I get lots of stamps and have amassed quite a stash over the past ten years -- in addition to all the other supplies I have. My space never gets better, but I've had to get smarter at storage. For me, out of sight is definitely out of mind, so I need to store things in a way that make it easily accessible and easy to flip through.
On my bookcase I have unmounted rubber stamps in these great clear plastic folders. They stack together which saves space. I also use a Pluggis bin from Ikea to hold a good chunk of my Tim Holtz stamps. It holds about 45 sets.
All my furniture is Ikea. I have Alex drawer units (two sizes) and Helmer metal drawer units. I like that I can pull the Helmer drawers entirely out of the unit and place them on my desk. I have almost one entire Helmer unit devoted to stamps, and two of these Alex drawers as well. I use the Alex drawer for my wood-mounted stamps and the Helmer for the lighter weight cling stamps. And both are right under my work surface.
This is what the bottom of my desk looks like. Six drawers dedicated to stamping. I keep my inks in a long Alex drawer, and thanks to Jen McGuire I learned that I could stack them up as well instead of laying them all flat. Now I can flip through them easier to find the color I want.
And here's a tip to help you use those stamps -- mark them!
I had a pile of my monthly kit stamps sitting around, unused. Why? Because it was hard to see what the stamps were, so instead of taking the time to pull them out they were getting passed over. And the goal is to use what you buy, right?
Aren't these better? I took about five minutes and grabbed an archival ink pad and just stamped on the paper that came with the stamps. I didn't even put them on a block. I just inked the stamp, pressed the paper on top, cleaned off the stamp with a paper towel spritzed with the Best Cleaner Ever, and then back into the package they went. Now I can see clearly what I have and they will get used.
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