Stamp Storage

[Trixie]

Hello,

I am wondering about your thoughts on this... I have begun to take all my stamps and organize them like Jennifer McGuire has hers.

http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2013/ ... eaway.html

I am hoping this will save some room and make it easier to see what I have. The question I have is about breaking up sets. For example, I am wondering if I should take all the stamps that say THANK YOU or WITH SYMPATHY, etc. and put them all together in one envelope. Now, the likelihood of me ever getting on EBay and selling them is very remote, so would it really hurt to break up the set? I also don't have access to the yard sale sort of deal that Farley mentioned last week. I have several sets that have like 2 flowers, a butterfly, a bee, and a thank you stamp. Should I divide them up into florals, animals, and thank yous? How do you guys store your stamps and is it working for you? The Stretch Your Stamp Class has really motivated me to use my stamps more, but I need to know what I have.

Also, some of the CS stamps were very hard to read or weird sayings. Have you ever just thrown a stamp away? I know. I am neurotic.

Judy

[troublesmom]

I just threw a bunch of stamps away and will probably be throwing more away soon. I do give quite a few to my DDIL if I think she will use them with the kids. I am not at the point yet where I will take sets apart. I have been using the empty SU cases to put all my unmounteds in but keep most in sets. That being said I have a lot of OLD Christmas ones that I did take out of sets.

Judy I just looked at her video and really like those pockets and they look like a lot less room than the SU cases. I may give them a try for my unmounteds from companies other than SU. Who knows I might even break up sets then.

Hello,

I am wondering about your thoughts on this... I have begun to take all my stamps and organize them like Jennifer McGuire has hers.

http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2013/ ... eaway.html

I am hoping this will save some room and make it easier to see what I have. The question I have is about breaking up sets. For example, I am wondering if I should take all the stamps that say THANK YOU or WITH SYMPATHY, etc. and put them all together in one envelope. Now, the likelihood of me ever getting on EBay and selling them is very remote, so would it really hurt to break up the set? I also don't have access to the yard sale sort of deal that Farley mentioned last week. I have several sets that have like 2 flowers, a butterfly, a bee, and a thank you stamp. Should I divide them up into florals, animals, and thank yous? How do you guys store your stamps and is it working for you? The Stretch Your Stamp Class has really motivated me to use my stamps more, but I need to know what I have.

Also, some of the CS stamps were very hard to read or weird sayings. Have you ever just thrown a stamp away? I know. I am neurotic.

Judy

[pamcook]

Holy cow - that's flipping cool. Way better than CD cases.
Thanks Judy!

I saw break up your sets if that means you'll be able to find what you need and use them more often. There's no earthly reason to keep the sets together if it keeps you from using your stamps.
(you have my permission!).

[clamscrapper]

I have my sentiments stamps together so that when I need to make a card I can find them. I have them in two drawers (mounted or unmounted) by category of sentiments. Makes quick work for cards.

[mpizzazz]

I watched her storage video and my system is similar to what she does only it's homemade and I don't have a zillion stamps. I also wondered what she did with stamps that came in bigger sets or wood mounteds, etc. Not everything comes in the same package.

Absolutely, get those greetings and sentiments all together. It is so much easier to find them and use them quickly. I put all of one greeting like 'thank you' on one sheet-I put a piece of cardstock in a page protector and stick the stamps to the outside. Any cling mounts I just drop down inside the page protector. I don't have many of those. I also stamp all the stamps on a piece of paper and slide that inside the page protector. If I stamp extra greetings, I throw those inside the pp as well. Then I put all the page protectors in a specific category in a plastic bag together. I used to stand them all up in a cardboard box and I am thinking of going back to that system. Currently I keep them with other embellishments with the same subject. For example, a whole drawer of anything flower related. A drawer of animals, birds, insects. etc.

I would also break up sets the same way into categories like flowers, butterflies, birds, leaves, trees, hearts, swirls, etc. It depends how you think and use things. If you would never mix things from one set with another then this idea is probably not for you. Similarly, do you mix up different manufacturer's kits and collections, etc when you scrap? Same idea but with stamps.

When I first started unmounting stamps I kept all the CS ones on the wood. Now I'm unmounting the ones I want to keep that would be easier to line up if they were on a clear block. I'm also trimming them closer to the design.

I also have a box with several to give away. I'm giving them to someone. If I wasn't, I would never just throw wood mounted stamps away but would donate them to some charity or put them on freecycle. But I would toss UMs especially clear ones.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

[Trixie]

Funny you should ask. Here is what she says about the larger and smaller sets.
http://www.jennifermcguireink.com/organization

She is a former engineer so she is pretty precise and organized. She also stresses that this is her job now and that regular crafters shouldn't feel that they need all the space or product that she has. She gets a lot free, of course. I think she works for Simon Says Stamp, Hero Arts, Avery Elle, and is big buddies with Tim Holtz. I love her videos because she uses simple things that lots of people have at home or which don't cost very much. I don't think I have ever heard her talk about using a cricut or a silhouette. She uses a big shot in her videos and says she only buys something if she can think of 3 separate uses or techniques for it. I have never seen her use a wood mounted stamp.

[Trixie]

I unmounted all my wood mounted stamps several years ago and was never sorry. I put Aileen's Tack It Over and Over Again on them and put them in the CD cases. I put all the pages of impressions in a notebook. When I need a stamp I go look through the book, find what I want and then go take the CD case off the shelf and use it. It is ok, but seems like I use the same few over and over. I thought just flipping through and seeing all the butterflies together or all the different sizes of thank yous together would make more sense.

I decide to purge and I get bogged down in liking one or two in the set, so I keep the whole thing. That is why I am trying to talk myself into breaking them up and tossing or giving away ones I would never use. Some are very nice stamps, but I just have no need for them all.

One other thing Jennifer McGuire mentioned that interested me... She takes a ream of white cardstock (which is what she uses the most) and has it cut at Kinko's. She didn't say how they cut it, but I believe it is laser cutting. She said it wasn't expensive and she ends up with 2000 perfectly cut card fronts out of one ream of cardstock. She also has done some other sizes. If she just cuts the ream once she gets 1000 card bases out of a ream. You could do it by hand, of course. If you had them pre-done then you wouldn't have any inky fingerprints on them. We, of course, do not have a Kinko's and I am not sure I need that many anyway. It would be a good idea to go together with someone one, tho.

Judy

[nancine]

I have my clear stamp sets (like the SSS, Avery Elle) in the Jennifer McG method. I really like it as it doesn't take much room and it's easy to flip through and find what I want. I had a plastic bin already that they fit into perfectly. Haven't thought about separating the stamps... yet!

I did take out the sentiments from CS unmounted and group by theme (birthday, thanks etc) and it's been helpful.

I have my wood mounted stamps in a Craftsmen Tool Chest - I stamp/scrap in the garage and this was the first thing my husband got me for storage when I moved out there. Just about everything fit then... now it's just WM stamps, and the deep drawer at the bottom holds SU sets in the clamshell cases. I only get the cling SU stamps now and the dvd cases are in a drawer. I like using the SU cases for storing sets I get from PTI.

I have lots in binders, which is okay but really a pain. I keep hoping to figure out a better method for those.

I'm not much of a hoarder, I purge a bit every year when a LSS has a flea market.

[mpizzazz]

Thanks, Judy. I watched the video. She is certainly right that using the same module for everything makes for much more efficient use of space.

[nchoney]

I pulled almost every stamp off the wood mounts after Hurricane Irene got everything wet and the wood turned icky. They're now coated with Tack It Over-and-Over glue and stuck to page protectors. If they had their own image sheet, then that's inside the page protector. Otherwise... eventually.. maybe... I'll make image sheets.

I did it all in a hurry.... so now I'm going back through and organizing all the CS ones by year/month .... and then I'll put all the Stampin' Up ones in their own binders...

I just did them all page after page after page.... and stuck them in binders. So - now it's one of those sorting projects... a little at a time. I'm not sure I want to separate any of those.... since a lot of their fonts match the kit themes.... but maybe someday I'll sort differently.

But.... I've got a couple shelves of 3-ring binders full of pages of unmounted stamps. It's SO much easier to flip through those binders than to deal with boxes and boxes of mounted stamps. AND.... when I go scrap at Helen's house... or elsewhere... it's so easy to grab pages of stamps I want to use and toss them into my tote bag.

[jfugina]

I've got all of my CS stamps in CD cases still, and I've never unmounted my wood stamps. That was just going to be too much work in my head. But I can't deny that I'd gain a ton of space if I didn't have all of those wooden blocks.

I really liked the organization system in that video, but again, that would be a crap-ton of work, and the initial outlay of money is not insignificant. 30c per pouch doesn't sound like a lot, but when your stash would call for about 200 pouches, that starts to add up. I also don't really have anywhere to store the refrigerator bins, even if I managed to get rid of the drawers that my WMs are in.

As far as breaking up sets to keep like sentiments together, I did a minor project a few years back where I pulled out all of the birthday and sympathy ones, since they're the only ones I used, and stamped index sheets. I labeled the index sheets with the collection that image came from, so when I decide to use one of those images, I know which CD case to grab it from. That's about as good as it gets for me. The whole idea of having a binder of images sounds really great. You could flip through the binder and see the positive image in the correct size and figure out exactly what you want. But again, I'm too lazy for that kind of undertaking.

[nchoney]

I have to admit.... it was a huge undertaking.... but... after Irene flooded the house and the wood blocks started to grow mold, I didn't have any other choice...

I currently have some brand new wood-mounted stamps that I haven't unmounted... but once I get back into the scraproom, I'm sure I will do just that, so it doesn't become an insurmountable task.

I've currently dropped Club Scrap.... egads.... I know.... I do miss my monthly boxes... but with mine and mom-in-law's, that was an automatic $100 or so each month... and right now I can use that $100 for something else to repair the house. Plus... it wasn't just $100 a month for kits/postage... it was another $$$ for more unmounted stamps and extra paper, etc. ... so more like $150 to $200 a month.

I also stopped feeling the need to go to Stampin' Up parties.... the demonstrator stopped asking me to host one after her stupid response when I asked her if she'd like me to become a demonstrator... and the last time I asked when she could do a party with me hosting, she told me it wasn't my turn yet. Surprise.... I can buy SU things elsewhere if I feel the need. But... I have plenty of stamps... a huge variety of designs and themes... and plenty of ink.

I do need to finish the rubber stamp binders.... get them organized... and then make a point of opening one each month and making cards or layouts from the stamps I already own.

I did it for the CS PSL challenge... and then they changed the challenge... so phooey.... I'll work on these challenges, here, instead!

[mpizzazz]

Thata girl, you tell'em, Debi!!

[pamcook]

Yay Debi!!

I pulled the trigger and bought some of the envelopes. My "system" now isn't working and it takes up too much space. This way of storing stamps will work well for the AE stamps I'll receive over the next year as well.

[pat-czap]

Sorry if this has been answered...but these Avery Elle pockets look like the clear card envelopes you can get with the adhesive flap...right?

If so, I bet you could buy them cheaper at a place that sells clear bags...

For instance...

http://www.clearbags.com/bags/clear-bag ... _width=245