My Paper and Cardstock Crafty Storage

I haven't shared one of my Crafty Storage or craft storage ideas for a while. You know I love it, but sometimes I just don't find the energy or time to actually take photos and post about it.

Today i wanted to share a bit in more detail how I store my 12" paper and card, just the 12 x 12" because I keep my A4 and 6x6 in other units.

I got this unit from Ikea of course. It is not an Expedit or Kallax, but the cubes are almost identical to those and has since long been discontinued. It has four columns and five rows, so it makes 20 cubes and as always, I could do with some more!

Here more or less you can see what I have in each cube. (The bottom left cube I have props too.) 

As you can see i prefer to store my paper and card vertically just because it is the most space efficient way. It is NOT the best way to store paper or card as if it is not relatively full the paper bend (see cube above adhesives, bottom left corner). However, I do have s much paper and card that most of it is so full that it doesn't bend. And when looking for the perfect shade of a colour or the right pattern it is so much easier to do when it is stored vertical than horizontal.

For the patterned paper I have been using MUJI's suspension box folder, but they need to be pretty full otherwise the paper will bend.

As you can see I have a few horizontal plastic trays. They are good, but they are not efficient if you have loads of paper/card. The lip makes it impossible to store a lot of product because then it is hard to get it out. Also, it can only go horizontal.

But the unit in the middle, made in Spain by Manresa Scrap is my new addition and I love it!
As you can see fits nicely inside the cube and will fit perfectly in the Expedit or Kallax units too.

It can also stand alone.

What I love most about this unit is that it can go both vertical or horizontal depending how much paper/card you have.

Also I love that the trays in between act as a drawer both when horizontal or vertical. I can't tell you how much of a difference makes when you are browsing for that perfect shade of that colour.
Really well done Manresa Scrap!

I would say that horizontal is the better way to store card and paper if you haven't got much, but vertical is the way to go if you have a lot of different ones!

So, my recommendation is to go for a system that allows you to grow, ie that can go both vertically and horizontally.

How I store Wafer Thins dies with matching Stamps

I shared over time a few ideas on how to store dies, specially Sizzix dies since I worked closely with them everyday. I have shared on this same blog how I store entire collections of Framelits or Wafer Thin dies here or how I store Bigz and Movers & Shapers here on the Sizzix EU blog.

Today I am sharing how I store those sets that come with matching clear stamps - not the ones with rubber stamps.

He compartido en mas de una ocasión como guardo troqueles, es especial los de Sizzix ya que trabajo con ellos cada día. Previos post sobre los otro tipo de troqueles como colecciones enteras de Framelits sin sellos o como guardo Bigz y Movers & Shapers en el blog de Sizzix EU.

Hoy comparto esta ide de como guardo los troqueles super finos - los de Sizzix se llaman Framelits - que vienen con sellos transparentes solamente no los son sellos de caucho. 

Dies and Stamps Available in the UK from Craftie Charlie

Like this one above which is one of the ones I have designed for Sizzix, Leafy Trees, but it will work with any of the Sizzix Framelits with clear stamps sets - at least released before April 2014!

Me refiero a sets como el de la foto de arriba que es uno de los que he diseñado para Sizzix. Pero esta solución funciona para cualquier Sizzix Framelits con sellos transparentes, al menos los que han sacado con anterioridad a abril de 2014.

I use CD calendar cases. Traditional clear CD cases without the disc holders will also work, but in my eyes not as well as they have an aperture in the hinged edge as showed on the right photo. This can and probably cause problems such as loosing dies and/or stamps.

The CD calendar cases instead become completely closed and are exactly the same size as traditional clear CD.

Utilizo cajas de Calendario tamaño CD. La diferencia entre estos y las cajas tradicionales es que las tradicionales tienen un abertura/ranura en el eje izquierdo - este se crea cuando se quita el sujeta disco. Esta diferencia es para mi fundamental porque he perdido sellos/troqueles gracias a esta ranura, en la foto de la derecha se puede ver bien como cabe mi dedo en la ranura. Aparte de eso, las cajas de Calendario son iguales a las de CD.

On the side with the ridge I place a piece of magnetic sheets - I like the ones from Woodware as they are good value, not too heavy but strong magnet. On the other side I place the reference sheet with the stamps on and attach it with two glue dots. All safely inside and ready to use together or in its own.

Dentro de la caja pongo los troqueles con una hoja magnética, me gusta la de Woodware porque no pesan mucho pero son fuertes. En el otro lado pogo los sellos con su transparencia de referencia pegada a la caja con dos glue dots. Así están seguros y fácil de encontrar el correspondiente troquel-sello.

And here you can see how I store them with other Sizzix dies. I use a DVD clear box from Muji which acts like a shelf in this case. Texture Impressions folders, CD cases, Bigz dies and DVD cases for Framelit only collections all fit beautifully.
I hope this was helpful. You know I love my Crafty Storage!

Finalmente, podéis ver como guardo las cajas junto junto a otro tipo de troqueles de Sizzix. Uso una caja para DVD de MUJI que utilizo como estantería en la cual los Bigz, las texturadoras y las cajas de DVD  caben perfectamente. Espero que os haya gustado/sido útil este post. Ya sabeis que me encanta el Crafty Storage!

Ikea Expedit discontinued?

Looks like Ikea's Expedit units soon will be extinct. (Insert cries from many Crafty Storers.)
Fear not, they are not stupid at IKEA. It is not only Crafty Storers that love the Expedit. They know it is one of their cult lines so they are bringing out a refreshed version, the Kallax, pictured bellow.

To me it looks pretty much the same to the old Expedit bellow:

Advantages, the thinner outside edges makes the whole unit slightly smaller all together, but maintain the essential inner cubes sizing, which is the essential thing for 12 x 12 papers and Vinyl records (yes their collectors are more worried than us crafters!)

Disadvantages, actually more questions than disadvantages. Will there be a 5 x 5 cube option? What colours will be available? 

UPDATE August 2015: Looks like all the options of the Expedit are more or less still available in Kallax, plus some more. Well done Ikea! (Not always gets it right for us Craft Storagers, but this time they have!)

This is what Ikea says:

IKEA has updated and improved the EXPEDIT shelving unit with a sleek, new design that is more durable (with a more scratch-resistant surface), more child-friendly (with rounded corners), and still fits all existing storage baskets and boxes. With this new design, IKEA is giving EXPEDIT a new name: KALLAX. KALLAX will be available to consumers in the U.S. starting this April.

Here for the complete IKEA USA official statement.

And here for an interesting article by the BBC.

And here for the Gizmodo article.

And here for the one in the Huffington Post.

So, IKEA when will be available in Europe and the rest of the world?

To see the full range of Kallax click on the appropriate country
(Just listed the countries that visit my blog):

UK | USA | D | ES | FR | CA 

The Jubilee and some storage ideas

This week I did two posts over at the Sizzix Uk blog, one about the Jubilee celebrations and another one about storage of die cutting products. Go on, have a look!

Wednesday Storage Ideas: Copics and Promarkers

Although some of you may have seen this before over at my Crafty Storage blog, I wanted to share it here again as I often get asked how I store my markers.

This is how I store my solvent based markers, using an Acrylic Partition Desk Tidy from Muji. Several advantages. One of them is that you can store two ways: horizontal, perfect for one person, or upright for sharing.

The other main advantage is that you can store a couple -maybe more- on top of each other like above.

Wednesday Storage Ideas

Today I would like to share how I store my inkpads. While I consider me a papercrafter rather than a stamper, stamping is one of my staples of my crafting, something that I use almost for every card I make. For that reason it was important to me that my inks are available very near my work area, so having them over my work desk seemed like the perfect position.

I use two 40 cassette holders side by side. Old cassettes have a similar width as standard ink pads, however they are hard to come by, the fab Caz found those. In the one on the right, I removed the partition for the cassettes so instead of 40 it holds 60 ink pads as long as you put them narrow side in or they are Ranger size (3"). Above the cassette holders, I have an acrylic unit that holds the smaller size circle punches -another of my crafting basics- and above that I have other ink pads that I rarely use. If they are out of sight, they are out of mind, so I have them there so I can still use them if I need to, although they are much harder for me to get them as I am only 5' 1".

Since I favor smaller ink pads these days, great value and less storage space, I decided on getting four Muji acrylic drawers, two of them are the old version which feature three drawers and the other two are the newer ones that have 2 drawers but deeper. Honestly, I prefer the older ones as they hold 1/3 rd more ink pads.

All my Brilliance dew drops ink pads are in one drawer.

VersaMagic Dew Drops and Fluid Chalk ink Cats Eye pads share two drawers divided by color.

My cube Stampin Up inks are also in two drawers by colour shade. Some Cats Eye pads that would not fit in their correspondent drawer are in this one.

Memento ink pads have a drawer all for themselves too.

The top drawers hold Perfect Pearls and similar mica powder products, something that I use quite often.

It does work quite well for me!

Studio - Raising the Table

Today I would like a bit of work, nothing major just raising the table, that Omar did on my studio. So I thought it would be nice to share it with you all. Yes, my studio is a mess more times than not, but it is an organized mess, I pretty much know where everything is.

The photo above is how the studio just before, although I already cleared the table. You can see the height of the table is a standard one, a good 10 cm lower than the kitchen trolley with the drawers near by.

The table is a dinning table that my parents got us a few years back for the dinning room that now is my studio. Here is just upside down ready to put the extra legs from Ikea, of course! All those boxes? QVC kits.

There are two great things about having raised the table 10cm. First, of course is that I get 10cm of extra storage underneath, and you know, any extra cm of space is welcome.

But the most important thing that I get is no pain on my back. You see, I usually work standing up, so bending over the regular height table that I had before made my back ache, not terribly but enough to make me think of a solution. Since I have raised it, my back is been pretty good.

Of course, I needed a new chair, one that was raised enough to work with the new height of the table.

Besides the no pain in the back part, the best thing about this new table? it only cost a fiver to raise the table.

Studio

Can you spot the difference?
Before:


After:


Apart of being a bit tidier and a different type of shot, there is a shelf over my Ikea wooden trolley. I never thought a shelf could make such a difference in a room and more importantly in my creativity. I have a much bigger standing up working area and I have all the essentials at the reach of my hand.

And of course as the brackets are metallic it means that I can use my magnets to hold some extras such as my ring binders with my card swatches, important reminders or even calendars.

Launching Crafty Storage Blog

I have had this idea for a while that it would be great to have a blog dedicated to all the craft storage ideas that we all have. Last week while I was with Julie, she encourage me to do it.
So finally I have decided to do it. It will be at http://craftystorage.blogspot.com. As a trial I have upload some photos of my studio today as well as a couple send by Chrissie.

My idea is to be an open space with a team, but for now if you want to post any photos just pm or email me the photos and wording that explain them.
The labels will be applied for the different ways of storing items, like Buttons, Ribbon and so on..

Any links to wonderful sites with studios/shops will be great and I'll put them as links on the bar.

Everyone is invited to participate and all suggestions are welcome!

The fruits of an Ikea visit

This is my favorite wall in my studio. Still not perfect though.
The white unit on the right was what I bought at IKEA on Saturday, an small addotion that is just a pretty fill up.
Today I had a blast. I spent the day with the faboulous Julie Hickey. We had lunch at my locel Pizza Express and they we venture ourselves to Ikea, only two days after I went alone but it is actually not far at all from me 10-15mins. I bought the small cookie jars that i had love from day one to fit in the shelving unit. On them I put all the prima daisies by colour, love the colour splash in the wall in front of me while I am working.
This is one thing I have been after for so long. The actual metal thing is from Tesco, is an over the door rail for towels. It is fantastic to store all my ribbons. Another splash the colour in my sight that inspires me to create.

Scraps Storage Ideas

Those who have been in to my studio know that I am crazy about storage. Practically there is not onw single day that I am not thinking which is the best way to maximize the space that I have, concequence of having been in a studio that was a shoe box type of room. Well even though now I have a fairly large room (what should be a dinning room) I still find myself thinking of moving things around in order to have everything tidy, easy to reach and inspiring. So when a few days ago I read a thread over at www.ukscrappers.com about how to store scraps, I decided to post a photo of how I do mine.
This kraft boxes are fairly big, they come with the black metal handles in both sides which makes a really big difference when you have very heavy contents inside, and as you know cardstock is heavy. On the left one I have all my packs of Bazzill Monochromatic 5.5 x8.5" sheets, organized by colour. On the right one I have my scraps.
As you can see on the second photo, I just separete the scraps by colour using an A4 white card with a tab of the colour of the scraps. Simple but really handy, easy to tidy and use.