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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Tuesday Tidbit: Spring Cleaning Part V

    Welcome to another Tuesday Tidbit!! The last couple weeks I have been crazy busy working on other Spring projects around our house! So I apologize that I didn't get to post any Tidbits for you these last two weeks!

   I'm back, though, and ready to share another part of the Spring Cleaning series that I started last month! Today I want to talk about organizing stamp sets! There are two things that I own a lot of: paper and stamps. However, I haven't tried to organize my stamp images and sets into something more user friendly. I have read and heard of a few different ways that other designers and crafters organize their stamps, but I haven't had a chance to tackle my stash yet!


   This was one of my main goals this Spring, actually! I wanted to go through my stamp sets, organize the images by category and theme, and keep those images in a binder or Rolodex that makes for easy reference! I just haven't found enough time this last month to get started! Hopefully soon, though! Instead I have been working on the baby nursery, re-decorating our guest room upstairs, and getting the house ready for our big basement finishing project (which started yesterday)!

    So today I want to share how I have my stamps organized now, and then share a few of my favorite tips and tricks that I have seen from some of my favorite designers and fellow crafters!

   First I want to tell you how I have my stamps organized currently! I use the CTMH large organizers for my CTMH stamp sets. I have 4 of these, and right now they are semi-categorized.



   One large organizer holds retired stamp sets (including retired SOTM sets and retired campaign specials). The other three organizers contain current stamp sets. I use washi tape to label the top of each organizer with which stamp sets it contains. I have them labeled as SOTM, WOTG, Christmas, Fall/Halloween, Background, Travel, Cricut collection sets, Hostess Rewards, and "Available Online". This last category are any stamps sets that coordinate with the Cricut cartridges (these sets never retire), and any stamp sets from the old Idea Book that are still available to order. Stamp sets are available for an entire year after they are released, but these are not always shown in the current Idea Books. So that's why I keep a separate organizer for just these sets!

    This system works for me when looking for current stamp sets to use on my projects, but it doesn't work for finding images that coordinate or specific phrases that I would like to use on my projects. That's why I want to reorganize. I would love to have a Rolodex type system where I can look at all the images I own that say "Happy Birthday" for instance. This way I can find the size, font, and style that works best for the project I am currently working on.

   Then I want to organize my stamp sets by letter and number for easier reference, too (A sized will all be together and in numerical order, B sized....etc)!! I am going to use CTMH's tabbed dividers to help me keep my stamps in order. These are super cute, match the organizers, and are easy to label! Plus they fit in the large organizer without any problems!


   I have a lot of stamps, and not all of them are CTMH. So I don't know if a Rolodex system will work the best, but I am playing around with a couple ideas yet before I dive in and start filing my images into a system! As soon as I find one that works for me, I will let you know!

   Here are a couple more ideas on ways to get organized with your stamp sets:

   Jennifer McGuire does it again with another amazing storage system for stamps! I love all of her ideas, and I encourage you to check out her YouTube page if you haven't already! Here's her video on storing the different sized stamps that are on the market currently:


   A fellow consultant, Angela Doescher, had another awesome idea to organize her hundreds of stamps as well! She uses the Evernote application and some storage binders to sort and file her stamps and images. Check out her video tutorial using this technique:

 
   Well that's it, friends! The last Spring Cleaning post for this series! I hope that I was able to inspire you to get organized this year with all these ideas! If you have any questions or would like to know about other ways I organize my supplies, please let me know! I would love to help you out as best I can! Enjoy the rest of your week, and until next time:

Here's to life, love, and creativity!

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