Rubber Stamp Catalog Completed!

After many, many long hours of work, I have finally completed my stamp storage and catalog! And  the best part? I think I will be able to add to and live with this system for a long, long time.

Those of you who are following me will recall my previous post on stamp organization which you can find here. I’m one of those who jump on the latest scrappy organizational craze, and don’t take the time to figure out if that system will work for me. A couple of years ago, I decided to catalog all of my stamps in a rolodex file, and it didn’t take me too long to determine that it really didn’t work for me.

So last month, after acquiring some new stamp storage containers (each one holds LOTS of stamps), I took the opportunity to make a new catalog for my rubber stamps and it all fits in a notebook with lots of room for expansion.

I stamped many of the stamps directly on the pages. In other cases, I just took the pages directly from the rolodex and adhered them to the page (after trimming around them first). When the rolodex pages were double-sided, I photocopied one side first so that I had both images. And finally, for many of the sets, I just used Google to find pictures of the complete set and printed those to adhere to the pages. Each image is labeled with the manufacturer, the name of the stamp, and where it can be found in my stamp files. A-15 would mean the stamp can be found in container A on card 15. 

I’ve had the opportunity to need some stamps recently and finding them is a breeze! Can’t believe I waited so long to do this! What I love most about it is that all of my rubber stamps are shown at their exact size, which means I can see at a glance whether a specific stamp will fit my project or not.

So…for those who have read this far, the lesson today is a simple one:

We papercrafters are always looking for new and better ways to store our stuff. As a consequence, we are always organizing and reorganizing.  Keep in mind that what works for a fellow scrapper may not necessarily work for you. Before deciding on an organizational strategy, think long and hard about your work flow and the space you have. Also consider how much you have of the product (or tools) you’re trying to organize AND whether you’ll be adding to that collection or not. If you are planning to add to your collection of rubber stamps or cutting dies for instance, your organization system will need room to grow or else you’ll end up trying to come up with another organization system.

If you’ve read this far, I hope this has been of some help to you.

Thanks for looking!