder pages. This works well for me with almost all of my dies except for my sentiments. I want to be able to manipulate them so I can't glue them onto, say, black cardstock and store them in pages. What else can I try? I don't need help with the actual die storage, but need help organizing the cs samples so that I can take them out easily and manipulate them (try them on cards, etc). Any ideas?
Thanks so much!
Karen
I bought some clear acetate sheets Office Depot and made cuts of all my dies and used Xyron to glue them onto those clear sheets. That way I can see if they will fit what project I am working on and also What dies I have.
I bought some clear acetate sheets Office Depot and made cuts of all my dies and used Xyron to glue them onto those clear sheets. That way I can see if they will fit what project I am working on and also What dies I have.
This sounds like it would be very useful. But how extensive is your die collection? Did you do every single die you own? Did you do every single Nestie, for instance? How long did this take? Did you cut the acetate into smaller pieces for each die, or did you put them on standard sized sheets?
It would also take a lot of Xyron. Which isn't cheap.;)
I am intrigued. I was just thinking the other day that I don't make the most of my dies.
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
What about using repositional tape to attach them then you can move around. I often use repositional tape to hold something in place when Im not sure if it will look right. Also with my H2O paints I cut out a pile of small circles painted each with the colour then added repositional tape to the back of them. I have them all in an art book with the name beside them (also wrote name on the back of them) and when I want to work out what colours work together or that I want to use I can just remove put infront of me then put back later when I dont need them. I find this works brilliantly. Hope this helps
I don't have a huge collection of dies and have a simple system which might not work for you. I store my dies upright in baskets in their original envelope. The cuts are stored right behind the dies in the acetate envelope in which the die was packaged or in a small baggie or clear cellophane envelope. I can see the die cuts I have and the die is handy if I need to cut out more.
Yes every single die. I went thru a lot of glue and acetate sheets. On the bigger dies I used a glue runner/atg glue. I cut the dies out if scrap paper (a good use for it) and glued to the acetate sheets. A prepositional glue would be a better idea as I have moved some dies to another book (I keep my dies in a zippered notebook on magnetic sheets.) but I learned this too late.
As to storing die cuts that I have made (the extras I seem to collect. you know...the wrong color or it was just a bad idea). I tried everything from putting them in baskets or bins to putting them in notebooks in page protectors. None of it worked (they got bent ...wrong color...or I just forgot about them) so I just give them away when I go to a crop. It makes my fellow croppers happy and I clear much need space in my craft area.
Last edited by southgirl; 02-03-2016 at 06:56 AM..
I really love this idea but I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it. I commend you!
Even every different size of your Nestie sets?
(Can you tell I am really considering this idea? It would make it so much easier to choose the right die for the job.)
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
I made samples of all my dies last year. I had a bunch of small albums left over from my scrapbooking days and used them to store the samples and used up tons of my scrap cardstock. I kept them in the albums by themes: floral, borders & backgrounds, holidays [hearts for Valentine's, Easter, Halloween and another album just for Christmas] birthday, etc. Then I decided to do all my Nesties and Stax dies. I keep these in the cellophane that stamp sets or dies come in - I've always saved these since they come in so handy to store working parts of cards or finished delicate cards. Then I stored them by shape: circle, rectangle, square, oval and other in a CD media box that also has samples off all my embossing folders.
Lol yes, all my Nesties even the circles. At first I thought I would stack them on top of each other to save space and acetate sheets. But then I reasoned that I wanted to see the actual size and with them stacked on top of each other I couldn't. It was one of those projects I did a little at a time. No hurry.
Liking this idea, and I think if we used Overhead Projector Film- available from Staples, for instance,- it would be cheaper than acetate. Probably it's flimsier,as acetate comes in various thickness's.
What about storing the die cuts in CD envelopes? You could store them along with your dies or in a CD box of some sort.
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GXOOL4S?keywords=cd%20envelope&qid=1454600121&ref_=sr_1_3&sr=8-3
If you like the clear envelopes, here's another option (like the Avery Elle but smaller).
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S05R5QY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A1G87YSLZJUKUI
If you put them in a notebook situation they will get bent and you will forget you have them, or at least I did anyway. But other than hanging them from the ceiling on little tiny chains (hmmm) I can think of no way to store die cuts.
Do you have a laminator? If I am understanding this idea correctly you could cut out the die, laminate a bunch of them and then they could be used for card placement. You could cut the laminate pieces all a fairly standard size and store them on a ring so they would be available for reference. I have seen a similar idea somewhere....maybe Pinterest with people cutting their Nesties, laminating them and then using the negative and positive cuts so they can be used to see what fits on or in a shape. I am struggling to explain this idea so hopefully you get what I am saying, or perhaps someone could explain it better.
I cut a sample of every die I have and store the die cuts in the CD case with the dies.
I started doing this from the first die I bought so it was never a huge project. I do it to be sure the die is not defective and also to see what the die cut looks like. I use scrap paper to cut them. I find it is very helpful when looking for a die that will fit a stamp I am going to use
I am planning to redo my die storage. I am going remove the magnetic sheets from the CD cases and put them on chipboard to hold the dies.
Then I will put the dies and the samples in Avery Elle pockets . This system will take a lot less space than the CD cases occupy. I need to find a couple of plastic boxes that these will fit in. Jennifer McGuire uses the Fridge Binz but she can store things on a shelf. Mine need to be stacked in my closet so I need closed boxes .
I looked at VCR storage cases but they are not tall enough to include index dividers with die categories.
__________________ "I have not failed . I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" --Thomas A. Edison
I really love this idea but I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it. I commend you!
Even every different size of your Nestie sets?
(Can you tell I am really considering this idea? It would make it so much easier to choose the right die for the job.)
Just cut an extra die cut at a time you use them. When you have most of them done cutting samples from the remaining dies won't be such a mountainous task .
Once you have the samples you will wonder how you managed without them. All too often I plan to use one die only to find it will not fit the stamp or sentiment I plan to use . I must either change the die or the stamp .
__________________ "I have not failed . I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" --Thomas A. Edison
I too have cut out samples of all of my dies. I organize the cut-outs by categories into binders with coupon pages, or baseball card pages, or whatever size fits best. I recently revamped the way I store all of my sentiments (the impetus for my original question).
Do you have a laminator? If I am understanding this idea correctly you could cut out the die, laminate a bunch of them and then they could be used for card placement. You could cut the laminate pieces all a fairly standard size and store them on a ring so they would be available for reference. I have seen a similar idea somewhere....maybe Pinterest with people cutting their Nesties, laminating them and then using the negative and positive cuts so they can be used to see what fits on or in a shape. I am struggling to explain this idea so hopefully you get what I am saying, or perhaps someone could explain it better.
Thank you for this! Yes, I have a laminator, and I'm all over this idea! I'm also going to follow Rachelrose's lead (from another thread) and put the samples in the same category as the stamps (florals, flourishes, frames, etc,). If there isn't a corresponding stamp category, then I'll just have a general "die" sample section, but in the same system as everything else. I think I'll do the punches, too... I LOVE all of the great thinking that goes on and gets shared on these forums!
BTW when I cut the geometric shapes ( circles, squares etc) I keep the NEGATIVE (open space) and cut around it to fit in the CD case. You need the open hole to see if a stamp will fit.
For example you have a piece of card stock that is 3" x 4" with a circle cut out in the center of the CS
I don't bother making all the templates the same size. I just keep the left over scraps after I cut a shape.
A solid circle , square etc would not be useful to judge if a stamp will fit inside that shape .
I hope this makes sense
Barbara
__________________ "I have not failed . I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" --Thomas A. Edison
BTW when I cut the geometric shapes ( circles, squares etc) I keep the NEGATIVE (open space) and cut around it to fit in the CD case. You need the open hole to see if a stamp will fit.
For example you have a piece of card stock that is 3" x 4" with a circle cut out in the center of the CS
I don't bother making all the templates the same size. I just keep the left over scraps after I cut a shape.
A solid circle , square etc would not be useful to judge if a stamp will fit inside that shape .
I hope this makes sense
Barbara
Totally! I did that with my punches on ATC-sized cardstock and put them in trading card sleeves, but I like the laminating idea better - sturdier. Since I already have the cards, I'll just stick a whole whack of them in one laminating pouch and cut them apart after they're laminated - done! I'm pretty excited about this...
Yeah, but I would want the positive die cut to see how it works on the card front. Or how two shapes stack on top of each other. Or relate to one another in my layout.
You keep the positive as well, don't you?
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
SOOO - I was sufficiently inspired by this thread that I started a project yesterday. This is the progress so far:
The thought of cutting out every single one of the nesting dies (and storing all of those diecuts) was absolutely appalling to me, so I took a cue from the old Creative Memories cutting system and made clear templates, instead. What I did was open a laminating pouch and insert one of the punched cards so that I could feed that end into the laminator. (Without that, the pouch just wraps around the roller and you have to disassemble the laminator to clear it out - ask me how I know...) Then I traced the inside of each die with a Micron pen, alternating blue and red, on the inside of the pouch around the punched card. I wrote the name of the die set with a black pen, closed the pouch up and fed it through the laminator. Since the ink is sandwiched inside two sheets of plastic, it won't wear off.
After the sheets came out of the laminator, I cut the individual templates apart and rounded the corners. I'm putting them in with the category of stamps that applies best (frames, tickets and banners, flowers, etc.) One more note: On the Nestabilities, the template doesn't reflect where the actual cut is, but where the embossing is. I'm fine with that, because I don't like the image or sentiment to overlap the embossed edge, anyway...
I still have more to do, but I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far! Thanks again, ladies, for the inspiration - you ROCK!
__________________ ~ Sue Happy for no reason...
Last edited by gregzgurl; 05-14-2018 at 05:52 AM..
Reason: add a detail
Ooh, I like what you did, Sue! Would that work as well with the permanent pen on an overhead transparency? Hmmm...
I still have my CM templates in a drawer. I could add these as well, and maybe I'd use them all that way!
And thanks for the warning not to run a pouch in the folder without something in it. Good to know.
Lots of good ideas here is one more from Bev Adams Has anyone made these? http://bevadams.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Layering-Ovals-Taggers.jpg
I just spotted them in May on BevAdams.com what an excellent idea for all those layering dies. She can’t sell to me because I’m Canadian so I have decided to do my own set eventually. Or after reading this thread might as in Sues post #22
Maybe even both! Once I get all my other projects done. Does anyone have all the info (first 6 lines) typed out? If so please share, I am so slow at typing,
If you need to see sizes, one website I find handy is Dawn’s At dostamping
Wow. You guys blow me away. I am OCD with organizing but to do every die...I just use the die itself on the CS to see if it fits. This way I see the outer border as well as the inner. Esp if I want to go off the side of the CS say with a geometric.
Any extra cuts out I put in the back of my pocket since I have a piece of magnetic and cardboard to protect the die/s so they dont bend.
Um if you cut them out of chipboard, would they hold up better? Maybe not all can be cut that way? In black...then they read easily in the clear storage pockets? Store them in the baseball card type pockets pages? Or white and have light weight black CS backings. Then it is just reach in, take out, put back....
I personally dont like those kinds of plastic pockets bc for me the sides invariably stick together even if I poof them...but other people love them.
The laminating idea/acetate is very intriguing. I love stuff on rings...but I dont have any place to hang/put them.
Maybe using DS adhesive sheets would be cheaper than xyron? You have to peel them either way? I dont have a xyron....I buy the sheets every time they are on sale...I cant have enough of it around.
This sounds like it would be very useful. But how extensive is your die collection? Did you do every single die you own? Did you do every single Nestie, for instance? How long did this take? Did you cut the acetate into smaller pieces for each die, or did you put them on standard sized sheets?
It would also take a lot of Xyron. Which isn't cheap.;)
I am intrigued. I was just thinking the other day that I don't make the most of my dies.
I don't make samples of my dies, but instead I use the actual die to check out size and placement on a project. Then I cut the shape or sentiment in the color I need. It's easy enough to tell how much room I need or what will fit on a card, by using the actual metal die as my sample. That works for me anyway.
I don't make samples of my dies, but instead I use the actual die to check out size and placement on a project. Then I cut the shape or sentiment in the color I need. It's easy enough to tell how much room I need or what will fit on a card, by using the actual metal die as my sample. That works for me anyway.
Karen
That's a good idea to use the die for the reasons you stated. I do that too.
I am still working my way through cutting ALL my dies to have samples. Part of the reason being is that I am gluing them in a small notebook that I can take with me when I shop for more dies... NO duplicates, none too similar either. Also, I have word stamps with matching dies and no idea what the die says unless I have the word with the die, ie I have a Believe stamp set and matching die but would never be able to figure out what the die is for without that sample. I will put one sample right with the die so I know exactly what the word/s being die cut are.
That's a good idea to use the die for the reasons you stated. I do that too.
I am still working my way through cutting ALL my dies to have samples. Part of the reason being is that I am gluing them in a small notebook that I can take with me when I shop for more dies... NO duplicates, none too similar either. Also, I have word stamps with matching dies and no idea what the die says unless I have the word with the die, ie I have a Believe stamp set and matching die but would never be able to figure out what the die is for without that sample. I will put one sample right with the die so I know exactly what the word/s being die cut are.
Yes, I know what you mean about not being able to read a word die, just from looking at the actual die (as they are backwards!). I keep my word dies on magnetic sheets, inside clear envelopes, and write down the word or sentiment on a sheet that I keep in the envelope with them. Otherwise I would have NO idea what they said!
As for buying a duplicate die, or one that is too similar, I almost always buy my dies online so I keep a list of my die by manufacturer and product number, to make sure I don't already have it. My Spellbinder dies are kept in the original packaging, with a picture of the die on the front, so I can just pull them out to compare to one that I'm considering. Same with my other frame and label dies.
So far I've been able to keep track of my dies pretty well and have never bought a duplicate. However, it can be another story when I'm looking for a particular die shape and can't remember who made it..or what set it's in.
I usually keep extra die cuts in the package with the actual die, but also keep a lot of label dies in baggies, sorted by color. Like most of us, I have extras that either weren't the right color (or I changed my mind, once I cut it out), or that I cut from scraps that I didn't want to keep around. I used to cut a lot of extras each time I die cut, but stopped doing that when I realized that I ended up with piles of die cuts that didn't fit with my card designs. Now I cut them when I need them. However, I still have a huge box full of those extras...and I sort by color, rather than design.
I absolutely love organizing my craft supplies, especially my dies. Because I create nearly every day and I have an extensive collection, organization is very important.
Every set of dies I buy goes through the same process:
1) I place all the dies sold in the set on a 5x7 magnetic sheet and into an Avery Elle plastic envelope.
2) I use my label maker to label four pieces of information on the envelope:
a) name of die set
b) name of company
c) number of dies in the set
d) name of the set(s) it coordinates with
3) then I make a copy (on my copy machine)
4) I place the copy in an Avery Elle clear envelope and store it in a box with all the copies of all of my die sets organized by type: labels, fall, Christmas, ocean, animals, flowers, etc. When I want to check if I own certain dies, I look in this box. Because this box only contains paper copies in plastic envelopes (not the metal dies), this central organization system is light and easy to maneuver if needed. I make multiple copies of certain stamp sets that contain dies that fall into many categories.
5) If there is a coordinating stamp set, I use a rubber band to attach the die set with the stamp set that coordinates. The rubber band is clear indication that there is a die set that coordinates. If I simply stored the dies inside the case, I would never remember they were there, and I would never remember which stamp cases had dies stored inside of them and which didn't. I store the rubber banded sets in various drawers by theme: "Coffee & Tea," "Gears, Keys, & Clocks," "Music," "Postcard & Stamps," "Animals," "Ocean," "Stars," etc. The specific dies that go with these themes are housed in these drawers, so when I decide to create, everything is there in the drawer. This system works incredibly well for me because when there is a new set offered, it is quite easy to look in the drawer and see if I like the new offering better than what I already have.
6) In certain cases, I break up my die sets and place the pieces in with others of the same theme (fall, flowers, Valentines, etc). When you do this, you will quickly notice that you have many, many dies that are the same: tags, hearts, flowers, etc. The stamp set "Colorful Seasons" and the die set "Seasonal Layers Dies" are good examples of this. This die set contains a scalloped edge, large autumn leaf, snowflakes, and branch (among other images). Several dies in the set do not actually coordinate with specific stamps, so keeping them together does not make sense for me. I store the branch die in with my "Birds" items. I store the scallop edge in with the other edge dies. I moved the snowflakes in with the other snowflake dies. The leaves moved to the "Autumn" drawer. Keeping a die set like this together does not inspire me to create. It pulls me in too many different directions. I know the kind of crafter that I am, and I know what inspires me to create.
I'm not worried that these sets will be hard to pull back together in order to sell later because 1) I have a copy of the original set in my box and 2) I don't anticipate that I will need to do this very often in the future because I only buy what I know I will use, and I am not a business demo who needs to sell off "retired" items.
The bottomline is do what inspires you to create and enjoy your collection!
Great idea about using a rubber band to attach the die and stamp sets together. I have had trouble remembering which stamp sets come with matching dies, and this is a simple way to remind myself.
Just reviving an old thread!
for those of you, that have made these charts or sample die cuts,
have you found them quite handy?
which do you use the most
I went to **** and bought a bunch of slider zip plastic storage envelopes. They're designed with holes to fit into small binders, but I prefer to not buy the binders. Also bought some of their snap rings to clip the envelopes together. If you want to get more mileage out of each envelope, you can cut a piece of cardstock to fit in the envelope, then you can have one die cut in the front, and one die cut in the back. The envelopes are clear, so easy to see. I don't look at it as organizing samples, I like to cut things (especially words) from my scraps, so I have precut words to use on my cards. (I also like to gift die cuts to other stampers)
I see they're blanking out the site I mentioned. It starts with a T, it ends the name of the bird called an emu.
I organize my sentiments into a sketchbook, adhering them with a removable glue stick.
__________________ Linda E
Caution: You are entering an artistic zone. This is not clutter - this is creating. These are not pajamas - it's my work uniform.
Check out Amy’s Wares on YouTube and her video on using a binder to store ready to go sentiments. It’s amazing the sentiments she has created and organized. One of these days when I need to use up scraps and just want to make sentiments I’ll dedicate a whole play day to making sentiments that are ready to use on card projects as per her example. In the long run it will save me time as I will be able to flip through the sentiments and choose one that is suited to my project.
Need ideas for organizing die cut-outs (not the dies)
