Monday, June 9, 2014

Organization - Die Storage

My die collection seems to be growing in leaps and bounds.  I found a binder storage solution a few years back to house my wafer thin dies, but it's time to expand to something more flexible.

The picture on the left shows my current setup.  The photo box on the bottom left houses my embossing folders; nothing will change with that system (maybe I'll update the label on the front of the box).  The CD box on the top left houses four CD cases containing my Nestibilies (seems like a large box for four CD cases).  The two binders on the right measure 5 1/2  x 8 1/2 inches and I use those for my thin dies.  These two binders are stuffed to the gills and I needed to come up with a solution but didn't want to expand into another section of my Expedit.

Here are some shots of the way my binders were organized.  I purchased the binders from Staples (Martha Stewart) as well as the three different formats of page protectors.  The first picture below shows how I stored individual dies and smaller sets.  There are four pockets per page and I cut magnet sheets to fit into each pocket.  This controlled the placement of the dies and also gave the pocket some structure.  The next two pictures show a version of the pockets that have two per page.  The last picture with the book on the right shows a full sheet page protector, these are great for favor or border dies.
 

I've decided to take all the smaller dies out of these binders and use a system I recently saw on Jennifer McGuire's blog.  She uses CD sleeves and labels the sleeve with a P-touch label maker.  I cut white card stock to give the sleeve structure.  I also used the same method Jennifer did when it came to making dividers; I cut poly file folders (5 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches) and rounded the corners.  Since I already had a CD box housing my Nestibilies crying to be used, it's just a little switch-a-roo, and also not expanding outside the current footprint in my Expedit.  This will free up one of the binders for new favor and border dies (with just a purchase of new protectors).