5 Days to an Organized Crafty Stash 2016 – Card Stock & Stencil Organization
Are you ready for another day of great organizational tips? We are having so much fun sharing a wealth of ideas. Sometimes it’s the simplest thing that will spark an a-ha moment. Hopefully our lessons in organization are fueling your desire to get things together in your craft space!
We’ve covered inks, stamps, and Die-namics, and now it’s time to attack your card stock and stencil collection. We’ll be covering how to label and store these two things as well as some super ideas for card stock scraps and 6×6 paper pads. Get ready for a whole lot of inspiration that will have your mind reeling with all of the possibilities!
If you don’t have time to attack organization at the moment, be sure to pin our ideas for future reference. Here we go!
The card base is the foundation for our handmade greetings, and while we often cover it with delicious stamping, adorable die cuts, and creative techniques, it wouldn’t and couldn’t come together without card stock.
It seems like we never have enough card stock, doesn’t it? We keep collecting all of the yummy colors searching for the perfect shade. Good thing My Favorite Things has a vast catalog of delicious card stock colors, right?
In order to help you find the perfect color, we provide FREE (yes, free!) downloadable PDFs on our blog listing all of the colors of our Heavyweight Card Stock Sampler and our Prestige Card Stock Samplers. You can find them HERE. Download and print these color charts for easy use.
If you scroll down the page linked above, you’ll also find comparisons of the colors by color family. We do our best to take the guess work out of crafting so that you can get straight to the creativity!
Karin creates a ring of small tags in each color which she has labeled with the names of each shade. This is a great idea for moving around the colors to see how they look together. And you’ll have fun creating it!
Let’s look at some of the ways that you can store your card stocks. Kimberly uses these magazine holders from IKEA. They are sturdy and made of untreated wood, so you could easily customize them with a little spray paint to match the color scheme of your area.
Our snowbird Karolyn says that card stock is one of the items that she duplicates in both of her craft rooms. She quips, “One of my biggest crafty fears is that I’ll run out of card stock. That is not likely to happen any time soon!” She stores her card stock in magazine holders from The Container Store, but you’ll notice that her holders are stored horizontally rather than vertically like Kimberly’s.
Susan stores her card stock vertically too, and adds labels to each container. You’ll notice that everyone seems to store by color. It just makes sense!
Francine stores her card stock in a plastic box in the original packaging. She puts the name of the card stock on top so she can flip through the packs and find what she needs. This allows her to keep the scraps in the packaging.
If you’ve got the space, you can go big like Julie does! Julie stores her card stock in a literature organizer from Storex. With this much space, she has the luxury of one color per slot. Let’s all head over to Julie’s house this afternoon!
Julie also has a few slots for specialty card stock. She keeps all of the silver card stock (for example) in one slot. Each type of specialty card stock is stored in its original package, and each pack is labeled for easy identification.
Now let’s talk scraps! It’s hard to part with even the tiniest bit of paper that is the PERFECT color, but how can they be tamed? Karin sets aside an 8 1/2″ x 11″ page protector for each color family to separate everything neatly.
And then she puts all of the scraps in a magazine holder on her desk for easy access. It’s a great time saver for sure.
In Julie’s card stock tower seen above, she has a labeled sheet protector where she stores her scraps. Having the scraps on top of the full sheets helps her to remember to use her scraps before pulling out a full sheet. Super smart!
***Keeping it real alert***
Ah, yes. This is what you might feel your craft room looks like. Karolyn admits, “If there’s an area where I need some serious organizational mojo, it’s in my scrap bin. I store all of my scraps inside a large plastic drawer unit. Right now it’s so full, I can barely shut the drawer. And there is no organization to it, whatsoever.” Yep, don’t feel bad. One thing at a time. Hopefully Karolyn can benefit from some of the ideas in this post.
***Back to our regularly scheduled organizational tips***
Now that we carry SUPER cute 6×6 patterned paper packs, we have another handy resource for you! Each of our patterned paper packs comes with another FREE (yes, free!) downloadable PDF with Color Reference Guide for matching our card stock. You can find them HERE.
They come in handy 5 3/4″ squares that can be adhered to the back of the pad or you can do what Julie does below. Julie downloads and prints the color reference guide, backs it with gray card stock and places it in a 6×6 page protector like the ones we sell HERE. She stores her paper packs upright in a bin, and the page protector precedes each pack.
But wait — there’s more! On the back side of the color reference guide, Julie has the perfect spot to store scraps from the paper pack. SO clever!
Kimberly keeps all of her paper packs in a basket that she found during back to school sales. It makes it easy to flip through and see which type, color, or style she is looking for!
OK, so let’s talk stencils. Julie stores her stencils in 6×6 page protectors, too. She usually buys two of each of the stencils so she can use one for messy mixed media projects using inks, pastes, and paints, and the other one can be kept clean for embossing. And of COURSE they are labeled. And do we have preprinted label templates available for our stencils? Oh, indeed we do! You can find them HERE.
Kimberly places her stencils in 6×6 page protectors, too, and puts backing paper from the acetate paper pack in between. A great way to repurpose and save a few dollars! She then binds them all together using binder rings like these HERE that you can find in an office supply store.
Wow! Lots of fun ideas to get card stock, scraps, patterned paper, and stencils under control. Looks like there’s going to be a fun weekend of organization on tap!
If color is your thing, please join our MFT Color Challenges on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of every month! And as always, we have a great color resource for you with all of our past color challenges linked HERE.
To make it even easier and more fun for you to pump up your card stock and stencil collection, we have this AWESOME deal to entice you! But don’t delay – it’s a one day only sale. Please note: This sale is good on in stock items only. No rain checks. Excludes brand new. Shop from our vast rainbow of card stock and cool collection of stencils.
Here’s a look of some of the great variety of card stock and stencils that you can add to your stash! Click the pictures to be taken directly to the MFT store.
Before you go, be sure to stop by the blogs of these members of our Creative Team for more ideas of how to organize your card stock, scraps, and stencils.
Now, who wants to get organized?