Hi Friends! Today I planned to shoot my paper storage video…that was a little more involved than I thought (I have an obscene amount of paper) so hopefully I can tackle that task tomorrow:) Tonight I will share how I store my stamps (another item I have an obscene amount of.) I hope you find some of these ideas useful and can incorporate them into your storage solutions.
It’s funny, each time I have gone to film one of the “How to store it” videos I come up with a better way to do something or I see something and I have these, “Why have I been storing this like that, it should be like this!” moments. You guys are keeping me honest! I plan on filming the paper video tomorrow but maybe I should tackle something less massive first, what do you think? Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
The Frugal Crafter Blog 
Really cool how you store some of your stamps…I will take your advice and store mind in alike storage…that really makes more sense to me then anything I have…I just have them clipped up…and in bins…thanks for sharing…
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Always love your videos. Do you have one on how you unmoumt stamps and prepare them for the notebook storage?
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Just heat them, with a heat gun and pull them off the block. Here is a video on how to prepare unmounted stamps: http://youtu.be/5uGqZnBxHPk
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What I do not have stored YET is unmounted stamps…still thinking about how to do that successfully. Most of my wood stamps and indexed clings are in pizza boxes by category…easy to find what I want (stacked on shelves in the garage). Thinking about taking all my stamps off the wood mounts to give me more room (have close to 100 pizza boxes now). HOW DO I REMOVE THE GLUE OFF THE BACK OF THE CLING PART OF THE STAMP WHEN PEELING OFF THE WOOD??? WOULD IT BE BETTER TO PEEL OFF THE RUBBER FROM THE CLING AND REPLACE THE CLING PART WITH NEW CLING? ALSO, HOW DO YOU TELL WHAT YOUR STAMP IS WHEN YOU GET RID OF THE WOOD. I KNOW I CAN STAMP IT, BUT THEN WHAT DO YOU PUT THE STAMP AND STAMPED PAPER IN TO KEEP THEM TOGETHER?
Thanks Lindsay for any help,
Paper Hugs,
Jan
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I usually keep my stamp that came on wood on the wood unless there is a problem stamping them that way (like ribbons or stitching I need to line up) but to remove them heat the rubber with a heat tool and it will peel right up. Often the foam will rip so heat it again to pull it off the rubber and you can replace it with cling foam. If it comes off in one peice I keep it attached. It is usually tacky enough to be used as a cling. If it is too sticky I slap a piece of vinyl on it.
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Hi Lindsay,
I want to thank you for these wonderful videos on how you organize your area. Can you tell us because you are in your basement (as am I) do you ever have an issue with spiders?
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not really but I use my space everyday and it is well lit. I can’t vouch for the spideryness of the rest of the cellar though:)
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Your videos are always fun and informative. I have a question about stamp storage. When I do something with my stamps, often people want to know what stamp manufacturer and the name of the stamp set. If you take them all apart and sort by holiday or subject matter, keeping track of the names/mfr is a real chore. I didn’t see you worried about that at all – you just separated the stamps. Any ideas for those of us that might want to know names/mfr? Thanks for all you do!
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you could write the names with a pen on the cling cushion or bare rubber. For clear stamps you can keep the packaging in the page protector you used. The only time I would have a hard time remembering would be generic sentiments. I have my work published in magazing often and I don’t have a hard time recalling who they stamps are by.
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Thanks for all the videos they are great. I store all my StampingUp sets in a plastic heavy duty bureau (looks like a bureau) I bought it at Walmart. It will old about 50 to 60 sets. If you label the top of the sets you can see what you need at a glance.They stand up and easy to get to.
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I have removed all of my wood-mounted stamps from the wood base and store them now like my acrylic stamps! A WHOLE lot less room and now ALL my stamps are together in one bin with the related dies — per Jennifer McGuire’s organizational system. Love it!
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you could ‘fussy cut’ the material you bought with motifs scattered hither and yon; they look really nice used in quilting, I know as I’ve done it Helen, England
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I design and make my own stamps to use in fabric dyeing and surface design. I have been told that putting rubber against plastic can cause degradation of the rubber over a period of time . . .like years maybe. Anyway, the solution was to store rubber stamps, mounted or unmounted resting against fabric (100% cotton) so that there is no reaction chemically. I store my stamps in the shallow plastic trays that are actually made for picture display. I find these at yard sales and even some craft stores when I have a coupon. I use plain white muslin for the fabric. No inks or dyes to potentially transfer.
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WOW, I didn’t know there was someone as into collecting stamps and stuff to do with it as I was! I see many ideas I also use but one of my favourite is Stamping wheels and I put them on pant hangers and hang them in a closet. I also would love to see other ideas you have. I thought I was the only one with such a huge collection. How do you store your magazines and catalogues – I have a huge collection of those too. Thanks from Wendy in Canada XOXO
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I give away magazines and recycle cataloges as soon as I am done reading them so that is one thing in my favor since I can’t gid rid of any supplies;)
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I have always stored my stamps by theme since I started stamping… just made sense to me. I wish I felt good about un-mounting all of my wood mounted stamps so they would take less space, but I just haven’t gotten to that point yet. I have so many stamps and so little space I have to store my wood mounted stamps in boxes, so unfortunately they are not where i can see them easily, but since they are stored by theme, I can see all of my choices for a specific project by just pulling out the correct box (or boxes! :)). They are sort of “filed” in each box using a system I saw on the Internet years ago that works for me at this point.
I also store my cling and clear stamps by theme in photo boxes. It’s not perfect, but I never liked the idea of binders and I’m worse than frugal… I’m cheap and the photo boxes are very inexpensive at Michaels when they have their best sales on them. And the photo boxes are the perfect size in stacks of 2 to fit in my homemade shelving unit. I just label the end of each box with “Christmas”, “Spring”, “Fall”, etc.
I do use some of the plastic containers that sell for $1.00 at Walmart and other places for my wafer thin dies, but they just don’t work for stamps. But, that’s another storage video, I’m sure! LOL!
I wish I had a basement like you do. đŸ™‚ I would have the perfect stamping space if I had a basement. It wouldn’t be the prettiest, but it would be perfect to me. My old house had a basement and I have missed it every day since I moved.
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I watch and love all your videos. Thank you for doing them. I have collected Wooden mounted stamps for years, and have about 850. Each time I acquire a new one, before storing it, I stamp the image on a white sheet of paper with others of the same subject or item inside a page protector in a fat 3 ring binder which is divided by subject/theme (Christmas; Flowers;Animals;Trees, etc., with subdivisions such as Asters; Roses, etc, so that I can see immediately what I have to choose from. I also store the stamps the same way in a small coat closet a handyman converted into a Stamp Room by lining three walls from floor up to 5 feet with narrow shelves (Labeled like the binder) that are similar to your wooden stamp storage except without your horizontal separation. A rolling cart with 5 drawers of supplies fits in the center between the shelves. A wider shelf on each the three walls above the others holds bins. . Good that I live in the South so I don’t have lots of coats. When I ran out of room in the closet, I put all my Christmas stamps in a huge Ziplock bag under my bed. I would like to store my clear stamps in a notebook, also, but when I tried, they all come sliding to the bottom of the page protector. Maybe I need some Aileens Sticky Glue on their backs so they will simi-stick to the page?
JoAnn from North Carolina
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if you use the heavy weight page protectors and place cardstock in them before adding the stamp sets they stay put well enough or get the divided page procectors from Staples, they will have 2-9 pockets in them and you can match the set to the pocket.
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I have all my cling stamps sorted according to theme and in plastic bags. I am now going through each bag and organizing them in DVD boxes from Sampin Up. I love the finished product and the space it saves.
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Thanks for this. I have an obscene amount of both papers and stamps. I have my clear stamps in bins with an index saying what they are like animals, spotches ( mixed media stuff ) oriental ( obscene amount of these also ) I am spread out all over teh place and have to get this act together. I bought from a friend a cabinet her husband made ( a cube ) with strips to hold acrylic photo frames. That makes it easy to see the stamps. Can’t find any more of the frames and would like to make another.
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