Hey there! Today the Baker’s Dozen and I are back with our third Studio Challenge! Each month we take you into our stamp room to share our tips, tricks, and favorites!

Our challenge this month is all about the stamp studio (or desk, or closet, or hutch) or wherever we call our stamping home:

Within Arm’s
Reach – What do you keep within arm’s reach at your stamp table?  Show
us what you have access to without leaving your seat.  What organization
methods do you use?  Tell us which ones you love and which ones you’d
like to change.

My stamp studio is always a work in progress. As I continue adding new things and purging others it’s always in need of re-organization and re-purposing of space. I certainly wouldn’t characterize myself as a neatnik! In fact, I think my creativity thrives when my room looks like a tornado. That is until I can’t clear a 4″ space on my desk to stamp… then it’s time to clean! I have a fairly large stamp desk in the shape of an ‘L’ but there are only a few things important enough to find their place ON the stamp table. I reserve most of the space for the clutter that finds its home there when I’m on a creative tear. *grin*

Here’s what I keep directly in front of me on my stamp desk:

The pure necessities… Copic markers, Distress markers, Best Glue Ever, and my rotating caddy filled with tools like scissors, paper distresser, pencils, pens, watercolor brushes, sanding blocks, etc. etc. And of course my container of acrylic blocks.

My Copic storage shelves are Studio 3 Color Cubbies, however, I don’t think the company is making them any longer. My rotating tool caddy is from Michaels and my other little pen holder is from Target. All of my desktop storage works really well for me and it’s easy to keep organized which is a plus since everything else on my desk is usually spread out and chaotic!

When I turn around in my chair I have all of my inks behind me:

I store my Colorbox and Memento full size pads in small cubbies (I can’t remember where I picked them up?). And then I store all of my Dew Drop inks in the cases from our Key Ingredients kits. I stamped out each of the ink pads onto strips of paper for easy reference so I can match up the color quickly and easily. I love storing my Dew Drops in the kit cases because it’s compact and you can fit a ton in there. But I have been searching for a while for something new to store my full-size pads that will work in the space I have available. As you can see, all my cubbies are full!

Off to one side of my inks is my ribbon storage:

At my last job we used to order these large tubs of cookies and after the cookies ran out I brought the plastic tubs home and used them for ribbon scraps. I have one for each color and then I ordered custom vinyl stickers for each container. I love my ribbon storage! It’s easy to see and it’s amazing how much ribbon fits inside!

On the other side of my inks is my die cutting station where I keep my beloved Big Shot and all of my dies on magnets inside Mini Binder Boxes with Plain Storage Panels. The entirety of my die storage will likely be a post of its own very soon!

And then underneath my inks I have several shelves of stamps which I also store in Mini & Petite Storage Boxes:

I recently labeled each of the spines with the names of the sets inside. After I finished the project I wished I had somehow made them all look uniform. I’m still considering some type of color coding system for the spines but I haven’t figured out how that would work yet. I didn’t organize them by collection (i.e. Whimsical Wishes, Apple Doodle, etc.). I found that organizing by holiday/season made more sense to me. So perhaps my color coding would be Halloween – Orange, Christmas – Red, etc. etc. Then I could glance and find which holiday/season I was looking for easily (as long as I can remember what color I assigned to each holiday!). See what I mean… always a work in progress!

And last is my biggest work in progress. I haven’t quite figured out how I’d like to store my patterned paper. I work primarily with 6×6 pads and here’s how I currently store them:

It’s a shoe box sized plastic tub. They’re easy to flip through, but as I continue to use them the extra pieces fall out into the bottom and the tub is really heavy to get out when it gets full (and it’s certainly never close to empty with my patterned paper ‘habit’!).

So maybe the other girls have a perfect solution waiting for me! Or if you have a tried and true method for your 6×6 papers I’d love to hear about it! Check out the rest of the Baker’s Dozen “Within Arm’s Reach” ideas and perhaps you’ll find your next storage solution!

• Cammie King (Guest Designer)
• Charmaine Ikach
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you all have a wonderful day!