Tuesday Tip

So I thought I would occasionally share some tips from my stamp room. If you have more than a dozen or so stamp sets in your collection then you know how easy it can be to forget what goes where. If you have more than one set out at a time or someone else is over stamping with you, stamps sometimes get put away in the wrong case. If you are a demo you may use stamps from several sets at a workshop. It can also be easy to forget what you have. I have roughly 200 stamps sets and I forget I have certain sentiments or images. That means I don't use them. So in my obsessive need for organization I have started cataloging my stamps. Here are 2 things I do when a new stamp set arrives at my door.
1) I have a printer/copier so before I mount my stamps I make 2 copies of the sticker sheet that comes with each set. One copy is trimmed down and taped to the bottom of my stamp case so I can see it when I turn it over. This is very helpful for me in making sure my stamps are returned to the right case.
2) the second copy goes into a 3 ring binder. It is much easier for me to look through the binder than pull out 200 sets if I am looking for something. It is also helpful to my stampers when they come over for card club and have full use of all my stuff.

I usually get more than one set at a time so I put as many sticker sheets as I can on the scanner bed so I don't waste paper. I had many stamp sets in my collection before I thought to do this and some of you may not have a copier handy but you can still do this. Some of my sets I stamped onto a piece of paper. Some I cut out of old catalogs. Because I am a demo I have several old catalogs lying around so cutting them up was of no consequence. As I write this it also occurs to me that now that SU! has their catalog on-line you may also be able to print them from your computer as long as it is a current set. SCS has also started to create an index for most of the stamp sets so you could also print a copy that way.

If you have any more helpful hints on this subject post a comment!

This is next weeks non card project for the stamping class at church. The cone bag is a decorator bag from Michaels, you know, the disposable frosting bags. It is hard to capture in the photo but the entire bag is stamped with hearts (Michaels $1 stamps) and white Stazon ink. It dries fairly quickly. The tag is from the SU hostess set, Tags So Much, stamped in regal rose. The conversation hearts were a bargain at the Christmas Tree shop if you happen to live in an area with a shop near by. I bought a box of 100 bags at Michaels with a coupon so they cost out to .12 a bag and the candy about .50 a bag so it's a fun, low cost project to do with the kiddos or at a workshop.
I want to note that my class at church is a stamping class and I am not able to wear my SU demo "hat" so although I do use mostly SU stuff I have the flexibility to use other products. If you want to do this in a workshop it is easy enough to change out the products and stamps to SU items.
Happy day!!