The lazy days of Summer

We are smack dab in the middle of those lazy days of summer, truthfully though, is there really any "lazy" time for  those of us who stamp, scrap or paper craft?  This is actually the time that the organized crafters are working on their holiday gifts and cards (I am not in that category), which is anything but lazy in my book.


Speaking of lazy, we had a very relaxing and quiet 4th, barbecued and watched movies, saw some fireworks from our front lawn, thank you to our neighbors who went all out and treated us to a pretty impressive display of explosions : ).  I also took Friday off from work, combined with Monday that makes for a four day weekend, wooooohooo!  And even better?  Two four day work weeks.

Since we had four days off gardening was in order, but first a picture of the tree in the front of our house:

From 2010-07-05

The tree shades our front for most of the day,  and that means that most anything we plant has to like shade.  Usually we do impatients, but we wanted to try perennials this year, so we shall see how they do.  Here is another shot of the tree:

From 2010-07-05

Saw this bird in the tree too, have no idea what type of bird it is though:

From 2010-07-05

And before we forget...the winner of the blog candy is...........................Alex!  Alex, please email me at Jacquie at afterhoursstamper dot com so I can get your goodies off to you.

Now....onto some stamping stuff that I have been saving for you.  First off, another card for SCACD, here is a close up, to see the entire card travel over to the "Follow Your Heart" blog for my Tuesday post.

And here is another card I did over the weekend, using a Magnolia Stamp (Tilda):

From 2010-07-05

And a close up, I colored her in distress ink and then added lots and lots of diamond stickles, also made the DP using water color paper, distress ink and then a star stamp that I heat embossed with glitter ep:

From 2010-07-05

So, what link goodness do I have for you this week? Here we go:

CHA Summer 2010 Sneak Peeks:  This link will take you to some previews of products for the upcoming CHA Summer event, save the link and keep checking as new links are added to the page.  I checked all the stuff out and loved what I saw.  Some great new paper, stamps and other products are just around the corner!

New CHA Exhibitors:  WOW....check out this list of new companies exhibiting at CHA Summer 2010!  Here are some that I think are pretty cool:

• Heartfelt Creations:  Love the matching dies and stamps, especially this set called "Perfect Petals," here are the stamps, and here are the matching die cuts!  Check out their other sets as well (I have posted this link before, and just love their newer items!)
• Peachy Keen Stamps:  Adorable faces for your flowers, or any object that you would like to give a personality to.  Really cute things here.
• PSA Essentials:  Interesting idea on interchangeable stamping, I really liked their personalized stamps, and loved some of their other designs.  You can purchase the stamps online or locally, check their retailers page for more information. 

Distress Inkpad storage:  LOVE the idea of the Velcro on the bottom of the pad to store the inker pad!  You have to see what she did with this, great, great idea!

More craft storage ideas:  This is a Better Homes and Garden link, lots of fantastic, inexpensive ideas on storage!

List of Blog Candy:  Gotta love this, all sorts of links to blogs that are giving away things, bookmark it because you will want to visit often to enter to win some really cool stuff!
Last, but not least, another great Jennifer McGuire video, you are going to LOVE this card, and I am trying to think how to use her technique for Christmas cards:



That is it everyone, I am off to the yard to plant in the front, and then relaxing for the rest of the day, hope you have a wonderful week and thank you so much for visiting and sharing your love of crafting.

Happy New Year! Organizing your stamp collection

Good morning and happy Monday.  This weekend was somewhat productive, all of the Christmas decorations are down, the tree needs to be stored and some stuff still needs to be put away, but for the most part our home is back to pre-holiday status.

Given that we are now in a "New Year" I decided that it was time to reorganize my stamp collection.  What started out as an indexing project took on a new life when I found a better storage system for my unmounted and mounted stamps.  Given that I am very limited on space, finding ways to store more stamps in less room is not only appealing, it is a must.

I had started to index my current stamp collection which are stored in CD cases when I stumbled upon a GREAT way to store my unmounted and mounted stamps in larger containers!  My wonderful husband gave me a Michael's gift certificate for Christmas and I wandered into the Michaels last Friday because of their sale.  As I was wandering around I found this container which immediately called to me.

The photo boxes are a bit smaller then a DVD case, and they are a little over 1 1/2 inches thick, and they fit perfectly on the shelves of my CD/DVD bookcase!  I went to the checkout counter to purchase about 24 of the containers (all they had) and found out that the boxes were half off, so instead of being $1.99 (I was going to use a 25 percent off your entire purchase coupon), the containers were $1.00!  I then ran to another store to purchase an additional 20 boxes and came home. (I have also found the containers online for $1.59)

Here is a side view of the container:

From 1 4 2010

And here is my CD bookshelf with the CD's I had already indexed on the top and the new storage containers on the shelf below:

From 1 4 2010

These new containers hold WAY more then the CD cases, how much more?  Well so far I have been able to combine up to seven CD cases into one of the new photo boxes!  Here are the CD cases I have been able to clear out:

From 1 4 2010

And here is one of the new cases with all that it holds:

From 1 4 2010

And here how everything fits inside the new case:

From 1 4 2010

And these cases will also hold wood mounted stamps!  So instead of my smaller wood mounts floating everywhere they now have a home as well!

So, my indexing project has turned into a redesign of stamp storage project, however I am still going to use the system I described to you last week, but will have to modify my system a bit.

What I am doing is stamping images on index cards, sorting them by category and then color coding the category.  Some stamp sets will have more then one category, for instance a set that has bugs, flowers and words/quotes will get three color codes.  Here is what I mean:

From 1 4 2010

I have three groups of cards, each group has a number of categories, and the groups are small enough to fit in my work area for me to quickly reach and sort through.  I thought of stamping and storing pages in a binder but my work area is so small that the binder would not be accessible.

Here is a card stamped with images:

From 1 4 2010

This card corresponds to a set of heart stamps that are stored in a CD case so all of the stamps on this card are in that case.  For the newer cases that I am using I will have to use multiple cards for each case because of the amount of stamps that the newer cases hold.

Also, I am using color coding for my system, ie, all floral stamps are green, teal is for flourishes and so on.  I color the index card as well as color the label of the container.  Some sets have more then one color if they have more then one type of image, ie, some sets have quotes/words, floral images, flourishes and bugs.

Eventually all of the images will be cross stamped on index cards, but for now I just want to get the main images stamped on cards for main categories (for instance, a heart is an "object" but can also be in a holiday category, for now hearts will be stamped and sorted in "objects").

My indexing is going to have to wait until I finish transferring almost all of the stamps into the new containers.

If you have not yet found a storage system that works for you these containers might be the answer to your problem!  Even though I still need to index most of my stamps at least now I only have to look in one or two containers for a stamp instead of flipping through CD case after CD case!

And of course I have some links for you, all storage related of course:

Storage containers:  Some really good storage containers here for you, I like the larger ones that have all the compartments.

Organizing ideas:  Lots of great information here on ways to organize your supplies.

Grab and Go:  Love these!  If I had more room these would be a part of my storage system.

More storage options:  Some good deals here, and some very good storage ideas.

Sorry the post is so late today, I had to get to work early and just couldn't finish the entire post until just now.

Have a great day and check back next week for some cool Valentine's Day projects : )

And if you have some good storage ideas please make sure to post in the comments.