Friday, February 20, 2015

Tips & Tricks - die storage

Sooooo, I was supposed to have a card to share with you today. On Wednesday evening I printed my digi image from Bugaboo Stamps, colored it 3 different times (because I wasn't happy with the first two attempts) then left it sit on the coffee table where I had colored it because I was being lazy and thinking I'd get to it on Thursday evening and make the actual card. Well, Thursday morning when I woke up there was a slight problem!! One of my kittys, who rarely ever do anything wrong, had done something very wrong! They never get on the table but my Valentine flowers proved too much of a draw so on the table he went...we all know where this is leading...what a mess!! I had colored a cute watering can filled with flowers but seriously, they didn't need actual watering...good grief!!

Well, all this means I don't have a card to post. I'll have to recolor my image then make a card for it. At least I have the colors I wan't to use now (thanks to already coloring it 3 times, lol) and a layout kind of figured out. Darn cats, sigh!! I haven't posted in a while since I was a bit under the weather and didn't want to NOT post something today so I thought I'd do a little segment that I haven't done in ages and share a little storage tip with you.




Have you ever bought a die that has multiple pieces? They all come in those thin "re-closable" bags that stop re-closing after the 3rd time because the sticky isn't sticky any longer and the sides rip out...yeah, what a pain!! Well, For quite some time now I've had a partial solution and now I finally have the whole issue figured out thanks to one of my students in the mini Christmas album class I taught at my local stamping shop! 

I've used the Avery Elle envelopes for my stamps and dies for a long time now and LOVE them. Heavy duty, plenty of room...perfect. However, when you have dies that have multiple pieces and/or stack you still end up with a mess like this...

Someone asked about a certain die I was using for the book and I pulled out my Avery Elle envelope with my Taylored Expressions Postage Stamp Stacklet die set (that was all loose and jumbled in the bottom of the envelope) to show her. The gal next to her said she had a perfect trick to keep my dies organized. Sometimes you get lucky and a die will come on a little magnetic sheet (woo-hoo, right?) but I never thought to go to my local big box home improvement store and BUY magnetic sheets that can be cut to any size I want! Vent covers!!! DUH!! For $4 & change I got this 3 pack of 8" X 15" sheets. They can be found hanging right next to the floor vent replacements. These magnetic sheets are a little sturdier than the ones that some dies come with so I'm going to eventually replace those as well. 
I measured out the size I wanted and cut it with a regular pair of scissors. The underside is white so I easily measured and made pencil marks so that my cutting lines were straight.
Now all of my dies are not only in nice little envelopes but aren't banging around and all jumbled up either!


Well that's it for me today. I hope you enjoyed this little trick that I came across! I'll see ya on Monday with a card...promise ;)

1 comment:

  1. These are the magnets that I use too Tina as well as the envelopes from Avery. These magnets are much more cheaper than the "crafty" ones. lol Hugs, Brenda

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