I love stamping with clear, polymer stamps; I like the advantage of being able to see where I am placing the image on paper.
Most of my clear stamp sets contain sentiments along with images, and after accumulating a few sets it becomes quite difficult to remember where specific sentiments are located within the sets.
Here's another scenario: I have a few cute, itty bitty tags - I wonder if I have a tiny 'Mom" stamp that will fit?
What ultimately prompted this project was my constant feeling of not utilizing what I had purchased to the best of my ability, and my inability to quickly and efficiently locate sentiments by occasion.
Wood mounted stamps are easily stored in drawers, separated by occasion, and the manufacturer is already labeled and located on the wood mount.
However, with polymer stamps, I wanted to maintain the integrity of each stamp set. Divvying them up was not an option for me. If I relocated a clear, polymer sentiment stamp from its original storage CD, and housed it by occasion in a binder or other storage device, it would be difficult and time consuming for me to determine the set it originally belonged to, or the manufacturer. I prefer to know (and ultimately, to let you know) what manufacturer I was using when I write up a blog post or submit a project, so keeping the sets intact is vital to me.
Plus, some sentiments work well in multiple categories.
I have maintained a binder that contains images of all polymer stamp sets I've purchased - easy to flip through to get ideas - I simply used the packaging that came with each stamp set and inserted them into clear sleeves. This system, however, is not ideal at all for locating a sentiment by occasion or size/font.
Thus began my journey to organize all clear, polymer sentiments into a system that would allow me to quickly and easily view, select then locate the perfect sentiment by occasion.
Photo above was taken during the process.
(If you are curious as to what the yellow highlighted set names indicate: I have a separate area for CD sets that are only sentiments and without images. These sets are separated from the others, and organized alphabetically.)
I utilized both sides of the white cardstock - knowing they would be placed in clear sleeves.
If I had begun this process when I first started accumulating clear, polymer sets, it would have been just a matter of maintenance...adding to the occasion binder as the set(s) was/were purchased. Kinda like teaching my kids to make sure their dirty clothes are placed in the hamper right-side-out, so one does not spend 20 minutes turning dirty clothing right-side-out on wash day.
This took many, many hours over the course of six days. Manufacturers are separated by sheet within each occasion, and labeled accordingly.
If you are wondering why I didn't just use the packaging or print them out on the computer - well, I wanted the sentiments to be easily read, not have some upside down, written up the side or on an angle, as is often done on the packaging label. Also...SCALE. Some packaging from stamp sets and what is available online has the scale reduced. I wanted an actual representation of what I owned.
Categories I used:
birthday
coffee/just-a-note/hello/you're invited
thank you
love/anniversary/wedding/congrats
sympathy
friendship
thinking of you
calendar holidays/seasonal
get well
baby/home
other
'calendar holidays' category is for Mother's Day, Halloween, and so forth.
This method is incredibly efficient for me.
And lo and behold...I do have a 'Mom' stamp that will fit on that itty bitty tag!
