Today I was supposed to show you my scrap room, and I actually could. I worked really hard to get things sorted, picked up and put away organized instead of just in a huge pile, or shoved in various drawers and other spots. The whole area is cleaner, brighter and definitely less cluttered. It actually looks great.
Except for one problem. Those pesky wood mounted rubber stamps I bought at a local sale. I already had a huge stash that literally claim an entire Iris cart, and while someday I plan to unmount them because storage is just simpler that way, I’m traditional for now and like the wood mount. I need to figure out how to store them neatly, in a way that I can actually use them.
So, what to do. A friend of mine suggested putting up shelves and placing the stamps on shelves. I actually like the idea, however I have limited wall space because on entire end of my scrap area is a huge bay window, and the other side backs up to our living room so that has no wall. And because I share my scrap space with my living room currently, I really don’t want to do anything totally permanent (not that shelves are), that I cannot remove. I would totally do this in a scrapbook room, just not my living room.
So I went on a hunt, and these are the ideas I came up with and where I am in my organizing these wooden stamps.
First thing I did, was to sort through them all and assemble them into categories as best as I could. It was difficult, because many don’t really have a “theme” and I might only have one that falls into another theme. I am a major acrylic stamper, and those are all organized and I have themes for them already, so I used those themes to organize the wooden stamps:
- Spring – Flowers, Insects, Fairies, Easter
- Summer – Pool, Beach, Ocean, Picnic, Fourth of July, Ice cream
- Autumn – Leaves, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Pumpkins
- Winter – Snow, Snowmen, Skiing, Sledding, Christmas, Hanukkah
- Celebrations – Baby, Birthday, Graduation, New Years
- Everyday Life – School, Sports, Military, Scouting, Western
- Frames, Tags and Borders – This reminds me of the “everything else” category. I also added my background stamps because I have a ton of them, as well as stitching stamps.
- Sentiments – If it the majority of the stamp is words, it goes here.
- Animals, Outdoor, Travel – Probably self explanatory, but I put all animal stamps, anything relating to the outdoors that does not belong in one of the seasons (like camping, fishing, hiking, mountain views, lakes, etc.) and anything pertaining to travel (cruises, passports, suitcases and more).
- Alphabets – Self-explanatory.
- Other – I do have an ‘other’ category, because I have some stamps that just don’t fit into regular themes (like a face, food and other misc. stamps)
Well, that’s where I ended today. I also spent a great deal of time researching how best to store them all. Tomorrow I will happily share what I am working on.
You also might want to see:
My Personal Scrap Space: Analyzing the Problem
My Personal Scrap Space: Analyzing the Problem – The Other Side
Nicole Humphrey writes articles for the Scrapbooking Blog and for the Frugal Blog. She also guest blogs on a variety of topics. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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