Ink Swatches

Wow I knew it had been awhile since I posted but I am just realizing how long it truly has been.  The main reason for my hiatus was that we decided to redecorate the basement where my craft room is located.  That meant packing up everything and then the unpacking and reorganization.  Anyway the unpacking has given me a chance to discover things I had forgotten and also to reorganize what I do have.  I love having my stuff organized and lately it feels as though I love to organize more than I create. 

I am done with the organizing bug and have actually finished a couple of projects, but with having a trailer in the summer that has no access to internet (no Wi-Fi or mobile internet coverage) it's had to update my blog.  For the next little bit I will post some of the projects even if they are late and show some of my organization projects.  If I can get the room to stay clean long enough I will also post before and after pictures.  Honestly the kids use our shared area as much as I do and I am always having to move their projects to work on mine.  The main difference is the paint colors, we got rid of the chair rail (lots of work) and painted everything teal and grey.  No more orange and yellow for me !!!

 Inside view of the blues, if I had a matching marker I put a squiggle

Cover of the binder, still needs some decoration but I couldn't just leave it plain so I used some Craft Smith paper and cut a cover

Distress inks were edged as well since they are what I use them most for, and for white/cream inks I stamped on black cardstock and then mounted to a white piece of cardstock

Anyway while I was unpacking everything I came across a lot of ink pads I forgot that I owned.  I have most of my main ones stored in a CTMH ink tower and my distress inks are in this, these are the inks I use most but there are others that I used when I think of them.  Anyway one of my online friends mentioned a Jennifer McGuire ink swatch book and I made my own using card sleeves instead of the coin pockets she used but it's a fabulous idea.  It does two things first I now have all my inks stamped out and second I know what it looks like on cardstock.  Sometimes the color on the label doesn't match or in the case of my distress inks I have inked the edges of the swatch so that I know what it looks like on the edge. 

I put mine is a small presentation binder and keep in on the counter besides my main ink storage.  I used this stamp from unity because it has some fine detail and this allows me to see how the ink pad handles those details.  Some of my pads were way too juicy that no matter how light I was it saturated the details so I put a note on the back.  It also allowed a direct comparison of my ink brands and I will say I love the memento inks, they stamp so nicely and hold the detail really well.

Supplies used: Unity Stamps, Craft Smith Paper, Various Inks

Crop Chocolate Organizational Blog Hop

Welcome to the Crop Chocolate blog hop, if you just found this please start here, you should have come to my blog from Michelle's blog.    I have shared pictures of various forms of organization in previous posts and if you want you can go to the tags on the right side and select scraproom or organization.  I wanted to show some new things and one of my favorite things right now are the DVD/CD holders from sterilite.  I got these around back to school time in Walmart and when I realized how great they were I stocked up.  I use these all around the house.

Here they are for 6x6 pad storage (I keep a small bag in the front for scraps)

Here they are for my CTMH Stamps

Here they are for my regular stamps

I got some of the 4x6 photo holders at the dollar store and use them for my embellishment kits that came with my MME paper packs from Crop Chocolate

I also wanted to share how I store my buttons and other embellishments (its a spice rack and rod from Ikea)

I also wanted to share some pictures of my room the organization I have in some cupboards (stamps are in the middle row)

Close up of my colored embellishments

View of my office/scraproom combo, the office is on the left and has a lower counter and separate cabinets (this way it doesn't migrate to my scrappy space)

Your next step on the hop is DeeDee's blog, but before you do make sure you leave a comment and become a follower and you will be entered in to a draw for some blog candy.  I am close to 100 followers so if I get to 100 I will add a second blog candy.

Distress Ink Holder

Our challenge this month was to create an up-cycled project, at first I was really stumped.  I don't normally "alter" things and I don't even own any Modge Podge.   Then I decided to create an ink holder for my distress inks which have recently started to grow.  I based my idea from my stickles holder but when I turned it on the side I realized it needed to be modified to work.  Here is my distress ink holder and a tutorial of how I made it.

Step 1: Measure your box and determine the amount of slots that you will be able to fit horizontally and vertically (mine was 2 x 7).  

Step 2: Cut stripts of light cardboard to fit the horizontal (mine used 1) and vertical sizes (mine used 6).  

Step 3:Cut a small slit half way up one all the vertical pieces

Step 4: Take the horizontal piece(s) and measure where they will join with the vertical pieces and cut a small slit halfway up.

Step 5: Join the vertical pieces to the horizontal piece(s) by inserting the slits of the vertical pieces to the slits in the horizontal piece(s)

Step 6: Put this inside the box, you will notice that everything moves around a lot and is  pretty loose

Step 7: In order to make the ink pads stable I created little "cases" to go inside the spaces, repeat this for all the spaces your box has (mine has 14)

Step 8: Put all the small "cases", in the slots and everything should be nice and snug

Step 9: Label your inks and place in your slots, I put my a small piece of velcro on the back and attach the foam applicator pads to them (one for each color)

  

Step 3

 Step 4

 Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

New Embellishment Storage

A while ago I saw someone show how they used a curtain rod and drapery clips to create a homemade version of the clip it up.  Recently I went to Ikea and saw this Grundtal rod in the kitchen department.  I got one and bought a spice rack holder and a bunch of the Rajtan spice jars (4 for $4.00).  I haven't filled all the jars yet but I love this.  I need more curtain clips but they work so well for holding up misc embellishments and I can't wait to fill those jars with flowers.

Scrap Space Cleaned Up

I finally decided to cleanup my room and re organize it.  To be honest most of the mess is my daughters, you can see her art work in the background hanging up (I have to keep it forever apparently).  There are still some things I would like to get done, and I need to figure out a way to organize my non CTMH inks since they don't fit in the holder.  I am an accountant and to be honest I don't think you can be one without being a bit anal and I like my stuff to be organized so that I know where things are (at least where they should be).  Here are some pictures with all my crap in it.

 My scraproom is also the office and its also my where my daughter does her crafts so I have a few drawers of stuff for her in her.  Here are some of my organizing tips.

Stickles
I cut packaging inserts in 1 x 5 strips and cut them 1/2" up at 1" intervals, I did this 8 times and put it together inside a box and now i have 1" slots to store my stickles.  I got the box from the dollar store so this was cheap and easy.

Ribbon:

I cut foam board in to small pieces and wound all my small ribbon around the pieces and secured with a pin,  if you have a lot of satin ribbon you may see the hold but with grossgrain and others you don't notice.

Spellbinders:

This is the method I am most torn about, after a few sets the CD cases were not cutting it anymore, so I shipped a Kaisercraft binder and inserts from the US in.  The clasp in the binder didn't line up (the pockets get caught on this a lot) so I emailed the company and after some arguing they finally sent a new one (they wanted me to return it to the retailer).  Finally they send the new one and it does the same thing :(.  Which is too bad because I really like the zipper pockets, each one holds 4 sets and you can fit 13 in the binder.  Its much more compact and I really like flipping through for the sets but the pockets keep getting caught on the binder rings.  I found the customer service to be difficult and they were the ones who sent a defective product in the first place it shouldn't have been a hassle to get it fixed