Shopping Haul and Storage

Almost every time I go to the nearest city, I can't help but pick up crafting supplies. I almost need an intervention or something, but I promise to eventually use everything I have currently.

First up, I bought more wire cubes from Walmart for my paper stack storage (original post can be found here). Let me just say that I hate these ones because they're different than my other ones. The original set I have is Rubbermaid, and the little circle connector pieces are sturdy and nearly impossible to get on/off, which is GOOD. That means when I'm dragging it across the floor it doesn't start falling apart.

I found all the extra connector pieces from the first set of cubes, and replaced the terrible ones so that it won't fall apart. Thank goodness. The last thing anyone wants is to come home from work and find a giant paper mess everywhere.

Here's my complete paperstack unit currently. I made two entire cubes again and just stacked the top one on top of the bottom one. They're not currently attached to each other so I can take the top two cubes off and move it easily. I realize now that I could use a couple more to get all of my 12 x 12" sheets onto racks like this. I like that I can see all the colours on the top just by standing there looking at them, and all my paperstacks are right there within reach as well. When I have more wall space they probably won't be stacked, or they'll actually be attached to each other.

Last week I went shopping for a few items for my penpals, and conditioner. I stumbled across this adorable binder. I love owls in case you didn't know. I knew immediately that with some pocket pages this would be exactly what I needed to get all my stamps into manageable storage.

I only bought 8 1/2" x 11" pocket pages for now so I could measure my other stamps and see how small I could go and how many I would need. I simply slipped my stamps into the pages, leaving them attached to the plastic sheets they came on. I started with the larger stamps, and left the others in the box. I'll get more pages and show you the finished project when I finally get them all into it. I also need to get dividers so I can sort them by season/use/holiday.

Last year I did a lot of my Christmas cards on the go because Jon was working a lot, and my basement was way too cold to work in for a long period of time. I found this at Walmart, and since I figure I'll be crafting Christmas cards on the go again, this will keep all my tools together in one place. I can also use it when I'm penpalling on the go. It's a win win.

I love these stamps. I have 4-5 sets of stamps like these for different purposes. I have a baby set that I used on some baby cards a while back, a Christmas set that I used for a custom order last year, and a Graduation set that I used when I graduated from college. I also love that they include a little block for them. It's the perfect size!

I don't use permanent markers a lot, but I couldn't pass these up. Who doesn't want neon Sharpies? You never know when they might come in handy! I love the Sharpie pens for writing letters.

Jon got a Staples gift card with his credit card points, so I picked up some much needed cardstock. I prefer Staples for most of my 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock because it comes in these giant packs and it's so much cheaper. I buy all of my white cardstock from them because I go through it the most!

The colours on the front don't even closely match the actual colours of the paper. The top 5 colours are the package on the left, and the bottom 5 are the package on the right. I love love love the purple and pink in the bottom stack. The yellow's are practically the same, guess I'll need to start using more yellow.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thursday! Only one more day until the long weekend! Hooray!

-Alex

Paper Stack Storage Solution

Alright, so for those of you who know me, I have a love of paper. There has only been a handful of times that I've gone shopping, and not bought at least one paper stack. Unfortunately, that means that I have A LOT of paper.
I don't know that there is any right way to store it, but while browsing my Instagram feed, I came across a crafty lady who had come done what I'm about to show you. I thought it was the smartest thing I'd ever seen!
At some point I'd like to get more shelves so I can store all of my paper this way, and not just my paper stacks.

So, there's my shelf. I'm sure you've seen them at Walmart and thought "What would I ever use that for? Things would fall through the holes". They also have fabric boxes that could fit into the cubes. It worked for other things for a while, but I decided that it wasn't working for me that way. So I took it apart and found some metal ties (metal twist ties from bread or garbage bags work).

I assembled two of the cubes and used the remaining pieces (plus two I took from another one of these) to make this. I used twist ties to secure each shelf to the outside in five places. Two on either side and one on the back in the middle. Then I slid all of my paper stacks into it and ta da. You could also use this for individual sheets, just put similar patterns/colours together.

There you have it! A simple storage solution you can make yourself. And there is no limit to how many cubes you could build, I think I might add another two cubes onto this for all my other paper!

Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone!

-Alex