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Hello everyone.. I am fairly new to stamping although sadly not new to shopping as I have accumulated hundreds of stam sets in just 6 short months.. I am now re-organizing my craft room..and am stuck at h ow to organize my stamps. I have them all in a tall cabinet by size (not alpha as my obessessiveness did not dare let me have uneven boxes lined up HAHA)I have the names of the sets all neatly on all sides of the clear plastic boxes and love the plastic boxes to help keep things in order.. I need a way to spark creativity and also know what I have.. I have purchased 2 inexpenisve 12x12 binders for my organizational project and in one i have clear plastic quickit holders from provocraft that I keep all of my sizzix pamphlets.. I have the actual dies and sixxlets in the towers. I do this so I dont have to go thru the sizzix tower and wonder what dies I have ~ I can browse my binder and get a quick glance at what i have to use.. It also serves as sort of a library check out system for my friends who want to borrow.. I want to do the same thing with my stamps.. I have heard of people stamping all the stamps on card stock or copying the images before they mount the stamps (but all of mine are mounted) and I was going to stamp the images on paper and start the binder with the names of the stamps but wanted to get some of your great ideas.. I think I need this binder to help me decide what stamp to put with what as I flip thru.. with so many sets its hard to remember what stamp comes with what and many of the names do not summarize the stamps in the set so its not helping get my creative juices flowing.. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.. Hope this is making sense.. Thanks!
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As organized as you sound with your sizzix dies, your best bet I think would be to also do the binder 'thing' with your stamps. That is my intention to get downstairs and start working on that myself. If it makes it easier to find the set once you have it selected in your book, perhaps get those colored circle stickers, and put say red circles on the large boxes, yellow on the medium boxes, and reference the color in your binder...that way you have a good starting point once it's chosen. HTH!
The way I did mine was to number each stamp set with my label machine, since I had all my stamps mounted I took a piece of card stock and stamped each image on the cardstock and then put the number and name of the set below. Depending on how large the set is, you can get 3 to 4 sets on a page. I then put the cardstock in a page protector and then in a binder. All I have to do is look in the binder and choose which sets I want to stamp with, works GREAT, no more hunting through all the sets to find the right stamp. Each stamp in the set has the number on them also, I found this helps when I take the sets to a stamp class and people always seemed to mix them up, numbering each stamp certainly helps as I told the class you will notice each stamp is numbered so when you are done be sure the stamps go back in the right numered box. This saved SO much time when I get home and start putting things away. If you don't have a label machine you could use the colored dots and do the same thing.
Hope this helps.
Happy Stamping RagDoll4You :-)
I've been facing the same delima... to many stamps and too few brain cells to remember what I have. I finally bit the bullet, bought myself a binder and I have been painstakingly stamping every set on a page.... Sometimes I will stamp a few different ideas from that set on a page,, ie. the hat on the bird from the teddy bear set, grouping flowers together, etc... . At any rate, I take that individual page, write the title of the stamp set, the year, and the date that I aquired the set on the bottom of the stamped page. THen I cross refference it with a sticker on the actual set.
So I have a binder that says , eg; Watercolor Garden II - E-3. On the stamp set on the box itself, by the name of the stamp I post a littel post-flag note E-3. Then I file it on a self in the correct area. Oh I take the stamped page and slide it into a clear protector page. Because I am also a demo.... I stick a dot on the page (on the clear part) if that set is no longer available to purchase. Soooo when I am going to to a workshop and I sit down to look through my binder as to what I want to do... I will not use any sets that are not available to purchase at that time. BUT... by placing the dot on the clear plastic... if that set becomes available again I can just pull the dot off!. Wow am I wordy or what. It has been taking a long time to catch up with my accumulation of stamps but I vow going forward that before a stamp set hits the self it will be cataloged and entered in my binder. I am a real organization freak sometimes. I actually think I spend more time organizing that stamping.. boo hoo! Oh well we all go crazy different!
Just saw that the post that hit the boards was just like what I have been doing!. LOL.. You mean that there are more anal retetentive people like me out there??? Scary world
I keep a binder too. I stamp each set on one page I have all of my boxes labelled on two sides, so no matter how I store them I can see the name of the set. I love my binder and couldn't be without it. On a related note, several of us stampers here at work who all keep binders photocopy our pages and put them in one "master" binder here at work. That way we know what everyone has for easy borrowing!
No binder for me, but it is a dream that I would like to fulfill. In the meantime. I have my sets on a bookcase, organized by type eg. floral, multi, bold line, traditional, etc. Every stamp has my initials on it and how many are in the set (if the label doesn't already say so). Then I stamp one of the stamps from that set on a small white avery label in stazon or b.black. I stick that on the side of my plastic case, the side that faces out, and write the name of the set in permanent marker. It's just enough to jog my memory as I scan my shelf for the set I'm looking for. My DH thinks it's bizzare that I can forget major important dates, doctor apts, etc but I know every set by name and can tell you the smallest dot and which set it goes in!
I keep track of my sets in an excel spreadsheet, including the year it appeared/retired, was it a HS or an appreciation set, what mini it was in, the box id it is stored in and the current catty page.
I have all of the sets (labeled end up) in several boxes on a shelf in my closet. The storage boxes are labeled (a,b,c) and the stamp set boxes and a dot sticker with the corresponding letter. This allows my kids to return the sets to the correct box when they stamp. I also have a sheet with the images of the set stamped in the bottom of every set box so when using several sets, anyone can help me put them away. I keep a binder as well but no particiular order. I just look through the pages - you know know where your inspiration will come from.
My DH thinks I am insane but I like to know what I have, where it is, and how I can find it. Control Freak is what he calls me - but I point out that he is equally insane when it comes to his tool box in the garage :]
__________________ Kate Cecil the Den Mother Spammy
I scan my labels before I mount them on the blocks and put them in a binder. Then I label the end of the stamp set and put it a drawer and write which drawer it is in on the page in the binder... always in pencil mind you because that is always subect to change! When I switched to this system, I took copies of the sets that I had already mounted right out of my catalog. You could also stamp the image onto some card stock. It is a great system. I love to sit and flip thorugh my book when I am coming up with ideas and now I don't have to dig try to find that darn set!
Nicole
__________________ Nicole
"Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done" Philippians 4:6
Those are some great tips.. I never really thoght about HOW I would actually FIND the stamp container once I saw a stamp I wanted to work with.. so the colored dots for the size container is a great idea.. Keep thm coming.. I am not sure if i will actually stamp the image on cardstock or copy from a catalog or print a picture from the vast SU stamps for sale on on ebay.. as I said- all of mine are mounted so I cant just copy the stamps image.. I may just find the name and copy the image or... not too sure.. Its a work in progress..
This is what I've done. I organized my stamps into these categories and into 3 high and 7 high drawers:
Feminine
Masculine
Greetings/Words, etc.
Kids/Birthday
Backgrounds
Weddings/Baby
Seasonal (xmas, halloween) etc.
When I need to make a card for a guy its so easy to go to my masculine drawer and find something. I do something similar with my supplies too. Glues, dimensionals in one drawer, eyelets, brads and other embellishments in another drawer, etc.
Silly me, I thought I had an orginal idea with the binder method!
Just goes to show, great minds think alike! :lol:
Ohhhh.... what did I ever do before I found SCS??? Oh, I know, I cleaned house! Better got to that! Boy time flies when I'm on line here!
Silly me, I thought I had an orginal idea with the binder method!
Just goes to show, great minds think alike! :lol:
Ohhhh.... what did I ever do before I found SCS??? Oh, I know, I cleaned house! Better got to that! Boy time flies when I'm on line here!
How to organize your stamps
