Hello! It’s Noelle posting today and I am SO EXCITED to be here!
When Whitney said How about posting how you organize your stamps, I could not say yes fast enough! There may have been some jumping up and down and clapping too!
OK, so let’s get to it!
{*disclaimer: Yes, this is a ton of Unity! I have been a huge fan almost from the beginning! I ask for Unity for every gift giving chance I am offered and I spend all of my mad money here as well! I will never sell or give away an old set.}
Welcome to my happy place. I often stand front and center and just admire the view!
First, I apologize for the lighting! My scraproom is in the basement of my 61 year old house and the one tiny window they put in is no help at all for picture taking! I’d rather buy stamps than knock out walls and add windows or a walkout! LOL My 25 cube shelf from Ikea is called Expedite. Ikea replaced it with the Kallax brand. I haven’t bought any of those but they seem to be the exact same, as far as I can tell. Do any of you have both and know of a difference?
The shelf is in the corner and nothing but Unity! They are in alphabetical order by the artists.
The paintsticks are labeled on each side. On the back side you have to remember to stick the label on with the end of the name to the end of the paintstick. If you don’t it is upside down every time! LOL Clearly the way my mind works it was difficult to get this right SEVERAL times LOL
I keep 2 extra paintsticks in the slot where I am currently cataloging. This has been going on for years! This time I swear I am going to keep at it until I am done. The end project will be so amazing. I can’t wait to finish!
SHOUT OUT TO ‘VINTAGE’ UNITY, where this love story began!!!!!!!! I need a better way to display these! Do you have any ideas?
I cut out the label and tape it to the inside of the container. I fit as many kits into each case that I possibly can. And here is a tip in case you decide to catalog your stamps! Take a picture of the arrangement of the stamps before you take them out! It’s weird but true, sometimes they don’t all fit back in there without many attempts and wondering if you really even need that last stamp! LOL
I store all of my stamps in these this containers by Stampendous. See, the empty containers? The 3 empty cubes? Looks like I better place an order soon right??? LOL
Also, this swifter with pledge sprayed on it is the only way to dust these containers! It fits perfectly on top of them! The down side to the paintsticks is the raw wood is not dust-able at all! In fact, they pull the dust off the Swifter to cover themselves completely. LOL Not my favorite thing, but I don’t know what else to do. When I finish cataloging I might paint the extras with some type of sealant and redo them.
OK, when I need a cat stamp, I think of my Best Girl Andrea and I know that Angie Blom made Nancy after her. That is all I remember though. So let the cataloging begin! I printed my spreadsheet of all the stamps. I highlight as I catalog and this is so helpful because when I go to stamp a duplicate set I see that I have already done it. I am going to get these organized and stop buying dupes! AND check my order to make sure I am not buying 2 at the same time! LOL
OK, I keep this stack on my desk. Sayings has Thank you and Thinking of you separated so I keep them on top with Food/Kitchen because Drinks and Cupcakes are also separated. But, under those everything is in alphabetical order.
I highlight all the names of the kits in the container at once. Then I take the picture. Then I take them all out and make stacks of like stamps. Then I stamp the stack and write Angie Blom #6 or whatever it is. I write the numbers on the container with a sharpie. Then you really need that picture to put the stamps back because they sometimes just don’t fit back in easily, like you think they should LOL
Once the sheet is full, I move it into a 4 inch binder with a page protector. It is already so heavy. So I will divide it up in smaller notebooks once I am done and label the outsides! When that happens maybe I’ll come up with the nerve to do a Live on Facebook or something and show you just how many Unity hearts and cats I have! LOL I made the tabs with a Quickutz die and printed the theme with a marker. I used a glue dot to glue it to the page protector.
*Disclaimer #2 I started cataloging with Colorbox Chestnut Roan. The paper is junk so the ink bleeds. I switched to Stazon in Timber Brown and now I get the quality we all adore from Unity even with bad paper! I will probably redo the bad sheets one day. They do drive me bananas but I need to finish this project first!
I have these planner stickers that I am considering using to mark the containers with that don’t have more than 31. But I probably won’t because I want them to all be the same.
Thank you so much for joining me today! I would love to hear any suggestion you have or know how you store your Unity! Let me know over on the Unity {show & tell} and tag me! I hope you have a fantastic weekend!!