Organising paper pad storage

Warning - this is picture heavy!!

Sigh, searching through my paper pads when crafting was driving me totally crackers here. I had them piled in shallow drawers like one half side of this trolley (really wasteful on space at the side of the drawer):

 and the Christmas ones were in a deep  A4 sized box (again wasteful on space):

In a 'neat freak' mood I did a little bit of research and found a solution which I think, time will tell though, will work for me. First step was to order some CD storage boxes like these:

 

They came in packs of four, the lids - which I didn't intend to use - are ready assembled and the bases can be assembled in no time. Yup, I chose pink - now there's a surprise :) I know that Ikea also sell them, or something very similar, but no way was I trolling off to Ikea in a canoe at the minute. They're just a smidgen over 6" wide - perfect!

So, now I had the boxes, the next step was to empty a book shelf in the craft room and begin to play. The books are all destined for the local Hospice shop and, as part of my purge, more will follow - but this was at least one cleared shelf to play with.

I then went through drawers and boxes, pulling out every 6" and 8" square paper pad/pack. The first issue was that I wanted the pads to be stored upright instead of flat as they had been before, so I can flip through them easily. I didn't want them to be stored in poly bags (partly due to the limiting width of the boxes not having much to spare), but I do have a habit of just popping leftover snippets inside the front covers and of course they would just drop out - sigh. But, more online searching came up with a solution which I adapted to suit. This is it:

Little pockets to hold the snippets inside the back cover of each paper pad. I used 5.5" wide envelopes, sealed them and then chopped them in half to get two pockets per envelope. I did consider cellophane bags chopped down so I could see through them but they were going to be too flimsy.

So here's a paper pad with some snippets - I confess that with this system I had to chop a little bit off any pieces that would be too wide, or even right on the paper pad height, so they would fit. But, after the whole exercise I'd lost very little paper in fact.

And here are the pieces tucked into the little pocket - which I just stuck onto the inside of the back cover using a tape runner.

Here's one of the boxes, all loaded with Christmas papers - and room for even more to come if I decide to spend, spend, spend :) Oh, and A5 paper pads sit really nicely at the back of the boxes too - yay, I hadn't bargained on that.

I did the same with my 8" paper pads, this time using 7.25" square envelopes sealed and then chopped in half to make the pockets and they sit happily upright and sideways on in one of the boxes.

And here are the four boxes, all loaded and sitting cosily on the shelf. Still need to do the labels for the fronts of the boxes and also just a few dividers as I did categorise the pads a little bit into types but not much, things like vintage, male, contemporary, gingham, flowers and so on.

Some little tricks I used are - some pads had the front, and sometimes the back, covers loose. I just flipped a couple of pieces of sellotape over the pad spine to keep the covers in place. Some paper packs came totally without a glued spine, so I did the same thing as whole loose sheets within the same pad/pack should be fine. I don't plan on digging about in there like a dog looking for a bone folks!

I also sealed and cut a few spare envelope 'pockets' for future use 'cos those snippets sure do breed and I only added pockets to those where there were snippets to be stored. Some papers may never have snippets, such as full sheet ones in the vintage ranges.

It's just food for thought, you might probably all have your own super efficient filing systems. Including sorting out the books for the charity shop this little exercise took me less than half a day.

Just ordered some more boxes and I think the embossing folders will be next for 'the treatment', then those chunky Tim Holtz dies and perhaps the DVD sized boxes containing unmounted SU stamps - watch this space.

And why are you peeking to see what books are left on those other shelves in the photo huh? :) Little 'sticky beak'!

Di
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WOYWW 199 - warning, long post

After missing WOYWW for a few weeks I reckon I should have a note from my Mum :(

Still plodding on with organising my stamps - am onto the clear ones now and they're gonna take a lot of time I can see, you're likely to be finished way ahead of me Elizabeth!! This is what I was up to yesterday:

There's a reason I took the photo at 10:30 yesterday morning - Len was out and I was about to try something while he wasn't around that could potentially have meant running for the fire extinguisher :)

This was my first attempt at the storage for clear stamps. A piece of white card and the stamps from two different sets stamped before laminating the sheet. In truth, the stamps do all need to be stamped onto index cards as well 'cos, although I'm keeping them in sets within the binders, for example - images such as the bird will  sit better under the category 'birds' in the card index box.

BUT, the white card I'm trying to use up is not especially stamp ink friendly, it's OK. Plus, actually fitting the stamps onto my own stamped images wasn't really a walk in the park - and I thought it looked a bit messy.

And then - I suddenly wondered why on earth I was thinking of disposing of the acetate that comes with most stamp sets with the images already printed on!? Soooooooo, I waited until Len was out and the coast was clear, plugged in the laminator, said a quick prayer to St. Mytrimmer (Patron Saint of crafters) and had another play:

And it worked - so much neater!! No fires either :)) The main thing is to put some card in the laminate 'sandwich' behind the acetate to prevent buckling - and you need the card anyhow for the images behind the stamps to stand out well.

And here's the laminated article, trimmed and corners rounded to reduce finger slicing, with the stamps on and a piece of same sized clear acetate on top so the sandwich slides in and out easily. The stamps tend to adhere to the acetate better than to the shiny laminate anyhow but hey - am I bovvered so long as they don't fall off one side or the other?!

Then, the laminate, stamps and protective clear acetate all slide into a side opening clear file pocket - ready to be stored in lever arch files.

I know that everyone has their own way of storing non-wood mounted stamps, often driven by space, shelving etc. I've seen DVD cases and lots of other ideas - but this seems to be a solution that's gonna work for me. It all hinges on the A6 card file box where I have single stamped images in categories, with details and their location also written on.

In time, all of this shelf is likely to be taken up by files of actual stamps - at the moment I haven't labelled the files but from left to right they are:

- dies, on A4 magnetic sheets in file pockets

- three postcard albums for unmounted rubber stamps

- two lever arch files - ready for the clear stamps

- and the cream file is full of tips and techniques saved from magazines or sent to me by Sarn.......plus a lot of receipts so I know where I bought certain things from. As I've said previously, I'm dead meat if Len ever takes a look in there and tots up the evidence though :))

Sorry for rabbiting but without making a video (snort!) this is the best way I can explain what's going on right now.

So, do hop over to Julia's to check out what everyone else is up to - and have a lovely WOYWW!

Di
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WOYWW 196

Incredible - the sun shone here yesterday! This was my desk before I reluctantly tootled off to do some ironing yesterday afternoon, it's so lovely to be able to craft in decent light for a change:

Ha! It looks suspiciously tidy dontcha think? Good job you couldn't see the piles of stuff heaped on our bed - but at least the coffee cup had already been taken into the kitchen.The rationale behind piling stuff onto our bed BTW is that it forces me to clear it all away at the end of the day so we can sleep - and in the process do a little more tidying as well.

This is what I was playing with:

Twinkling H2Os just to tickle a second layer of butterfly wings for the image I'd been colouring with Pro Markers.

OCD to the fore again - before ruining touching the butterflies with H2Os I was trying a little patch to the bottom right on the card I'd stamped on and scribbled some Pro Marker on. The stamp is Penny Black's 'Butterfly Suite' BTW.

The Pro Marker storage rack has been in residence here for ages. Sadly, it was a prototype, and production of a new line never happened due to manufacturing problems. But, of course Crafter's Companion now have their super stackable marker pen storage - which is versatile for all shapes and sizes. But, me still loves my rack and it's just such a shame it never materialised as a viable product for big manufacturing runs.

That's my WOYWW for this week - and we did have a bed to sleep in :)

To see what everyone else is playing with on their desks this week just hop over to Julia's (The Queen of WOYWW) and join in the fun and frolics. See you there!

Quick edit: Julia is totally right, the storage rack is mahoosive large. It lives on a shelf behind the desk and, as it's in effect one piece of cleverly shaped and drilled perspex, just lifts to where I need it. Either in front of me, or to the side - depending on surrounding mess :)

Di
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WOYWW 194 - more OCD stuff

Yay, sunshine here yesterday - and this was my desk just before I ran away and left it, and I'd even taken the coffee mug back into the kitchen:

Back to organising stamps - a job I can only do so much of in one go before the urge to scream gets a grip.

My system is 'simples', I know, a bit like me really. No fancy spreadsheets or regimented and categorised boxes of stamps here. It all hinges around a little index box of cards - I described just how it works a whole year ago on WOYWW, here, and am still nibbling away. The good news is that the (third) postcard album below is the last of the unmounted rubber stamps, they just happen to be Christmas ones but with the system I use it doesn't matter.

The wooden ones are already done, with stamps stored in 'best fit' Really Useful Boxes - no more than two layers per A4 sized box. Just all the clear ones to tackle, and then the little index box of stamped images can be sorted into categories. 

We each have our own way of doing things I know - this system works for me, and I ain't changing horses mid-stream :)

Now, off you go - over to Julia's to see what others have been up to. I bet a lot of folk are delirious about the couple of sunny days we've had here in the UK. It's been lovely.

Happy WOYWW!

Di
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WOYWW 192 - and I need to get out more!

Sigh, looking at my desk yesterday afternoon I realised that maybe, just maybe, I truly do need to see someone about this OCD trait that jumps up and waves its arms every now and then.

Storage isn't bad in the craft room here, but the only way I can store 12" x 12" card stock is in 12" square Really Useful Boxes - flat and on a fairly high shelf. Got fed up rootling through them, especially the luscious Stampin' Up plain ones, so yesterday I took the bull by the horns and spent a happy couple of hours doing this:

The fruits of my labours - a home made colour swatch. I know, I know, SU do sell their own but this satisfied the OCD trait that wanted to come and play. The SU Stampin' Spots are there 'cos I was checking which additional colours I might want - the answer is none 'cos they've practically discontinued them :( Shame!

The storage container with the Stampin' Spots in is really for peel offs, from Hobbycraft - it holds 20 with one spare space so you can move 'em round like those games we used to play with as kids, makes it much easier to lift a little pad out.

The finished 2" x 2" swatch, tied with ribbon until I nip out to buy more book binder rings - the one lying on the desk would defy even the strongest person! I found a lot of the card colours in the snippets folder but for some colours I had to cut into a fresh sheet (ack! pain) - just a 2" strip, the remains of which are also in the SU Really Useful Box to be used to back sentiments, make flowers etc.

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The colours are sorted into SU Collections and each one has the colour on a printed label on the back.

Err, I also have swatches for my collection of coloured ink pads - just with a swipe of colour on the front of white card and the name on the back. No need to do it for the SU ones as the card swatch does that job I think. Yup, the men in white coats could be here soon!

And, whilst ferreting round in a drawer I found this - it's a pack of two Replacement Cutting Channel Mats for Woodware's T-400 Finger Guard Trimmer. NOTE, it's the smaller 24cm one, NOT the 35cm T-200. I ordered them wrongly a while ago and, rather than throw them out, am more than happy to post free and for nothing to anyone who might have a T-400 Woodware Trimmer. Just drop me an email - di_wray@hotmail.com. If more than one person is interested, then it's first come, first served.

Now, if you want to really see fun and messy - hop over to Julia's to inspect her desk and then travel onwards to many others who will be linking in today.

Happy WOYWW!

Di
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WOYWW - 150

I could bore you to death with photos of piles of wedding invitations, that were hurriedly cleared from the desk late yesterday so I could have half an hour of play time. But, instead I'll just bore you with a peek at the storage for dies that I've been sorting out in little breaks between making invitations :)

I find the organisation of crafting goodies almost as much fun as using them - and, unlike a lot of lucky people, have very little free wall space here so don't have the luxury of suspending things from hooks, shelves and magnetic knife racks :(

This is the next best thing though, instead of rattling through CD cases and packets I just flip through a file now - the A4 magnetic sheets came from First4Magnets and I already had a spare file and heavy duty plastic pockets. Of course TH and other thick dies are still in the RU Box :)

The index page to the left is just to remind me of the names of the smaller dies that were still in packets, I just snipped the relevant bit from the back of the packet before storing the dies in the folder. One packet of flower dies is too sticky to snip so I'll just die cut the three little flowers before adding them to this sheet, sticking it into a poly pocket and popping it in the front of the file.

To be much more entertained, do hop over to Julia's here where you can see what she's currently up to, along with loads of other WOYWW-ers as well :)

As a few of you know, last week was not good here and I did struggle to visit everyone who left lovely comments. Apologies for that, and I'll be hopping round as normal this week.

Have a great day! Me? In between blog hopping I'll still be working on those invitations :( Come and help if you like!

Di
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WOYWW - 140 - Stamp storage Part 2

This week has been busy here in Pixies Workshop, stamping images and carrying on with the cataloguing and setting up stamp storage. The wooden ones were pretty quick to do - they're now mainly in numbered boxes with a little pile of ready stamped cards in ready for the time that the card index box itself is finally set up. I saved almost a whole storage box purely by being able to do a 'best fit' of the wooden stamps rather than categorising them too much - that's the object of the little index card system :)

The unmounted rubber ones (ie. non-cling) had caused the most head scratching here until I had a little Eureka moment and this is what's on my desk right now:

It's a postcard album with four pockets per page and (for me) a totally 'perfick' solution :)

Thankfully I'd made sure that, as I bought unmounted LOTV rubber stamps for example, the image got stamped onto a piece of paper or card with the name of the stamp on and that had already kept with each stamp. Some other stamps like these ones:

arrived with ready stamped slips in  - and even better, some of them were coloured images so I wasn't about to throw those away and start over either! So, each pocket has an unmounted rubber stamp behind the stamped image.

Behind the album you can see the box of index cards that I've been stamping as I went along. The front of the card has the image on and the back has the manufacturer and the name of the stamp - plus, in pencil, I've written the number of the plastic wallet sheet in pencil (so I can change things round if ever needed), on the front as wisely suggested by Sarn! Figure it's not too hard to spot which stamp is needed from a page of just four of them :)

So far none of the index cards has been sorted into subject - that's a job to be saved for the end of this mahoosive project once I truly know what the categories will be - and for a day when I can spread them all over our bed in little piles, like a croupier dealing the cards :)

So far it's just been images - the next job is wooden and rubber unmounted sentiments. Christmas stamps will follow - and only then will it be time to tackle all the clear and cling rubber stamps, which will be stored differently. So, it's taking some time but, so far, it's working well for me - apart from permanently black inked paws. Despite using Memento ink, although the stamps clean beautifully with baby wipes, it's at that point of playtime that the 'Black Hand Gang' comes out to play - more ink seems to end up on me than the baby wipes! Duh, just remembered the big box of disposable gloves lurking in the 'general cleaning' trolley downstairs :)

Some facts that might help if you like this idea:

The index box takes 6" x 4" white cards - perfect for most images. One or two so far have been bigger stamps but you don't need the whole image really.

I got the Photo Album online from here. Really fast service too.

I reckon that an album will hold 15 pocket pages of unmounted rubber stamps comfortably ie. 60 stamps per album. If you use foam backing then that's going to reduce the number of pages that will fit as they're much thicker of course.

Sadly the plastic pocket sheets are just a bit too big both in height and width to fit into a normal A4 file so you'd be best to buy the proper postcard albums.

And, oh dear, I might need a second Index Box to maintain 'flickability' - not sure if that's a real word but you know that I mean. I'm one of those quite sad people who just loves filing! Perhaps a second box could contain index cards for sentiments and (say) Christmas stamps - I need to see the size of the problem first and that's why I'm waiting to do the final sort of the index cards right at this end of this marathon.

Phew, if you're still here I'm amazed!

Time for me to make a cup of coffee and catch up on some blog hopping after a day out yesterday. To see what everyone else is up to on WOYWW - hop over to Julia's here. Best to make yourself a cuppa as well!

Happy WOYWW.

Di
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WOYWW - 139

There's a bit of the OCD in me working here right now:

Having looked at what seems 101 ways to organise stamps, as well as watching crafters videos on the same subject until my eyes were popping out of my head, I've finally come up with a system (yay!). There are bound to be things I'll find out along the way but the beginnings are shown on my desk, as it was left late yesterday evening. File box to the rear, white cards in a little pile, heap of stamps awaiting cleaning and some already stamped cards to the right.

I wanted a system to cover several 'Really Useful' boxes of wood mounted stamps which reside stacked on shelves behind closed doors, wood mounted stamps that I think are pretty to look at which live on some small shelves where I can see them - plus a whole ton of unmounted stamps destined to be filed in binders. I can't be trusted to take the rubber off the wood blocks as some people have cleverly done without risking life and limb, plus the pictures on the stamps are often so pretty that they're almost a work of art as they are.

So, yesterday I tootled off out to Staples and bought some heavy duty punched pockets, a couple of rather smart lever arch files for starters and a box file, index cards and 200 white cards to get me going. Am also on the track of some postcard storage pockets which will hold , for example, four LOTV unmounted stamps per page  in their own pockets - gonna order those later on this morning. Acetate/laminated card will also feature in lever arch files.

On my desk there's the very beginnings of Phase 1. I'm starting on the wood mounted stamps to ease into the task so every one of those will be stamped onto a piece of plain card before moving onto unmounted stamps (I'm not too worried about the images being 100% perfect as they're just for reference). On the back of each card I'll write the make and name of the stamp (in pen) and its location (in pencil so I can juggle things round whenever it suits). S= the visible shelf, B1 to whatever = the boxes (only two layers in a box thankfully), F1 to whatever = the numbered file and which page in the file.

The idea of having file card with pencilled in locations is that it forms the basis of the system and will the the first place to look for images under subject headings and their location. As stamps come and go it'll be easy to add more, remove any I don't want any longer (ha, as IF!!) and also to change their location if (for example) I find that stamps in a box can be re-organised to get the optimum 'fit' in the two layers. The boxes won't be as they are now, in a semblance of subjects, it will be done on a 'best fit' basis' as there's a lot of wasted space at the moment in them there boxes. This means I still have flexibility in the actual storage of the stamps - the same will apply to the files themselves. The index system will be the key holding it all together.

The subject index cards are alphabetical but I've just turned the whole lot of them around in one go as the backs of the coloured tabs are blank but still in bright colours and a Fine Permanent Pen is great for writing the subject on - so far I've come up with things like Babies, Flowers, Mice, Teddies - that sort of stuff. Easy to buy more index card sets of course :)

If you want a closer nosey, you'll also see a duster brush awaiting a wash and a round piece of foam beside it. The foam was used to finish off some Distress inking earlier in the week - it's also awaiting a little wash - and it came from a bottle of vitamin pills that Len opened the other day. I've got sponge daubers but I nabbed the foam and really like the gentle touch of it with DIs :)

And, anyone calling in here who plays in the Snippets Playground each week will see the gate keys propped up at the back. Jules sent them to me and they're much too pretty to drop into a drawer so they're waiting there to remind me that they'll be coming on my next outing to Hobbycraft or The Range where they will be bought their very own frame - one of those box ones with a gap between the glass and the back so that the lovely ribbon doesn't get squished and the keys can dangle from a little hook :)

And, if I didn't lose you all about 10 minutes ago - you should now hop over to see what everyone else has on their desk, floor, dining table, ironing board etc. this week over at Julia's, the Queen of WOYWW, who started all this off! Ha, ha - bet she's the only one of us with a deck chair on her desk :)

Happy WOYWW - sounds of regular thumps of inking and stamping coming from North Hampshire will just be me :)

Di
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WOYWW 122

Ahem, I've been thinking about Christmas here - big time! Firstly, I did manage to commandeer (today's biggish word) - for that read swipe - our chrome vegetable trolley, used purely to house cleaning things, that I'd been hankering over. A swift trip to buy a robust plastic one to house the cleaning things, which are kept out of sight anyhow (just the way they should be kept - out of sight) freed it up and into my gleeful sticky little paws :) The increasing amount of Christmas stuff I wanted to hand was driving me nuts on my desk and this is a great solution:

Stamped and coloured images, papers, sentiment, lace, seam binding, glittered poinsettia - all selected ready for a couple of cards.

The lot popped into a little grey plastic basket.

Then tucked into the chrome trolley - which also has Christmas glittering bits, ribbons, plastic boxes with ready made and glittered poinsettias etc in (need a load more of these!)...and the trolley still has plenty of spare space, for now at least.

Pushed under the desk - it actually goes right back leaving plenty of room for my short little legs but no way was I going to push it right back then crawl round on the floor taking a photo - I might still be under there next Wednesday :) Brilliant solution!!

Ha, that leaves space for me to carry on making these:

Sparkly brads! I can't recall where I saw this idea, so if it's been on a WOYWWer's blog already I apologise. I think the original idea used plain gold or silver coloured brads but the plain metal ones I currently have are really tiny, so I raided my coloured ones. I've used nail polish to colour brads in the past, but these are something different. The makings are in the photo above, heat proof mat, embossing powder, sparkling stuff (a bit like 'less fine' Glamour Dust but no label on the pot although it came from Art of Craft), brads, looooong tweezers, piece of polystyrene (just the stuff they pad parcels out with) and a heat gun.

Hold the brad by its legs firmly in the long tweezers and heat with the heat gun for about 20 seconds. The colour of the painted brads will change slightly as they're painted, but the paint didn't bubble or even smell. Then dip the hot brad into the pot of clear embossing powder and straight into the glitter. I did try giving a quick reheat once the embossing powder was on, and even after glittering the brad but it wasn't necessary, I found that the brad is hot enough to end up with a coating of melted embossing powder on anyhow. Neither the embossing powder of the glitter suffered by me dipping straight into the pots. Then, stick the brad into a piece of polystyrene to cool. I found I could do all of this holding it in the long tweezers - do not touch hot brads! I'd already poked some holes into the polystyrene using the end of an embossing tool. And the result:

Some more centres for poinsettias, snowflakes, flowers and such! I used clear embossing powder but you could use coloured which would be fun to experiment with. And/or coloured glitter - lots of possibilities!

That's this weeks offering from me - a good use for a vegetable trolley and making glittered brads. For more ideas, or just to nose at what folk have on their desks, hop over to Julia's here. Make a cup of tea or coffee first as you could be a little while :)

Di
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What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday? 91

It's been a funny old week - I seriously think my litle car must be in love with someone at our local dealership - three trips there this past week, plus an overnight stay! I think she's all better now, so fingers crossed.

This is what we've been up to here - Mr Fixit doing the drilling and myself directing operations and then me playing. My craft room is very small compared to many, so I keep lots of stuff neatly tidied away in Really Useful Boxes behind sliding doors. But, I found that staring at a blank piece of wall to one side of my corner desk was uninspirational to say the least. Mr Fixit wasn't happy about my original idea of shelving - and in any case I couldn't reach it without kneeling on the desk if it went too far along (that's how little space I had to play with). This is the solution - and I'm so easily pleased that I just love the compromise :)

I had such fun digging my favourite and most used bits out of their boxes. Martha Stewart punches of course plus other punches. Then a little selection of wooden stamps - these are the ones I'm using a bit right now and I'll ring the changes for example at Christmas time (probably should be starting on Christmas cards now really!?) and a few bottle of glimmer and shimmer mist. The bottom shelf was originally going to hold all of my Stickles bottles (got a load of Tim Holtz Distress ones this week and they're gorgeous). When Mr Fixit saw them he remarked that it looked a bit like a spice rack though so they have been relocated apart from a couple of plain glittery ones. I had to laugh though 'cos this IS a spice rack in any case :)) Bought from eBay here and really well made - just great for anyone with limited space or even a spare piece of wall in amongst lots of other display shelving. So hopefully no fears about the wall falling down which keeps Mr Fixit happy - plus I have something more inspiring than a blank wall to look at.

Right, I'm off for a good old nose at what everyone else is up to - join me at Julia's here to see what's going on :)

Di
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What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday? 90

Crumbs - these Wednesdays come round quickly!

Firstly a little peek at my slightly OCD storage - it's nice to be able to hide all the Really Useful Boxes as I don't have the luxury of lots of beautiful open shelves with fancy baskets and colourful containers. I had to make the most of what space I knew would be available so opted for this set-up. I'm with Wipso in that I have to be organised otherwise it all becomes a jumble and not so easy to pick/mix/match whatever I might need. So I do 'generally but not always' try to clear stuff away from my desk once I've finished using it.

Without standing on my desk and pressing my back right against the wall it's hard to get much of the row of three floor to ceiling sliding doors in :) When they are all closed it does look very neat and tidy.

This is the left hand side door slid open with my 'can't be without this' trolley (bought from Costco). I've had it for years right back from when I first took over the dining room table for crafting, as a 'prolonged interim measure', so it just had to stay when this room was built - a faithful friend :) The shelves were built just at the correct height so that it can be wheeled in and out if needs be. There will be much weeping and wailing if it ever collapses under the weight of all the card etc. in those drawers! Maybe it's time for a sift through to redistribute some of the stuff...ha, that's the spare space I'm just gonna gloat about already spoken for :(

This is part of the middle section - with some blank spaces as am currently doing a little bit of re-organising. No doubt they'll be full again once I've finished though...........see previous paragraph! The grey expanding folders contain peeloffs and rub-ons (yup, all categorised). I don't use peeloffs that much now but am loathe to get rid of them 'just in case'. The very top shelves - out of vision but right across the whole lot - are much too high to reach when you're vertically challenged like me but very useful for storing things I'm happy enough to use only now and again.
And this is what's actually 'on my workdesk' right now:

I seem to be happiest wielding a pair of scissors and recently sent for the La Pashe Build-a-blossom set. This is an azalea I'm partway through making. I suspect that these flowers will look their best just left to make their own statement on a very simple embossed background maybe?

I'm off for my weekly nosey at what everyone else is up to! To join in go to Julia's here!

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments last week - I'm pretty sure I replied to them all. Much appreciated ladies xx
Di
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WOYWW - #89

I love to see how other crafters store their stash and some folk are incredibly lucky with HUGE rooms and every sort of storage and display unit imaginable. Space being at a premium in my little 'den' means that most of my stuff is stored behind sliding doors on shelves specially sized and at the right distance apart to take up to 4 shallow Really Useful Boxes heightwise (or a combination of deeper or mixed ones) and three across each width. I had a brilliant and very patient local carpenter to do all of this - I even thought he might take up card making once we'd finished all the planning and installation!

I don't have the luxury of ribbon reel storage so that I can just tug a bit of ribbon and snip it off a reel on a piece of dowelling or whatever - but this works for me:

Oops, the Martha Stewart Punch Around the Pages are still on my desk from last week - within stroking and sighing range!

Anyhow, this is a 9 litre Really Useful Box ( with four divided insert trays stacked on top of one another).

A bit of quick maths means there's a total of 60 compartments so I can sort through ribbons in colours and textures easily. I can get 5 metres of ribbon easily into one compartment - probably a lot more but I prefer variety to quantity.Once you hit over 1" width ribbons this stacking system isn't really viable though :(

I also store flat flowers and lots of other bits and pieces in this way. If I don't have anything more exciting to show next Wednesday then I might dig some more boxes of stash out!

Now I'm off for a nosey round what everyone else is up to on WOYWW - go to Julia's here to see!

Di
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