Monday, April 4, 2011

Sentiment Index - a little organization at last!

Today's post is a little different from the usual.  This is more of an organizational post but thought I would share what works for me. 

Clear stamp storage:
I have organized all my clear stamps in a cost effective and space saving manner - two aspects that I must keep in mind in my small craft space.  I pop each set in a ziploc back (sandwich size) with a cardstock cut to A2 size and keep them all in an organized box with dividers.  On each piece of cardstock, I write the name of the set and this not only tells me what set it is but also adds a bit more stability in the bag.  For my Papertrey sets, I leave the label on its backing and pop that in with the set in the ziploc and cardstock.  I organized the sets by type - alphabets, backgrounds, nature, graphics, dies/labels, nature and sentiments (birthday and thank you are separated out).  This works well for me although I originally had them in a Japanese dollar store organizer with those plastic sheets.  The binder got too large and cumbersome even though it was nice to flip through. Here's what it looked like when I first started out with only a few sets:
 And an open view:
Indexing my sentiments:
I have been inspired by recent posts on a variety of blogs etc to create a sentiment index.  I already have a digital version thanks to a kind soul who had already created one.  That has been indispensable!  Now I have made one I can flip through to look for any sentiment I want and check it for size to use on a card, with a punch or die etc.  Love it!  I used Distress Ink or other dye inks as it is super easy to clean off so that it wouldn't take me years to stamp all the sentiments.  Some of them were stamped in multiple sections as they could go in a few different categories.
For the sections, I have: baby, birthday, Christmas, encouragement, family, friend, hello, holidays, just because, love, miscellaneous, sympathy, thanks and wedding/anniversary.  I stamped each sentiment in a cluster if there was more than one from a set and then wrote the name of the set after stamping them all.  I am so excited to use it!  I popped all the pages into a Japanese dollar store organizer with the plastic sheets.  If you can't find one of those, you could use a binder with plastic sleeves instead.
My front page has my ink colours that I stamped with a simple small stamp.  
I might even get around to doing my embossing powders one day ...
How do you organize your stamps?  How do you keep track of your sentiments, inks etc? I'd love to hear ...

6 comments:

Sam said...

Nice job on your post! I like to store mine in cd cases but they are overflowing so I think I might rethink my storage. I have not done a sentiment index but am so jealous of yours! And great job on the ink index - love seeing all those colors!

Anonymous said...

Very nice! I so need to inventory my inks like that. I have started creating a stamp inventory like yours but I am going slow - I have so many stamp sets.

BethieJ said...

I LOVE THIS!! I so want to TRY and get something together like this.. just need to find some TIME! LOL! Thanks for sharing!!!
Have a GREAT day!

Sara said...

Just love this! Wish I could borrow the stamp ink sample page. Thanks for the great ideas

Gloria said...

Wow! That was a lot of work ... very impressive! Thanks for sharing.

Lola G. said...

A couple of years ago I had surgery that involved a fairly lengthy recovery and rehab. I wasn't feeling very creative during that period, but I still really wanted to ”play” with my crafting supplies. I finally decided to take the time to make my own inventory of sentiments, and it was this post that provided the inspiration for the system I knew would work for me. On the days when I didn't have much energy for the project, I could still do at least a few sentiments and have some sense of accomplishment. While it was a lot of work, I'm SO glad that I did it! I've used many more of the sentiments I own, discovering unused ones in the process. I've been able to pinpoint some of my preferences, realizing how often I turn to PTI's Asian Fusion set. Thank you so much for the wonderful inspiration – it allowed me to emerge from a challenging time with something I've enjoyed so much and get so much use from!