More Storage Stuff

It's been pretty hectic here of late. 

In a random moment of loonacy, Mr C & I decided to redecorate the whole house, so any spare daylight hours after work and all weekends have been spent painting walls. 6 weeks on and we're 6 rooms down.

In the dead of night I've been busy in my wee corner of the living room working on my crafty storage and as a few stalkers peeps have asked, I'll share how I store some more of my 'stuff'. As before, don't get too excited but feel free to nick any ideas if they'll work for you too.

So this is one of my offsprings old desk. Those 2 'shelvey' things at the back were from The Range, they're a kind of faux leather and were £20 each. They're really strong and look quite posh. I keep all sorts on them including large ink pads.

The sideboard houses everything else, all neatly boxed n' labelled.

The plastic storage boxes were again from The Range (I don't know what I'd without that shop and they're wayyyyyy cheaper than Hobbycraft). I use the A4, A5 & peel-off craft storage boxes for lots of things.

I keep my dies in this chunky blue A5 lever arch-file (Rymans seem to be the only place that sells this wider A5 version but only in 2 dull colours, blue or black), each A5 pocket has a magnetic sheet inside to stop the buggers going everywhere. If I have a die to go with a stamp set then I keep it in the back of the wallet with the coordinating stamps (see previous Stamp Storage post here.)

I keep my stencils in a normal sized pink A5 lever arch-file too and this was from Staples who have loads of groovy colours. I've just put a piece of black card in each pocket as backing.

Moving back to my desk where normally a computer keyboard would slide out, I keep all my tiny embellishments like sequins, blah, blah, blah in more storage boxes with compartments in colour families.

By the side of my desk I have 3 A4 storage boxes for my mini Versacolor & Distress ink pads and embossing powders, again from The Range (the sort you'd store paper in). The beauty of these boxes is that once you've filled them up they are deep enough to add a peel-off box in too for another level of inks or for keeping the blending tool in (hope that makes sense!) 

You may have noticed 2 storage boxes on top of my desk shelves. These house my Zig markers, Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils, Polychromos pencils, various sized Sharpies and my Staedtler fineliners. They're 6" Deflect-o desk cubes from Amazon (about £8 each) and hold LOADS. I keep them on their sides so I can see what's inside instead of keep standing up (plus they're easier to dust!)

Finally this is what I've been doing in the dead of night. It's a colour swatch 'booklet' of my Zigs', pencils, Versacolor & Distress ink pads. The idea came from Jennifer Mcguire (join the queue whilst waiting to be adopted by her!!!) I managed to track down these 2" x 2" pocket wallets in the UK from Chaos Cards, I bought the pack of 100, but this link takes you to the pack of 20. The rings to hold it together were from Rymans. I intend 'swatching' my embossing powders, maybe my Promarkers too eventually.

Talking of Promarkers, poor things haven't seen the light of day for a while and continue to be stored in this 7ltr box, rattling around...lol.

Anyway, I digress. This swatch booklet is so handy as a reminder of what colours you have, for putting colour combinations together, for colour inspiration in one place and for keeping a track on what you've got and what you may lack (in my case reds and purples).

There you have it. I think I've covered everything. Yell if you have any questions or if you need more details on any of the above.

I'm now going to spend of the rest of the year getting down to some serious card making. I've got about 100 Christmas cards to make and it's now November.....Panic!!!!!!!