The organization of my clear stamp collection has been a project a few years in the making. I’ve intended a certain outcome for quite some time and keep working on it little by little. I think now is the time to finish it up.
After seeing Jennifer McGuire‘s system a few years back I decided to use the Avery Elle storage pockets and purchased them about 3 years ago. I never got around to setting it up until last year when I was refreshing my studio.
Most of my stamp sets were from Papertrey Ink and stored in the CD cases. This worked fine for me, but as I’ve collected other manufacturers, I want one place to store them and less of a footprint than the CD cases took.
So I decided on the Avery Elle pockets and Fridge Binz for storage.
I purchased badge holders to place the stamps on and slide into the pockets. I wanted something clear and sturdy, the idea came to me when I was sorting through some memorabilia and came across large badge holders from a concert. I ordered a large amount through Amazon here.
I know there is a lot of info about different type of acrylics and polymer and what is “safe” to store stamps on, etc. I am not particularly concerned about my stamps lasting forever, so it is working for now and I have not had any melting or warping issues.
One of the challenges for me with stamping/cardmaking is I can never remember what sentiments I have and where to find them. I have a lot of stamp sets that have multiple purpose sentiments. So I developed a symbol system using Web Dings in word software and set up labels to identify the stamp set.
On the label is the name of the set and the manufacturer. Then there are symbols included on the label that identify types of sentiments or graphics included in the set. This has helped me immensely because I can flip through quickly and recognize what sets have a sympathy sentiment or some type of encouraging sentiment.
After getting all the sets labeled, it was time to decide how to sort them.
I purchased plastic folders from the Dollar Tree (they have a few different designs) and cut them into 4 pieces to use as dividers. I rounded the corners at the top and used my Dymo LetraTag labelmaker to add labels to the dividers.
I divided the sets into the following categories:
Scrapbook/Journal
Food
Home/DIY
Flourish
Backgrounds/Pattern
Labels/Tags
Travel
Birthday/Celebrate
Sentiments
Alphas/123
Flowers/Nature
Animals
Christmas/Winter
Autumn/Halloween
Masculine/Boy
Feminine/Girl
Love/Wedding
Baby
It may seem like a lot, but I basically just started organically making piles of stamp collections and then decided on the categories.
So far this system has worked well for me. The bins with my stamp sets sit on the bottom of my cart facing the space where I primarily stand to create.
Due to all the clear components and labeling, everything is easy to spot, and I feel like I’m using more stamps now that I can find them easier.
For a quick video walk through, check out my YouTube channel:
Any questions? Leave a comment.