I thought I would put together a post of what my current stamp storage looks like!
The last month or so I was inspired to convert my stamp storage into something even more compact. I was inspired by Lydia Fiedler, she amazes me all the time! Of course my blog posts are not amazing like hers, but you will get the idea!
So, I currently have an Ikea wardrobe I built special just for stamping storage years ago. I continue to love it, and it serves it's purpose beautifully!
The wardrobe has 4 wire basket drawers, 3 of which are for stamp storage, the other is filled with adhesives, embossing powders, and other goodies.
Here is a view of my "Desk" which is actually my dining room table. But small apartment, you do what you can. I have my main Ikea wardrobe but I have continued to add pieces to my collection.
A current side view of my Ikea wardrobe, my punch storage. My punch collection took a major hit this year, so I actually have very few punches to store. You can see I made a little punch guide too, so that I can easily access names of punches. This comes in handy when I am trying to post pictures and need to know names. Also, the boxes and stuff on top of the wardrobe have since been cleared away.
Current die and block storage. Don't mind the messy desk. I was given these fridge bins from a friend. They are perfect for my desk storage! I have dies and embossing folders labeled and alphabetized. The die storage cards are the magnet cards from Stamp N Storage. I prefer the 6 x 7 size. You can see I also throw my stamp foam pads in here, my MISTI's are stored in another drawer, so this is an easy spot to place the foam pads when I don't need them in the MISTI. All my blocks fit nicely in their container along with my stamp cleaning mist and Novus plastic cleaner, which is used for cleaning my blocks and MISTI.
Storage drawers I have added to the table on a needed basis. The smaller one holds my ATG, Big Shot items, and my MISTI tools. The larger one holds my catalogs, pens and highlighers, sticker labels for pricing my cards, punch boards, markers (which are in DVD cases) and the bottom largest drawer is my Washi Tape storage.
See? I have an addiction to Washi Tape. I got these bamboo silverware trays from Target!
I have recently purchased and mounted a few more of these Bygel bars and baskets for addtional storage, which is where I keep my ribbon and twine collection. Unfortunately Ikea has now discontinued the Bygel series. Hopefully there is something similar out there now. These baskets and bars have been so incredibly helpful and adapted many times by me.
The Drawers on the floor next to the Wardrobe hold various other items, mostly stamping related. The drawers on top store all the retired In Color families, waiting for times I need them or for the next color renovation. My Score Tool sits on top for easy scoring.
The inside of my wardrobe! I designed this special just for my stamping supplies. It goes deep behind so there is more behind what is seen up front. Ink pad and refill storage on top. The next shelf down is virtually ALL envelopes. I have a lot of them. It's inevitable. I have various things posted on the door. I have magnet board I made, I will often write up sheets with DSP and Washi Tape colors listed. My stamp cleaner recipe is posted here, plus I also type up lists of my owned stamps organized by theme, so that I can glance at the list if I need, for instance, a Sympathy stamp.
This picture shows the crazy amount of cardstock I have. My standing cardstock holders hold a minimal amount of cardstock and my DSP for easy access. The remaning cardstock gets stored behind as you see here. Grid paper is there as well as my stampin' store containers.
Here is the top drawer of my Wardrobe. It's also the most messy looking. It's not actually. It contains a lot of adhesive and various other things, sponges, Wink of Stella, embossing powders. These are drawer organizers placed inside that have everything sorted, also from Ikea.
Here is what my stamp storage looked liked before I changed my system. I was in the process of converting it so it looks a little different. 2 1/2 full drawers of stamps. The Orange binder on the bottom was my Paper Pumpkin stamp storage.
The inside of what the stamp drawers looked like, with DVD cases. I think it was able to fit maybe 50 sets.
Jack was helping. <3 I couldn't resist this pic being posted. This was the day I was converting stamps over.
All of my stamps, after being converted to the envelope system, all fit in one shelf. And there is room to spare, as the bins I used here are shorter than the width of the drawer. I can fit three of these medium sized bins in this direction.
An example of how the envelopes looked after conversion. I took the DVD inserts out, cutting off the spine, to fit perfectly in these 5 x 7 envelopes. I converted both cling rubber sets and the photopolymer.
Ultra Pro 5 X 7 in. Protective Sleeve, 100 Sleeves
This picture shows that for the rubber stamps, if I still had the template base that the stamps came in originally (like a puzzle, keeps them together easier), I cut them down slightly to fit better in these envelopes without squishing the stamps too much. I bought a decent pack of quality acetate sheets, which I cut down to 5 x 7 (or smaller for some sets), and adhered the cling template to acetate to make the stamps stay together, plus the stiffer envelopes makes storage a little tidier I have noticed. You can see the shiny backing on the back of this stamp set, which is the acetate sheet.
Here is a current pic of how I have my drawers now organized. This is the first stamp drawer, these two bins contain all my current Stampin' Up ! sets. There is room on the side for one more bin if I need one. I can fit between 35 and 50 stamp sets in each bin (thats basically an entire drawer of my previous system fit into just one of the bins.)
Second stamp drawer, this contains all my retired SU! sets in the one bin. The other bin holds my non-SU! stamps (the white sheets. I labeled each pocket since I don't have the nice SU! case labels). The orange pockets are Paper Pumpkin stamp sets! You can see I have also stored some empty DVD boxes in these drawers. They are useful for storing materials for classes and projects. I will be keeping all the boxes for when sets retire, so I can sell with the DVD cases.
Last week I decided not only did I want to store my stamps in these envelopes, but also I wanted to convert my bottom drawer to store DSP stacks, scraps of DSP, and take all my SU! color scraps and sort them individually. I purchased 7 x 7 Poly bags through a wholesale company (so I had to buy a lot of them). They are the perfect size for the 6 x 6 stacks. Plus I bought the larger sized bins like what i have for my stamps.
This picture shows that I have an individual pocket for each of the 50 Stampin' Up! colors. I cut a 7 x 7 piece to put in each envelopes. This helps keep each pocket standing up nicely, and makes it easy to see each color when going through the bin.
I also sorted all my glimmer paper out by color. Both my cardstock scraps and glimmer paper scraps were put together, glimmer all mixes together, and cardstock by color family. This makes it even more accessible!
Here are my DSP stacks. I wrote labels for the outside, including the colors so I can see them easily! Of course I put these alphabetically!
I also have a select amount of envelopes I put together to hold various scraps of DSP. Here you see my black and white selection. I find that I hoard my DSP, and when a set retired, I would pull out the full sheets and store separately, and then either give away the scraps or they would get shoved far away. This way I can keep my favorite pieces easily accessible!
Here is the bottom drawer sorted out. You can easily fit 2 of the Large bins side by side, with a little room to spare.
