Keeping an active scrapbooking room organized is the singularly most difficult part of the hobby. Too many times," out of sight, out of mind" applies and various items become under-used. This proves especially true when it comes to stamps.
I don't have a mega-collection of wood, acrylic, and rubber mounted stamps; there's probably about 200 individual stamps in all. How to best keep the inventory in mind? And because of the nature of stamps, they tend to end up in various places around the room: baskets, shelves, boxes, etc.
While trying to remember whether I had an appropriate stamp for a project being worked on today, and spending over 15 minutes looking about the room for one, I came to a breaking point. Something had to be done, and done now!
Solution: I pulled out a box of extra large index cards and begin stamping images by category. Some fell into more than one, so those were stamped in whatever other category they could be assigned.
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| Indexed Images |
In little over three hours I grew a index card collection about 1/2 inch thick. Unfortunately, this also meant cleaning, drying, and repackaging each stamp. I'm stopping today at the halfway point... or so I hope, though I'm still working on repackaging/drying the first batch.
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| What a mess I created! |
Just as in the case of the punch system, stamps will on longer come into the house without assigning a category with the stamped image. I've yet to determine the binding system since the collection will continue to grow over the months and years to follow, but notebook closure rings or ribbons come quickly to mind.
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It's really a "nothing" deal, but I've been asked to come in and work with a group to teach the basics of card making. I'm flattered to no end. It will be enough to know I've helped people of all ages discover a new creative outlet.
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