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This question is NOT for those of you who are loyal to one brand like SU or anything else - it is for those who have MULTIPLE brands of ink. Distress, dye, pigment, chalk, hybrid, Stazon, metallic, etc etc.
How do you organize them??????? I am asking because as of now I have only the full sized dye ink pads in front of my desk in a nice holder that holds them and they fit in perfectly. So I use them almost entirely. In boxes on the other side of the room I have pigment, cats eyes, distress, chalk, etc and because they are out of sight I don't use them.
Does anyone sort by color? I can imagine having versamark and a few of my favorite black inks on my desk, and a box of yellow, a box or orange, etc. Anyone do this?
Any input would be MUCH appreciated. And yes, I am aware of the argument that this is why people are brand loyal - so they can have uniform sized pads and all that - but it's too late for that.
I am not brand loyal...simply because I prefer to walk into a LSS store and pick up my ink rather than order it online and pay shipping.
I have my ink pads stored in an old cassette rack like the one here and my inks are stored by brand and then by color. I find it works just fine with me.
Cathy
__________________ I stand alone without beliefs...the only truth I know is you
I'm not brand loyal either, well I am, but it is more like brandS, than brand. I live in a very small apartment, so organization and storage are big things for me. I still love and live by Iris carts - those plastic organizer towers found at the office supply centers. I buy them on sale - best deal was Staples for $9.95 each for the 6 drawer kind.
For ink pads, re-inkers and tiny pads (teardrops, cats eye, etc) - I have a three drawer unit.
One is dye pads, CTMH and SU pads will stack nicely in the corner. I like that CTMH put a color label on the edge, so I rainbow them. I found some small cutlery trays that fit inside the drawer and these hold those tiny tear drop pads. Stazon in this case is considered a "dye ink". Memory inks as well. And distress inks.
The other drawer is for pigment pads. The drawers feature a little dip or gutter in the sides of the plastic drawer - these are just right for holding the re-inkers. This will also hold Versamark and chalk pads. I call this my "slow poke" drawer, as any ink that takes longer than a second to dry, or is useful for heat embossing, etc, is classified in this drawer.
The third drawer? That holds shop towels, paint pads (use these as cheap stamp scrubbers), cleaning solutions for Stazon inks, and for clear stamps.
I do occasionally clean out my inkpad drawers of dried out pads, or colors that don't get used. Some colors are standbys or favorites, so those I am always sure I have a re-inker for and get and keep full size pads for. Some colors are just occasionally used, these I go for the small, tiny pad versions of and toss when done with it.
For ease of space, for a lot of those older dye pads, I had the re-inkers and keep the bottles and make pads with the ranger material as needed. Re-inkers are so much easier to store.
At one time I had a studio the size of my apartment - so I had to cull down my stash. I find that less is often more. I reduced to the 20% I was actually using. I try hard to NOT keep scraps of everything. And now when I buy, I generally buy consumables in just the quantity I need (paper, ribbon, embellishments) when I can.
So, my tip for organization is - if you go with what you actually use (mind you this does not include the DEMO who must keep much more on hand) - organizing it is simpler.
It also really depends on how you create...for me, I found grouping items by color family and NOT separating everything (all black embellishments together, etc.) meant my creativity INCREASED. So having ALL the red colors meant I might use different ones more often, rather than every pad having it's own spot. A little digging in a drawer for me means I come across different items each time, rather than heading straight for the same item time after time.
Again, doesn't really apply to demo or design team member.
CathyH, I had my DH cut some of the slats to create a larger area and I now can stack my Cat's eyes and smaller pads. It also gave me some room for a few inker bottles. I kept the pieces in case I decided I needed more room for ink pads again.
Cathy
__________________ I stand alone without beliefs...the only truth I know is you
I really appreciate the completeness of your answer (that sounds funny, but I think it is what I meant) I like the Iris carts, too - and when I finish unmounting the wood-mounted stamps that fill them I think they will be perfect for inks. I am, however, a hoarder by nature and will probably always be limited by my abundance of stuff. Thanks again.
CathyH, I had my DH cut some of the slats to create a larger area and I now can stack my Cat's eyes and smaller pads. It also gave me some room for a few inker bottles. I kept the pieces in case I decided I needed more room for ink pads again.
Cathy
Cut some of the slats? That sounds very interesting. The problem is that the holder is FULL. I have a lot of cats eyes and misc shaped ink pads. As I said in the previous post, too much stuff
I recently bought some foam board at the local Dollar Tree ($1 a sheet) and hope to follow adfish's instructions for inkpad storage. But I'm thinking about doing a bit of customizing. I plan to make my shelves uniform (one size fits most) and I definitely want to add tall row at the bottom for some pull-out drawers, where I plan to store my cat eyes and maybe my alcohol inks and Stickles.
I hadn't thought about making a customized unit - ----- I think I might stick with AnnaBannana's method but I want to see your storage unit once it's done!!!
i honestly have them all in a container and dont have a specific way to organize them. I have so many colors, but always just use brown or black lol
Oh good! So happy to know I'm not the only one. I quickly learned that I'm not and never will be a multi color stamper and stopped collecting colored ink pads that id never use. Thought it was just me. :p
__________________ �:*�*:�My next house won't have a kitchen. Just a bunch of vending machines and garbage cans.�:*�*:�
I'm pretty limited in my selection too. It all fits in a 11" x 8" x 2" drawer.
Mostly I use Stazon Jet Black, a Stazon White and the emboss pad. Sometimes silver.
If I'm doing a background or edges I have a few distress ink combinations (blues, pink/reds, yellow/green/brown/oranges). Add 4 x chalk inks for a special project I'm doing...and that is the end of my ink collection.
__________________ There is no such thing as lack of sleep, only caffeine deficiency.
I have many different brands and keep them in 2 drawers; drawer #1 has all dye pads and #2 has pigment. Inside the drawers they are sorted by color. Small pads like Cat's Eye and Dew Drops are kept in whatever plastic container bottoms I have on hand. I have index cards stamped with all the colors so I can look at that to see what color would go best with the project I'm working on. The index sheets are sorted by dye/pigment/chalk/metallic and each color has it's own sheet [reds & pinks, blues, neutrals, etc.] Then I can easily find the pad I want.
Cathy,
I sort mine in drawers by color. I used to just keep them separated in several baskets on my work table, but now I have jetmax drawers lined up across the back of my table. I divide them by color with 1-2 colors per drawer. I also have color inventory sheets to help with matching and to know just what I have. I'll try to include photos. I like doing it this way because I like to store by color-not company.
They're clear so I can see at a glance what colors I have and they take up a small amount of space if you stack them vertically. If you have a lot of small ink pads, you can probably use 1 binder per brand.
HTH
I have found that my SU storage will actually work for even some of the other stamps pads - I currently have all my amuse pads in those as well. For the smaller ones like Tim Holtz, I found a rack an over the door bathroom storage rack at bed bath and beyond that has long "baskets" on it that i use to store those pads. I can't find a link at the moment, but the baskets look like this: Simple Solutions Over-the-Door Basket with Towel Bar - Bed Bath & Beyond
but there are mulitple ones going down the door.
My cats eyes are sitting out in the open on a piece of 1x2. This is the top rail of my pine panelling. My room is in our finished basement and the bottom of the walls are covered in knotty pine tongue n grove we finished this with a chair rail of 1x2 pine. It actually worked out perfect because it fits my cats eyes, memento, stickles and more.
I've been using shallow plastic drawers for ink storage for almost ten years. They're 12x12 in stacks of three and made by Sterilite (I've bought them at Target and Walmart). I have one drawer for full size colored ink pads, another for full size neutrals, and one for all of my dew drops and cat eyes. I stack them up by brand and color family within the drawers. The large pads aren't as accessible as they would be in an ink storage unit, but they're more accessible than they would be in a box, and really easy to clean up.
If I had a few more empty drawers, I think it would be fun to organize by color like Susan_T.
If I had a few more empty drawers, I think it would be fun to organize by color like Susan_T.[/QUOTE]
Believe it or not, I'm only using 4 drawers for ink pads:
1 holds browns, yellows, oranges
1 holds greens
1 holds blues, purples
1 holds reds, pinks, and grey
I put colors that had fewer pads together in one drawer. I keep the black ones together where they are easier to reach.
I recently bought some foam board at the local Dollar Tree ($1 a sheet) and hope to follow adfish's instructions for inkpad storage. But I'm thinking about doing a bit of customizing. I plan to make my shelves uniform (one size fits most) and I definitely want to add tall row at the bottom for some pull-out drawers, where I plan to store my cat eyes and maybe my alcohol inks and Stickles.
I like this idea. I am thinking about drawers for the reinkers under the shelves for the inks.
I bought new blades for the Utility knife and I have an exacto and new blades for it. I just have to get brave and start the cutting!
__________________ Denise
"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron.�
― Spider Robinson
I store mine in 9-litre Really Useful Boxes on shelves above my desk, at least the ones I use most often. The others are in Really Useful Boxes on shelves in the closet adjacent to my desk. (The 9-litre is sized to hold about 2 1/2 reams of regular paper.)
I mostly use Memento, Brilliance and Versamagic in the cateye pads, so I have all of these in one box, but I have them separated into smaller plastic boxes (which I think are supposed to be used for vials of beads, but they work perfectly for these inkpads and fit perfectly in the Really Useful Box.) I also have the reinkers for each of these pads in one 2-litre RUB, so everything is together. (The 2-litre is designed to hold one ream of paper.)
__________________ 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.
My husband and I just finished this case for my stamp pads. I have mostly SU! and this is designed for those pads. I also have my versamarks and stazon pads in a slot. For my stampin spots I plan on making foam core board trays with a square of board glued on to hold the spots in place. The trays will fit into the empty slots in the organizer. I had wanted a Napa Valley cassette holder but they cost a mint on the internest so I designed my own. Now that I have the template I can always make another with an extra row or two if I need more space. I love it!
__________________ Rachel Schott
As my best friend says, "Stamping....it's cheaper than therapy" to which I add, "Not by much".
My mom was the proud recipient of my first handmade card. Cost $200.
My husband and I just finished this case for my stamp pads. I have mostly SU! and this is designed for those pads. I also have my versamarks and stazon pads in a slot. For my stampin spots I plan on making foam core board trays with a square of board glued on to hold the spots in place. The trays will fit into the empty slots in the organizer. I had wanted a Napa Valley cassette holder but they cost a mint on the internest so I designed my own. Now that I have the template I can always make another with an extra row or two if I need more space. I love it!
Lovely!
__________________ Denise
"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron.�
― Spider Robinson
I like this full ink pad wall storage unit, see below, for SU and CTMH, whick are the bulk of ink pads; all other ink pads go into a drawer. My ink pad refills are organized in smalll stackable totable plastic containers, by color families; and really like it that way.
they lay down to read name of refills bottles. I am so into this with you, Cathy, to get my room organized including indexing stamps; and will not keep my supplies to one brand either.
Question re ink pad storage
