It's time for another MFT Creative Chat. This month's topic is stamp storage. As we all know, stamp storage can be a big issue, especially when your collection grows. I have had many different stamp storage solutions over the years some have worked well, others not so well. I love the system that I use now. It takes me a bit of time each month to keep up with it, but it is worth it!
I store my stamps in two styles of boxes that I purchased from Ikea. I use the KASSETT DVD Box and the KASSETT Box. I currently have four of each style of box, but I will soon need to purchase a few more of the smaller boxes.
When we receive our stamp set samples they arrive without any packaging, just clear stamps on clear plastic. It can be hard to tell which stamp set is which! Maybe that's just my aging eyes! LOL I did have a large number of MFT stamps from before I was on the Design Team, these stamps had the regular packaging. I have a little OCD and I really wanted everything to match, so I stamped out all of those stamps too! It's a sickness I tell ya! LOL
I store my stamps in plastic envelopes that can be purchasesd at Clear Bags. I stamp a piece of card stock with each stamp set. Each stamp line has a specific color of card stock. Yes, I really am that crazy. I cut the card stock in three sizes, 4 1/4"x 11", 4 1/4" x 9", and 4 1/4" x 4 1/2".
I type the stamp line and the stamp set name on a piece of X-Press It card stock and I use an old SU Oval punch to punch it out.
This first box holds 100 Pure Innocence stamp sets. I need to purchase another box for my Pure Innocence stamp sets. I have about 20 sets that don't fit in this first box.
This box contains my PI Tweeny Tween, PI Snowman, PI Precious LIttle Lamb, PI Boy, Ballet Mille, Fred Bear, Claire Keay, Anne Lapointe, Flapper Doodles, and Flopsey stamp sets. As you can see, I have a number of different lines in this one box. If one line gets larger I can easily switch it to another box. This is one of the reasons that I really like this storage system, it's expandable!
This box contains all my à la modes stamp sets.
I used one of the larger boxes for all my Who's That Girl stamp sets. This box works really well for all the different sizes of Who's That Girl sets.
This box contains my Inspired By sets, my alphabet sets and all the stamp sets that come with Die-namics. I don't store my Die-namics with the stamp sets. As you can see I store these stamp sets along the long side of the box. Some of the Die-namics stamp sets are so wide that I needed to store them the other way.
This box contains all my Clearly Sentimental sets, as well as all the smaller sentiment sets like the limited edition sets that come with the VIP kits.
At the back of this box I store my Jolinne stamp sets and the Who's That Guy stamp sets.
This last box stores my Amanda Baird, Emma and Wyatt, Stephanie Fitzer, BC Dzyns and my really old MFT sets that I just don't have another category for.
I have a few more ways that I store my stamps. I keep this plastic container on the corner of my desk. It contains all my new stamp sets for the current month. I keep them on my desk until all my Teaser Time posts are completed and then they go into the general population of stamps.
I also have a big pile of stamps. This is the one draw back of this system, when I fall behind, I really fall behind! I end up with a stack of stamps like this just waiting for me to stamp them and get them in their proper container.
Just in case you are interested here are the colors I use for the differnt categories of stamps.
Be sure to check out Kim's Blog to see all the designers participating in this month's Creative Chat. I can't wait to see how the rest of the girls store their stamps!
