The Inking Spot of Crain Creations

My Ribbon Carousel got a makeover!

First let me just say, that the Ribbon Carousels come wonderful right out of the box!  BUT, if you haven't noticed White & I are not BFF's so I just had to add some color!  

I couldn't find any Spray Paint in the color I wanted (a Blue/green to match my room), so I got some Spray Paint Primer and then bought some regular paint (like for the walls in the house).  My local hardware store has these cute little sampler jars which were just the perfect size!  This color is called Covington Blue (by Benjamin Moore).  I put 2 layers of paint on and got a nice smooth finish.

I really wanted the knob to "pop" so I used some black bitty dot fabric (left over from the Ironing Board cover I made, remember I quilt too).  First I added some Fray Check on all 4 edges of the fabric so I wouldn't get frays when painting on the Modge Podge (worked perfectly!  I only got one thread!!)  I used some Modge Podge and put a coat on the carousel top and then layed my fabric on top (be careful not to stretch the fabric), then I painted a coat over the fabric.  It has a kind of shiney look to it, so I only did one layer of Modge Podge, I didn't want it to look "plastic-y".  I absolutely LOVE the way this turned out!!  I have a few more I need to collect to hold all of my ribbon and as soon as my room is all done I'll post more pics of this in its new home :)

 

Twine & fiber storage idea & I {heart} Pinterest!

First let me start off by saying that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pinterest!  I wish I could claim that I was the brain-child behind this brilliant idea, but I saw it on Pinterest!  HeatherJs blog to be specific, and she used it for embroidery floss.  I don't really use embroidery floss, but what a great way to store my Baker's Twine!!!!  Before this, all of my twine was a knotted mess :(  Now it's pretty and the best part is that the "mouth" of the clothes-pin holds the end of the twine!  I LOVE it!  and this took WAY less time than my ribbon storage (of course I have TONS of ribbon).  You can see my ribbon storage here.  I have to say that since that ribbon post my ribbon collection has grown to 1 color per drawer :)

I have found tons of awesome idea's on Pinterest... made several recipes, tried several crafty ideas and even applied some household organization ideas to m yown life... I am soooooo addicted!!!  Hello, my name is Tangii and I'm a Pinterest-aholic.  Well, thanks for popping by, if you have an awesome storage idea for your fibers, ribbons, etc please leave me a comment with a linkie... I'd love to check it out!!

Clear Stamp Storage

Well I still couldn't color yesterday, but I can certainly cut and glue so I decided to work on some more stamp storage.  This is my binder with some of my My Time Made Easy clear stamps.  I used the Fluttering By and Shutt erfly digi papers to decorate.  These are the VERY first Digi Papers I got from Lauren, and seem very fitting since butterflies are kind of her thing, lol.  The benefit to using Digi papers is that when you start accumulating full binders, the papers you used will still be available.  I have a paper & color theme for each stamp company I use for all of my Binder storage.  For my border on here I used the Scallop Dot Border Builders, this allowed me to scale the size to go with the size of my binder, but also be able to center the loops so that they fit just right across the cover.  The Border Builders come with other pieces to allow you to layer your borders (and we all know how much I LOVE layering!).  I cut out some of the butterflies from Flutters & Flowers, just for some "pop".  I listed on the front and the spine the contents of the binder so I don't have to open and flip through pages to see what's inside.  For each stamp companies binders, I copied their logo and pasted them on my covers...this makes it quick to find the binders I am looking for.  Below is a picture of the spines of my mini binders on their shelf.  For the spines I just show the Logo, binder name (company name & volume) and the contents.  I used Publisher for the spine info and for the cover panel with the Logo, contents, etc.  This is a bad picture, but you get the idea.  I like everything decorated and just so, but you certainly can make your covers MUCH simpler and basic.  The best part is the inside...

I've been searching and brainstorming for a way to store my clear stamps.  I don't really like them on the panels like I have my unmounted rubber.  I also do not like regular three ring binders.  A friend came to visit a few weekends ago and she told be about these 5.5" x 8.5" sheet protectors, these aren't the brand I have, but are the same thing.  These are a fraction too wide, so they just fit in the binder. I may need to tuck the sleeve in before closing, but it's just the plastic sleeve piece and it does not impact the white sheet or the stamps at all.  I also found a great place for these binders, here are the mini's for $3.74 each and here are the large for $4.98 each.  These guys ship quite fast.

I took some white cardstock and cut it in half to fit in the sleeve, this way I can use both sides and fit more stamps.  I can fit 4 sheets, using both sides in a mini-binder.

I just used a pen to write then set name at the top of the white sheet.  I really like this method, because it keeps my set together, if a stamp gets loose it should stay in the sleeve, and worst case it'll still be in the binder.  

Here are the measurements for the cover for those who are interested (everything is "wide x tall")...

Cover (pink) - 14 7/8" x 9 1/4"
Front Panel (brown) - 6 1/2" x 9 1/8"
Front Title Piece:
                    Butterfly sheet - 4 3/4" x 6 1/8"
                    Logo Block - 2 1/4" x 1 1/2"
                    Contents Block - 4" x 2 3/4"
Front Border (white scallop dot) - 6 3/8" x 1 1/4"
Front Border decor (pink butterfly/swirly) - 6 1/4" x 3/4"
Spine Panel (Brown) - 1 1/8" x 9 1/8"
Spine Title Piece - 1" x 7 1/2"
Spine Border (white) - 1 1/8" x 1"
Spine Border decor (pink butterflies/swirly) - 7/8" x 9/16" 

These really are easier than they look.  Also, I made a template for the panels for each company, so when I make a new binder that part is mostly done.  Thanks for stopping in, hope to see you again soon. 

Here are some of my other storage ideas:
Card Display
Copic Storage
Ribbon Storage
Stamp Storage (Large Binders) 

Monogram Card Display

While organizing my "room", one of the things that I wanted to have was a way to display some cards.  I didn't really want them on shelves so I need some ideas.  A few years ago, when the boys were in elementary school, I got a couple of these   so that could hang up there pictures, etc. in their room and I really like the flexibility of it, um maybe just not that 'exact' design for my room? lol  I couldn't find anything that I liked in an, ahem, adult design so I decided to make my own!  You can click on any of the below pictures to see close ups.  Sorry for the lousy pics, but it's really hard to get good lighting way up on those walls, lol.

I took all 4 of my initials and used those as my anchor pieces, and picked out some fun ribbon from Michaels... Voila!  I have this on an angle because we have cathedral ceilings.  Here are the individual letters that I altered...

 

I found an 8x8 patterned paper pack and I liked the colors (my walls are a Suede color, and the furniture is oak and black, so this paper pack was perfect!).  I have hints of red (like a Riding Hood Red) and green (kind of a little darker than Old Olive) in my room as well so I used those colors for accents, and of course more cream.  Naturally I had to use the Tangii fairy from Paper Makeup Stamps :)

Stamps: Tangii fairy & sentiment (Paper Makeup Stamps)  Paper: Black & Ivory (K & Co), Sugar Cream (Prism), Spring Willow Medium (Prism)   Ink: Onyx Black, (VersaFine), Antique Linen (Ranger Distress)  Accessories: Flowers Shapeabilities (Spellbinders), large Pearls (Martha Stewart), Vanilla ribbon (SU!), small pearls (misc), labels nestie, black 1/4" grosgrain

 

For my middle initials they didn't have any more big letters, so I got the smaller ones and they worked perfectly.  I have a thing for buttons, and it isn't just for crafting.  I have jars of buttons from Jeff's Gramma and a HUGE tin of buttons from my Gramma & Great Gramma.  In the world according to me, buttons are fabulous as a decoration on a table, so natuarally I had to incorporate buttons into this project.  This is a mixture from my collections with a few PTI buttons in there.

  Stamps: Sentiment (Paper Makeup Stamps)  Paper: Black & Ivory (K & Co)  Ink: Onyx Black  (VersaFine)  Accessories: red brads (SU), green clip (SU!), green buttons from Gramma's stash, vintage cream ribbon (PTI), New Leaf and Pure Poppy buttons (PTI), Taylored Rose Garden flowers (Taylored Expressions), black embroidery thread

 

The quote here is one of my all time favorites and I find it really helps me put things in to perspective.  For the flowers on this letter and on the 'T', I used the flower shapeability from Spellbinders and used Prism cardstock because I LOVED the texture.  After cutting out the flower I left it in the die and used some Antique Linen Ranger Distress ink to "shade" the flower veins.

Stamps: Sing Love Dance (Paper Makeup Stamps), Lovely Labels (Nina Brackett for Gina K Designs)  Paper: Black & Ivory (K & Co), Sugar Cream (Prism), Spring Willow Medium (Prism)  Ink: Brick (Vivid), Olive (Vivid), Antique Linen (Ranger Distress)  Accessories: Flowers Shapeabilities (Spellbinders), large Pearls (Martha Stewart), Black ribbon (SU!), red brads (SU!)

My ribbon storage...

 

Ribbon was another toughie for me to find the "perfect storage idea".  There are lots of things out there, not alot of them worked well for me.  I found this idea on Becca Feeken's blog (Amazing Paper Grace) and went to town making it my own!  I started off with a huge piece of white Mat Board (Michaels sometimes carries these, I got mine at a Frame Shop, Aaron Brothers).  I knew I wanted them to be stored in my Scrap n Cubes, so I adjusted the card measurements accordingly.  I wanted 4 rows, so I measured the inside of my drawer, divided by 4 and took off a bit for divider space.  My spools measure 2 1/4" x 2 3/4".  I secure the ribbons with a rubber band... voila!

 

Mat Board is necessary for these spools as it very strong.  Chip board or cardboard would certainly bend too much either from the ribbon being wrapped or from the rubber band.   I'm more than a little anal when it comes to listing my supplies used (when I was getting started I relied heavily on other's listing this info!), so I put labels on my cards.  For ribbons I LOVE and will certainly replenish when they run out I write on the spool itself, but for ribbons like SU where they retire, etc. I just write the info on a teeny post it note and stick the post it to the spool.  It certainly took some time to spool all of the ribbon, but honestly I took a bucket in with me a few times while watching a movie with hubby and it wasn't so bad!  When we went to the mountains for the 4th I took my last bucket and my friend Shaela helped me finish!  I love this way of storing ribbon, because it is certainly adjustable, as I get more ribbon it can grow.  I currently have 2 1/2 of these drawers full.  And as I have snippets of ribbon that I cut off but ended up not using, they can just as easily be added to the spools.  And best of all, this takes up WAY less space than keeping it all on the spools they came on!  I hope you found this helpful, please feel free to leave a comment with your ribbon storage ideas or comment on mine!

If you missed them, here are some other storage ideas I've shared.
My Copic Marker Storage

Small Binder storage (I'll be back soon with templates)

Large Binder storage (I'll be back soon with templates)

  

My Copic Storage...

I have been working on organizing and "making pretty" my stamp room for a few months now.  I have done LOTS of looking at pictures, TONS of analyzing, measuring, browsing and any other 'ing' you can think of!  I now have all of it figured out and most of it done :) I will try to once a week share with you the things I have come up with.  I would love to hear your thoughts on these, any input is also much appreciated.  In addition, please feel free to leave a link in your comment to your storage idea.

 

This was my first "brilliant" idea, and while it looks great and worked wonderfully, I soon out grew it.  This is a wine rack from Target.  

 

This is what I have now, and I absolutely LOVE it!  It was cheap, and infinitely expandable!  I will be adding a 5th column here after the holiday weekend.  The original idea is not mine, but I found it in the Mission Organization area on SCS, Michelle328 is the brain child here!  How did I make this?  Well first I sent hubby down to Home Depot to get some Drain Spout, it came in a white PVC material and was less than $10 for about a 12 foot length.  I measured my markers and decided that I wanted them to stick out a bit, so I had him cut the spout in to 5 1/2" pieces.  Then I used some contact cement to glue them together and some spray paint (cause white just is NOT my color, lol!).

 

Each piece holds 20 Sketch markers with wiggle room to still be able to pull them out with ease.  I store my markers by color family and as you can see some families take more than one cube (E's for example).  Here's a close up of one of the cubes.

   

The best part about this is I chose the height and width, so it fit where I wanted it to go on my table top perfectly!  I'm still trying to think of a way to pretty it up a little, but the flexibility and inexpensiveness for this was just right up my alley!  Patter Cross uses these Copic Cubbies, which are great and very nice looking and VERY reasonably priced, but the shipping was not so pretty :(  Well I hope this helps you out some, like I said I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a fabulously inky weekend!

**ETA**  Several of you are asking about the back, my apologies for forgetting one of the most important things, lol!!  I have not yet covered the back because I am not sure if/how I want to "pretty it up".  HOWEVER, when I do cover it, I will use a piece of mat board (because it will be stronger than chipboard), trace the shape of my holder and then cut.  I will use the same glue to glue the back on as I used to glue the cubes together (it just holds better on PVC).  Hope this covers it, but if you have more questions I'd love to hear them.

Check out these 2 posts for my unmounted stamp storage ideas:

Small Binder storage

Large Binder storage

  

Stamp Storage...

Someone created a cute alterable "thing-y" where she was going to keep track of her "New Year's Resolutions", except she chose to call them goals, and instead a few BIG goals, she gave herself weekly, monthly, etc. goals.  I LOVED this idea (and if I can find her item and post, I'll link it here).  Anyway, as I have been working on "getting myself together" and getting my "goals" thought out and on paper I decided a couple of things. 1.  My stamp room REALLY needs some better organization (especially now that I've branched out and have way more than just Stampin' Up! stuff).  The other things I've realized are boring and irrelevant, lol.  So my Room needs an "overhaul"!  In order to get this done in a timely manner (I am very task driven and want things done NOW!), I'm going to have to plan my time well.  My scrapbooking goal for this year is going to be on hold until this room is done, and since someone else took my Challenge idea and ran with it for themselves, this shouldn't be a big deal :).  So, I spent Saturday cleaning out and organizing my stamps (you can see some of the sets I have for sale here), now mind you I've already done a TON of work in the "sorting area" so I had a good head start.

 

Sorry for the glare, but this is what my Mini Binders look like in there "home".  Each Stamp Company has a mini Binder (except for two and they are in the bigger binders, and of course my SU is in their clamshells)!  I decorated them and put the stamp company and the set names on the spine so I could quickly find what I needed.  If you click on the above picture you'll get a better idea.

 

Here is the front of some of those binders, I also listed the contents on the front.

 

In the inside of each binder I have the images on a sheet of cardstock along with the name.  For companies like Gina K, I use the inserts that come with the sets and Taylored Expressions prints their images on the binder sheet itself.  All of my Paper Makeup Stamps images are in a big binder, if you didn't see that one before you can see it all decorated here.  I have a rather hard time finding Stamp Room organization ideas that will work well for me, which is why I haven't gotten my room done sooner.  While "blurfing" the other day I came across Patter Cross' blog, which not only has some awesome idea's but she got me thinking and really helped me figure out the rest!  She does an "Organizational" post on Fridays.  My next task, is to organize my ribbons, thanks to Becca Fekken, for her awesome idea.  As soon as it's done I'll show you what I did (and her idea).  Thanks for stopping by, I hope I didn't bore you to death... if I can get this "cold" under control a little I hope to have some eye candy tomorrow.  Hope you have a wonderful day! 

Time to get organized!

I am more than a little OCD when it comes to being organized (that's not to say that my stamp room isn't a complete disaster sometimes), but I have a really hard time functioning when things aren't neat and orderly.  I have tried many of the stamp organization ideas out there and have found that these boxes work best for me (I use the large for PMS & PGP, and the small ones are perfect for my MFT, Gina K, Verve, etc. stamps).  You can get the Mini Binders, the Regular sized Binders and the sheets for each from Paper Makeup Stamps.  I finally got a few minutes to figure out how I wanted to decorate these, so here is my binder for my Fairies and Moody girls from Paper Makeup Stamps...

 

So, wadda ya think?  I still cannot believe how many layers of cardstock are in there, lol!  Here is the spine...  Bummer you can't see the pinstripes better (I LOVE pinstripes!!)

 

 For the back cover, I inserted this hair color chart (you can see Katie's post here for her details) since I primarily use it on my PMS stamps.  You can see I need a few more markers so that I can finish the chart.

 

 For the inside, I needed to be able to see the images (especially words), but neglected to save my packaging from the beginning.  I also felt that stamping all of those images out would take forever, and soon realized that having them full sized they wouldn't fit on my "cheat sheet"... {light bulb} I went to Katie's store and saved the images from her store and then pasted them into a document, they are a little fuzzy and stamped with "Paper Makeup Stamps" over them, but since I only need them for reference this is fine.

 

I will make one of these for PMS sets & Word Art and then another for the Dino's, Monsters and single images.  So, what do you think?  I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if you have any other ideas I'd love to hear those too!