Instead of being creative today, I decided to tidy up my craft room. Once every other week or so, I catch up on the chores around my crafting space.
I organize any stamps, dies and stencils that I purchased by putting them into my stamp and die storage envelopes and filing them in the fridge bins by company.
Today I also spent a lot of time creating ink swatches and trying out a new organizing system for my blending foams for all of my Altenew inks. I had created swatches of my Catherine Pooler inks a couple of weeks ago and you can see that post and video HERE.
The day that I received my Altenew Watercolor set, I created a swatch set of those inks in a notebook of mixed media paper. You can see that post HERE.
Here you can see all 3 systems. I used the Simon Says Swatch kit to create a ring of the ink colors and I included the Altenew Alcohol Markers on the coordinating ink swatch. I love the ink swatch ring and that notebook with the watercolor swatches. I use those all the time.
I’m trying something new with the blending foams. For my Catherine Pooler inks, I stored the blender foam on the underside of each ink pad using Velcro. This worked perfectly for those ink pads because they had a deep lip and allowed the foam to fit without affecting the inking of a stamp when I used the ink pad. The Altenew ink pads don’t have a deep lip so if you store the foam under the ink pad, the ink pad doesn’t lie flat when you go to ink up your stamp.
Other crafters have recommended storing the blender foams in these coin pockets. I got a package of 20 of these pocket pages and each one holds 20 blender foams and a card with the ink swatch so I can see the color, the name and the coordinating marker code number. I’m not sure how this will work. It just fits the foam and I’m wondering how messy it will be to pull these out and tuck them back in after I’ve used them.
We’ll see. I’m going to try it out and see how I like it. Other people have found this to be a great way to store the foams, but we know that what works well for one person doesn’t work for everyone. At least it is organized and I can find what I’m looking for!
My Catherine Pooler inks and swatches are organized according to color (ROYBIV) from light to darker for each color.
My Altenew inks are organized by the 4 ink set that each one was designed and purchased in. I love that Altenew sells their inks in sets of 4 colors that will perfectly layer with their detailed layering stamps. It takes the guesswork out of selecting 4 colors that will work together and I find it totally convenient. Now I have a way of really keeping this organized with my swatches on the ring with the 4 set colors labeled with the set name and together on the ring. I also love that I was able to include the alcohol marker number of the Altenew coordinating Artist Marker. I’ve been using them for quite a while, but it has taken me a long time to realize that the markers have color names on the sides. (It was in very tiny print!!) I am not a Copic person so I wasn’t really sure what the numbering system on the markers was all about.
I took a couple of classes for Altenew markers and for Copic markers and educated myself about it! Now I get it! 
This is created from the Simon Says Swatch Kit. I keep all my supplies in a small plastic bin. I have to create this for my Distress Oxide inks and markers and then I will be done!
Handy!
I have one task left to finish my Altenew inks and that is to create labels with my label maker for the ends of the ink pads. You can see my Catherine Pooler inks here:
How great is that? I can find the exact color I’m looking for and I can easily select which colors I want using my ring of color swatches. LOVE THIS!
This is a Stamp-n-Storage 120 slim ink pad holder. My distress oxide and Stampin’ Up! inks do not fit in this slim holder. I actually store my Stampin’ Up! inks in the Stampin’ Up! ink holder which I don’t think they carry any more. I don’t keep those on my craft table any more. I really have fallen in love with Altenew, Distress Oxides and the Catherine Pooler inks. The Stampin’ Up! inks are beautiful and I love them, I just find myself not reaching for them as much now that I’m no longer a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator.
One tip for using these ink pad storage sets: I had a lot of trouble getting the bottom ink pad out because it doesn’t have the notch like the other compartments have. I created a little pull tab for the ink pad in the bottom slot using painter’s tape. Now I have something to grab!
Perfect solution for me!
I actually have 2 of the 120 ink pad storage pieces. I have the slim pad one for my Catherine Pooler inks and some specialty ink pads like the metallic ones. I have a second slim one for my Altenew inks and some specialty pads like Versa Mark, StazOn and so forth. I have lots of empty spaces in both of those. I have room to grow my collection should they add more colors! My 3rd ink pad storage is the Stamp-n-Storage ink pad holder for 60 Stampin’ Up! sized ink pads that also holds the marker and reinker. I used to use this for my SU inks and it was very functional. I love having everything all in one place. Now I use it for my Distress Oxide ink pads and reinkers and the Distress markers. I have room for the last set of 12 oxide inks that they have coming out in the fall or winter.
All 3 of these are the same dimensions so I stack two on top of each other and have them in front of me on my craft desk. The 3rd sits along the wall to the left of me with a marker storage piece in the corner between the wall unit and the ones in front of me. This gives me a little shelf to my left where I have added a couple of the marker holders for my Altenew markers and clear blocks. I also have a cup with paint brushes and my Altenew mini die cutting machine on that ledge.
It all just works perfectly for me. It may not look all neat and tidy with things behind cabinet doors, but it is so functional for me. Everything is within reach and I use it all the time because I can see it and it isn’t getting forgotten in a cabinet. If I put something in a cabinet or a drawer it is truly lost to me forever!
Here is my affiliate link to the ink pad holder from Stamp-n-Storage:
Check out those marker holders while you are poking around that website. I have 6 of those and I use them for way more than markers!!
I’m absolutely delighted that you stopped by today. I hope this means you are taking some time for yourself to relax and to see what I’m up to my last few days of summer vacation!
