Storage Solution Roundups!

June 14, 2013 by Melissa Chipperfield 2 Comments

DIY: Build Your Own Ink Pad Storage

Have you ever wished you had a place to keep all your ink pads corralled neatly, but didn’t want to go out and fork out the money for a storage unit at the store? Well, here’s DIY solution for you today!

Amanda over at Did You Stamp Today? received an ink pad storage unit from her dear husband after he offered to build her something! With a few boards and the help of his saws, he created this beauty:

For a supply list and complete building instructions, be sure and visit her blog post!

Enjoy your weekend!

May 31, 2013 by Noelle McAdams - Contributor 3 Comments

Just One Tip: Create a die cutting center!

Hi all! Noelle here today with a quick tip that might just help you manage your crafty time a bit better-a die cut center! I have a “mini center” (above) in my small room, which consists of a simple rolling cart (like a TV cart) and it houses my Cricut Expression, my Big Shot (used to be my Cuttlebug, but I got a Big Shot for Christmas!), and all the coordinating pads, mats, cartridges, and dies. I keep my cartridges, booklets and overlays in a cartridge bag on the floor next to the cart. A die cut center is a great way to make your room’s flow and functionality increase. I have found it best over the years that it really helps to keep all like things together, in other words all papers should be near each other, all stamps should be together, and the same goes for die cutting. Some people like to separate electronic die cutting from press die cutting, and that’s fine too. I know I tend to use the Cricut primarily for scrapbooking, and the Big Shot more for cards, so it would work for me to have the two kinds of cutting separate, if I had room-that is! I found some options that I can dream about for the future, check them out…..

This first one is just ideal. I love the cabinetry underneath to house just about everything you could need to use with your machines. I also love the long countertop which would give you plenty of room to cut things before you need to pile things up. What I wouldn’t give for all this space!

This next one is more like what I have, but I love that her cart is taller (she tells you where to get one in the comments below the photo) and has a drawer in it, she also has gorgeous custom-made dustcovers over her machines for when they’re not in use! Very cool!

I think even a vintage dresser would make an AMAZING start for a die cut center. If I can find a secondhand one small enough, I might end up replacing that old TV cart at some point!

Have a great weekend!

Noelle

Filed Under: Just 1 Tip!, Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: big shot, cricut, die, die cut center, die cuts, die cutting, dies, wafer thin dies

May 17, 2013 by Melissa Chipperfield Leave a Comment

Organized Clear Stamp Storage

Always hunting for stamp storage ideas that are simple and organized, I was thrilled when I stumbled across Jennifer McGuire’s recent post! Using plastic containers originally designated for storing soda cans in the refrigerator, she discovered a way to store her clear stamps with the help of either Office Depot CD sleeves or Avery Elle stamp storage pockets:

A girl after my own obsessive compulsive heart, she labels each and every pocket with an electronic label machine for additional efficiency when looking through her stamp sets:

I love that these clear sleeves make it easy to see what stamps are in each set when searching through your stash! I think this may just be the solution I’ve been looking for! Go take a look at her post where you’ll find even more information, including links to the specific products!

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: craft storage, stamps storage, storage

May 16, 2013 by Noelle McAdams - Contributor 2 Comments

Storage Solution Roundup: Wafer Thin Dies

Hi all! Noelle here today with my latest storage solution for my ever-expanding collection of dies. You may remember from my Studio Tour that I had been using these knife racks from Ikea for storing my dies. I had five of them, and they eventually became so crammed that I was faced with a dilemma… Either get another knife rack or come up with a better way to store them since I had way too many. Being that I design for The Cat’s Pajamas, and sometimes guest design for other companies, I am blessed because I get a lot of free stuff in the mail. It’s wonderful! However, lately my tiny space is feeling even more cramped than normal. I have barely any wall space and I knew that adding another knife rack (maybe even 2 or 3 more down the road…) just wasn’t going to work. So I needed to come up with a new idea. Then looking around on Pinterest I found a few cool ones…

Magnetic vent covers nailed straight to the wall.

Decorative magnetic board

Pocket binder

Die storage on rings

ArtBin magnetic storage case

And I came up with my own system, though very similar to others I’ve seen. I had this long silver bin I got at the thrift store a few months ago, I decided to make that my bin for the dies, though in hindsight I might end up putting the cards in plastic pocket sheets in a binder instead of this bin. The cards I made are 3 ¾” by 5 ½” so they would fit nicely in 4” x 6” pockets. But for now, the bin works well. The width of the bin dictated the width of my cards and you can see that some of the dies overhang their cards a bit.

I started out using those cheap magnets that come on the phonebooks. I have a pile of them and they’re so thin that they cut well with a paper cutter. You can even punch through them I once discovered while trying to turn my sons Perler Beads creations into magnets! When I ran out of those, I went to the craft store and got two packs of that magnetic strip that comes in rolls. It even has adhesive already on the back.

I used more of that cheap white cardstock that I’m trying to use up. I cut one of each die also from the white and adhered the white die-cuts that would be included on that card on the front. On the back I put the magnetic strip, and the dies that were for that card. One thing to note is that while nesting dies work fine on this magnetic strip, you can’t really layer dies on it. The magnetic pull of the knife racks is far stronger than these little craft magnet strips.

I decided to use a color coding system, since I tend to work in terms of manufacturer, but you could also break it down by themes, shapes, borders, etc. I started with my Cat’s Pajamas (TCP) CutUps, since I have more of them than any other kind. I didn’t get any more done before this was due, so sorry you won’t get to see the rainbow of manufacturers! When I was all done with all the die cards, I made a yellow divider card, and yellow tabs with the names of the dies included on each card. I’ll do blue for Spellbinders, green for My Favorite Things, red for Papertrey Ink, and so on. This is how the one section looked, the others won’t be nearly as big as this one, but I like how I can keep expanding this without needing to use up more precious wall space.

Maybe a couple of the knife racks will end up in my kitchen…. I’m sure something else will take up that wall space in my studio soon enough!

Have a stellar day! :)

Noelle

Filed Under: DIY Storage Idea, Storage Solution Roundups!, Tutorials Tagged With: die cuts, dies, ikea, storage, wafer thin dies

May 2, 2013 by Hazel Hamman 4 Comments

Storage Solution Roundup: Fabric storage

Hallo, Hazel from Sunny South Africa again and today I’m sharing fabric storage ideas. Now, I’m a hybrid crafter – for me it means that I buy the minimum, recycle, reuse and repurpose as much as possible and I craft in ANY medium. My mom used to make all our clothes and I do mine as well and therefore I can’t resist a beautiful piece of fabric.

They are quite bulky to store so I’ve made a deal with myself – with clothes I don’t store anything – I only buy once the previous item has been made. However, I do indulge in my little secret pleasure – a beautiful piece of fabric. My rule is – if it is not for clothes, I’m only allowed the minimum yardage they sell. It works very well – I always have beautiful fabrics to choose from for my hybrid fancies and I don’t go overboard and buy stock that will never be used.

Anyway, it still has to be stored and I went to my friends Google and Pinterest for some tips. Want to see what they came up with?

First up: Recycle, reuse and repurpose the furniture you’ve got.

A dresser:

A chest of drawers:

SOURCE

CD Racks:

SOURCE

Now that we have covered my favorite options, what about a few new ideas?

Gift wrap rack:

What a great idea that you can make yourself.

SOURCE

Hangers:

SOURCE

On Rolls:

SOURCE

Wall mounted racks / hangers:

SOURCE

And now for my favorite – storing scraps! If you only buy the minimum yardage I think that most of the time my fabric stash is categorized under scraps. This is what I found:

Wire baskets:

SOURCE

If only we could find these in Sunny South Africa, this would be the one for me.

Plastic baskets:

SOURCE

Look at the banner made out of vintage patterns. I love it!

Closed plastic containers:

SOURCE

Now, this one is for me. Not the one that looks the best but at least I can see what is inside and don’t have to chase dust bunnies as I go.

And something I stumbled upon that I think is a GREAT idea:

SOURCE

Why not tag your fabric? Name and yardage. I can’t tell you how many times I had to roll down an entire roll to re-measure and when I have to re-order ……………… well, I don’t because if you buy the minimum, you don’t get the print on the side with the name, repeat and color. Mark my words, in future I’ll write it down when I buy!! (and I’ll tag my fabric)

I hope you have enjoyed my extended tour around blogland to see what is out there for storing fabric. If you have a system that works for you or an excellent one you found online PLEASE send me a comment – I would love to look or hear from you.

That’s it from me. Have a great day and see u again soon.

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: baskets, containers, craft rooms, drawers, fabric, fabric storage, sewing, storage, vintage

April 18, 2013 by Cicily Lesher 2 Comments

Card Display: Solution Roundup

Hi fellow crafters, It’s Cicily the Pink Dalmatian Scrapper! Crafty people seem to attract fellow crafters & if you’re like me you get some great cards from your crafty friends. You treasure those cards as if they were your own creations, that of course you are hoping are just as treasured in their new homes. My card collection continues to grow (yippee!), but now I’ve been needing a new solution. I have this great “found” metal cabinet in my room, so the obvious solution was to display these beautiful cards with magnets.

As you can see, my card display is full. Time to find another solution. Here are some great ideas I found…

This is one of the latest trends that I’m in love with! Linda@Craftaholicsanonymous turned an old crib spring into a display board, perfect for beautiful cards. I especially love the beautiful blue she painted it. With 3 little ones in cribs (and I know one of them has a spring like this) I’m calling dibs, LOL.

Another option is this shelving idea from Bookhou at Home. While she doesn’t explain exactly what these shelves are, they reminded me of plate display shelving. You could have several of these for a great display.

Similar to the crib spring, but this one could be a DIY is chicken wire & a frame. The personalized “CARDS” at the top is another cute idea.

Tangii of Crain Creations make this personalized card display, with ribbon, clothespins & her initials.

The final card display is using the trendy shutter! I’ve seen the cards displayed many ways from clips, inserted into the slots or even the shutter sideways & the cards peeking out the vertical slots. This one from West Furniture Revival caught my eye with the great paint color & technique.

I started this post with my new and updated card display in the works. Unfortunately it’s not quite ready for show-n-tell. I’ll be sure & share with you in a future DIY post. In the mean time I’ll keep you in suspence regarding which one of these great ideas I am using!

We would love to see or hear about your card display ideas. Please share with us & if possible post a link!

Cicily

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: card, card display, card storage, display, storage

April 5, 2013 by Cicily Lesher 4 Comments

Storage Solution Roundup: Cricut Cartidge Handbooks!

Hello, this is Cicily the Pink Dalmatian Scrapper! I’m excited to be a contributor to CSI. I love to scrapbook, make cards & lately I’ve been creating more 3D and altered items. Scrapbooking has been a passion of mine for several years & with 3 little ones, I’m fortunate to have my own crafting room. As much fun as crafting is, shopping for paper, flowers, buttons, washi tape & all the other embellishments in their beautiful array of colors is just as fun. Now what to do with all these beautiful finds when we get home! I love sites like CSI that give us great inspiration and now I’m so excited to be a part of this group!

For my first post I wanted to share some great ways to store Cricut Cartridge Handbooks.

I know there are several ways to search for images, but I still like to pull out the actual handbook on occassion and brouse to see what I’m forgetting! I keep all my actual cartridges in their boxes up high on a shelf for decoration. I use the Cricut Craft Room so all my cartridges are loaded on my account & I don’t need to get to them.

But back to the handbooks. I came across this idea & decided to try it out myself.

I found this great video from Robin’s Creative Cottage & thought it would work for me. I cut tags from TBBM, added grommits in the holes and using hair bands attached them to the handbook binding. I wrote the title on each side and staggered the placement of the tag. Then I put them in the tin alphabetically to easily find the right one!

Follow this link to see Robin’s video with a little more detail and a few other handbook storage ideas.

Here’s another great idea from Michelle of Scrappin with My Bug! I think this is a great solution, especially if you have a ton of cartridges and need to keep the actual cartridges with the handbooks.

I also found this great tutorial creating pockets for the handbooks and overlays.

Do you have a unique way of storing your handbooks? We’d love to see it, leave a comment with a link.

Cicily

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: cricut, die cuts, scrapbooking

April 4, 2013 by Laura Silva 11 Comments

Storage Solution – Washi Tape

Hi there! My name is Laura and I blog over at Laura’s Crafty Life! I am so excited to be one of the new contributors to Craft Storage Ideas. I am a stay at home mom to two great kids. My son is 6 and my daughter is 3. At my blog you will find a whole hodge podge of ideas. I love to craft, organize, party plan and DIY. You can see a small glimpse of my craft room organization with my ribbon storage organization.

For my first post I wanted to share with you some creative ideas on how to store washi tape. It is one of my new favorite crafting supplies and I am starting to get quite a collection. Right now I have mine all stored in a wire basket, but if my stash gets any bigger I will definitely need a more organized, accessible solution. I don’t know about you, but if I can clearly see my supplies I am much more likely to use them.

The first solution I found was this great dispenser from We R Memory Keepers on Amazon. This would be a great option for your favorite tapes to be readily available or if you have a small stash!

$T2eC16h,!zUE9s39!fTSBRGtQieVB!~~60_1

I love using the vertical space on my walls to organize in my craft room. There is only so much you can pile on your shelves before they are overflowing. This shutter washi tape display is fantastic. You can see all your tape right in the open.

Another vertical wall space display is this thrift store wooden grate that was repurposed into washi tape storage from Crab and Fish. I love the idea of repurposing something that once was made for a completely different purpose.

I love using bins and boxes for storing small craft items as well. At The Crafty Pickle, she used storage containers to easily see and store her washi tape in medium size, stackable plastic bins. This is very similar to my ribbon storage solution I use and I think would be a great way to store a large washi tape collection.

Last, but certainly not least, here is another repurposed storage solution. Who would have thought to use a spice rack to store washi tape? At Studio D did! This looks like a great solution to easily be able to see and access all those beautiful tapes.

I hope this post has inspired you to get all those washi tape collections organized!

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: baskets, containers, craft storage, Washi Tape

March 21, 2013 by Anita Scroggins 2 Comments

Die Storage – keeping it all together!

Hi everyone, Anita here today and it is my turn to share a storage solution. I have quite a selection of dies for a variety of machines. Even though I don’t use the dies as often as I once did, I still can’t part with them. I use electronic means to cut most of my papers now, but dies do still have their uses, so keep them I must.

However, since they are different brands, they are all different sizes. So I have never been able to come up with a way to store them in a manner that is pleasing to my eye and easy to reach and use. I have some over on one shelf, a few in a drawer, some over there in notebooks…you get the drift. I would really like some method that puts ALL of my dies in one place, stores them neatly and makes them easy to access. Mmmmmm…no small order. So of course I hit Pinterest, my favorite place on the web right now. This is what I came up with.

This idea I really liked, the boxes would be fairly inexpensive and could be stacked either on a shelf or counter and labeled easily. Also, I could decorate these if I ever got into the mood, although I am very much a plain box kinda girl so it is doubtful that would ever happen. So far, so good. The drawback – I am not sure if my larger steel ruled dies would fit in these boxes. I will have to see. Also, I know myself and I am pretty sure that all my dies would have to be alphabetized within the boxes. That just might make me crazy when I added new dies and had to shift things around.

Now, this little library tray idea I liked in theory. Look how cute it is!! I mean really, who wouldn’t want that in their craft room? My concern is again, my large, thick dies, and dust. Yes, dust. Yes, I am that kind of person. I would have to vacuum this little bugger every other day to keep my sanity. Two dogs and at the moment 4 cats. (my daughter came home from college with one, which we told her NOT to get, and we are fostering a stray with a broken pelvis, so we are temporarily up to 4. sigh) Maybe I could sew a cover for it. Because, again, it is so dang cute!!!!!

Ok, next up…

I actually have clear envelopes AND the clips from my old Clip It Up to make this idea a reality. And a curtain rod. It’s a possibility.

I have many sets of Sizzlets and in order to save space I took them out of their original package and put them into small, clear plastic bins. But those are no where near as cute or as stackable as these are! I am sure I saw some just like these are Office Depot not long ago. I may have to go and see how much they are As for the notebooks, I have my QuicKutz and my AccuCuts dies in notebooks, but they are small notebooks made just for each brand. I want symmetry. I want it to look neat on the shelf. Even though there are two types of storage going on here, it still looks neat.

Last, but not least, we have an Alex Drawer Unit from IKEA (and we all know that I love those!) with the dies stored in the drawers. I am not sure that I like how these dies are loose in the drawers. However, I know that IKEA makes Alex units with deeper drawers and maybe some of the storage I have shown above would fit into the deeper drawers? Interesting, very, interesting. Maybe two Alex units side by side with my dies in the drawers and my machine on top??

I obviously need to do some shopping! So that is it for me today! This is also my last post as a contributor here at Craft Storage Ideas. I have had a wonderful time with Rebecca and the whole team and am sad to move on. However, my schedule has gotten a little crazy and I had to let a couple of things go

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Anita

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: alex, containers, craft storage, drawers, ikea, scrapbook studio, storage

March 7, 2013 by Anita Scroggins 4 Comments

Storage Solution – Unmounted Stamps

Hi everyone, it’s my turn to offer a storage tip and today I want to talk about storing all those unmounted stamps that come on the clear sheets. Are you like me and you have hundreds of them? I am so sad, I have sheets of them I have never even used one of the stamps from it! I am working on that though and using them one by one!!

I have wonderful storage cabinets in my studio that I got from a retail store when they retired. I wanted to be able to store my stamps in the cubbies in those cabinets, but I couldn’t find anything that would fit my needs. Sooo, I called my wonderful friend who can build anything and who works for cake and told him what I needed. Voila! Two weeks later I had a custom solution to my problem. I can store ALL of my stamps in a little bitty space now and have super easy access to them!

Here is a look at my storage shelf with my stamp storage on it. I currently have 6 on here, but only 5 are in use. I have several more in the attic in case I go crazy buying more stamps!

They are sized to hold an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet protector. A lot of my stamps came on plastic sheets that were this size so I was able to slide them right in and put the page protector on the rings. For those that were a different size I bought a package of 8 1/2 X 11 craft plastic at the craft store and used Glue Dots® to stick the stamps on. This was I could display more than one small stamp set in a page protector like the ones below.

I can get about 10-12 page protectors onto each holder depending on the brand of stamps. I have them sorted by theme so I can just grab a holder a flip through to find the stamps I want. Easy peasy.

They are only 3″ wide across the bottom so I can fit a lot of storage into a small space- AND it fit into the fixtures I already had- exactly what I was looking for.

And, yes, I do have a serious Prima addiction. I am maintaining a Prima Breeding Program in my Scrap Studio – if they ever stop making Prima’s I want to have enough of them to breed in captivity

That’s it for me today.

Anita

Filed Under: Storage Solution Roundups! Tagged With: craft room, craft storage, stamps storage, storage, studio

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