Windfall

It's back to school and back into the craft room - hooray!  That's not to say I took the summer off, mind you.  I've been hard at work on the cookie books among some other little things that you'll just have to wait to see. 

So - I was out on www.createforless.com and ordered some mini Velcro dots for use in the cookie books.  But what they sent me were these 12 foot long Velcro strips meant to be put up on the wall, with 20, 7/8th inch dots that can hold up to a 1/4 pound.  Well, obviously this is overkill for the little cookie book.  I called and let them know the problem, which they corrected immediately and to boot, they let me keep the stuff they sent in error.  Windfall!

What's a girl to do with all that Velcro tape? 

If you are like me, your craft room is nothing but little hidey-holes filled with treasures.  The biggest problem this presents is forgetting what you put away in this place or that.  Like my drawer full of embossing powders that I love, but don't use all that often.  So, I thought if I pulled them out of the drawer and put them out somewhere where I can see them, I'll play with them more often. 

In a previous post I showed you the shelf I built from bits from the local Home Depot.  I actually have two of them spanning the walls of the craft cave.  Each of the boards are 2" thick and that Velcro tape they sent me was 1.5" thick.  Sounds like a match made in heaven, right?  After running it along the edge of the wood shelf,  I stuck the round dots on the lids of the embossing powder and stuck them up!  Below you can see them running along the edge of the shelf. 

Did I mention I have 8 packages of this stuff?  I've used two.  If you don't want it, then I'll just have to find another hidey-hole for what's left. 





Wash Me and Put Me Away!

Here's another of my tips on organization.  I've just about come to my wit's end with Halloween cards and the aftermath is all over the craft room.  One of the things I do so that I don't lose track of all the stamps and their packaging is designate this cardboard bin as the "Wash Me" bin.  I've never been one to do things until they reach critical mass, so this suits me well.  When the bin is full I bring it downstairs to the kitchen.  All the acrylic blocks go into the dishwasher.  All the cling stamps get dropped into a warm sudsy bath and then laid out on a cooling rack until dry.  Galvanized rubber gets a wash using my trusty Stampin' Up! scrubbing pad.  When it's all clean, they all go back into their packaging and back into their drawers upstairs.

Similarly, I don't like to put my new stuff away right away.  When I bought it, I had an idea in my head.  If I put it away too soon, then I forget.  Therefore, the "Put Me Away" bin was born.  Also - I have developed a die cut library - an index of all the dies I own.  As they come in, they sit in the bin until they get added to the index.  The index keeps me from buying things twice.  The index is also a huge pain in the ass to keep updated, but it serves a purpose, so I do it.

The Cut-able Font Library

Organization - always part of the fun of any well stocked craft room.  So - yes.  I have a lot of stuff to play with.  One of the things I spend a lot of time searching for is the right font to use on any given project.  Sometimes its obvious what to use, say, for Halloween.  Any scary, drippy, Transylvania type font will convey the necessary sentiments without a lot of fuss.  But other times it's not so obvious.  To make the decision easier, I've cut the upper and lower case ABC's for each of the cut-able fonts I own.  Simple black on white or the reverse, so all you see is the font. 

Those long narrow boxes of dies from Sizzix are hard to see into so the photo below shows how I've labled them with their font rather than their name.  I mean, who cares if a font is called 'sunset', right?  All I care about is what it looks like.  The hanging tags have the samples from other sets I own.  I have yet to add the tags for all the circut fonts, but they are coming.

Once I get the cutables all tagged, it will be on to the stampables.  Stamp sets are easier to see and thumb through than these boxes of dies, so maybe the stampables can wait?  It's all part of the fun.

If you struggle to remember all the different fonts you have, maybe this little font library trick would work for you as well.