Unmounted Rubber Stamp Storage

Boy howdy! I started something yesterday afternoon I thought I'd finish in a few hours and I'm not sure WHAT I was thinking. I really wish I'd shown you the before, during and after picture but instead you're getting the "home stretch" picture. :) Because I always remember to take pictures AFTER the fact. :-\

Here is the low down though... ;) lol ... I'm not showing you anything new... only my private experience of it all. I've seen LOTS of tutorials on how to store rubber stamps in CD cases and that is exactly what I am showing you now. So... again... just my private experience. :)

First thing I did, was empty out some of the CD cases... and this involved sorting... so I only emptied out the cases with mismatched stamps. You know... singles... stamps from incomplete sets. I grouped these together by theme. Christmas, Halloween, butterflies, coffee/tea, chocolate... so forth. 

The empty CD cases were then cleaned and labels removed for the "NEW Renaming of the CD Cases"... ;) ... it was an OCCASION in need of a title for sure! ;) lol 

Because I didn't think to take a pic of the mess I started with... first I'll show you the objective...

Like I wrote already... nothing new... :) I color coded the labels for myself. The peach labels mean these are complete sets. The blue labels are mismatched stamps but have a theme... again, Christmas, Halloween and so forth and they are in sets of more than one. The label reflects that reading 1 of 3, 2 of 2 and so forth. Purple means there is no rhyme or reason to these. :-\ These are the ones I did last night after the sorting and cleaning. Doesn't seem like much but I started about 4:00 PM and stopped at midnight because I was EXHAUSTED! Now to show you where I'm at...

This is what I am calling the homestretch. The loose red rubber stamps left on the table are new that are needing to have foam backing attached and the blue itty bitty stamps I think I will pass on. These have NEVER been used. I suppose I'll have to find someone to gift these too. There's nothing wrong with them. They were just "leftovers"...  kinda like when men take something apart and when they put it back together there are leftover screws... ;) lol... know what I mean? :)

This is kinda some of the nonsense I had going on last night. Piles and piles of CD cases... these on the bottom right hand side are sentiment and alphabet set cases that will be receiving the same royal treatment as the others. :) I just keep them separately and I forgot I had them until yesterday afternoon. That's how I know I have way too much and am being sinful. :(

One of the reasons I undertook all this, was because I wanted to know exactly what I have and where it is. There's LOTS more nonsense going on here too! :-\

This is what I am doing to the CD cases. I have LOTS of stamps I've not ever used before... I had originally planned to gift some of these... but in order to know what I had... I had to use them. :-\ So now I'm not sure anyone would want them because these are used... being that I used it once to stamp an image so I could know what I have. Double edge sword... hurt going in... hurt coming out. :-\

Except for the case with the clowns, the others house Stampin' Up sets. I kept the original stickers I had placed on the case that housed the set and added some "leftovers" where there was room. I stamped these onto a white index card cut to size and slid this into where the CD sleeve was originally so I could see what was in the case. How easy is it to find what I need now?!? :) I like!

Larger mismatched stamps that seem to be just too many to fit into CD cases are going into these tin cases I bought with Maya Road products in them. I've used some of the product and put the remaining product somewhere else. I kept the tins... just in case I'd need them some day... and look! I did need them some day and here they are now...

These larger index cards will be kept in a file I keep my clear stamp sets index cards. I'll show you these in a later picture. I don't know if you can see it in the picture but I've identified the stamps on the card and I've also done that on the CD cases when they are mixed sets and if I know who the stamp is from. This index card was the first one I stamped and realized as I was going along I should have planned it first so I could ensure all the images fit. I did that with the rest of the cards. :) I always learn from my mistakes! :)

The labels themselves tell me what are in the cases...

Just to give you an idea of why I am so excited about what I did... let me show you what I started with...

These were all jimbled jambled and I had to read each label to figure out where something was and then... there were no images of what was in the case so I kinda had to rely on a visual of backward imaged stamps. You know what I am talking about... not always an easy task. :( 

This picture is showing the Maya Road tins I referenced earlier. The scribblings on there don't mean anything... just an idea I had months ago that did not take off. :(

Did you read my Clear Stamp Storage post? Well... you should! Go read it... I'll wait here... ;) lol ... this is where I keep the index cards I referenced in that post.

I have two of these. The other box is for household record keeping and in order to easily recognize what box was what... I put that red sticker on this one. I came to that conclusion rather easily... sharing it with you might make me seem a little crazy but I have to tell you my logic. The majority of my clear stamp sets come from Raisin Boat. I've written about them before many times. I love Raisin Boat! :) So I chose red because it starts with the letter "R" like Raisin Boat does. :) lol See! I told you I might appear a little crazy! Or does it make perfect sense to you as well and you didn't even need me to explain my madness? ;)

So this is how I separated the Raisin Boat index cards...

I didn't want to spend extra money I don't have right now... going to school full-time does that to a person... so I used regular index cards to separate the "categories" I've got going on here too. These are in alphabetical order and somewhat color coded. You can kinda see "July 4th" peeking out and it is in red and blue... ever so appropriate... don't you agree? lol ;) All the Raisin Boat stamps are sorted like this. 

Then I have "other" (Some Odd Girl, Crafty Secrets, Hannah and 'others') clear stamp sets sorted like this and am adding the rubber index cards I am working on here to the rear of that.

I don't have many of the other and rubber so that is why these are kinda just lumped together.

My biggest fear is that I may have to reorganize the rubber index cards someday... for now I know they will all fit in this filing box because there's lots of room to grow into... but I still have these rubber stamps that remain untouched...

You can see most of these are LARGE stamps that won't really fit into a CD case; however, there are some smaller ones that WILL fit now since I have five empty CD cases... MORE "leftovers"... and those will also be sorted, stamped and labeled as well.

These are more of the larger stamps that won't fit into the CD cases... I had this original thought on how to store them... but I am rethinking it... just not sure how to resolve the large stamp storage issue yet... I'm still thinking on that one. If you have a suggestion... PLEASE... share with me! :)

Now this post has been about UNMOUNTED rubber stamp storage. I still have these to contend with... I'm kinda horrified by how I'm storing these stamps... but I will be putting up some shelves this summer and this will resolve the majority of these storage issues; however... 

many of these are small... I can't help but think they have to remain right where they are.

Ssooo... what are your thoughts on all this nonsense? I'd love to hear them! Thanks for stopping by! :)