A couple months ago i was reading the Cocoa Daisy Blog and found this awesome stencil storage solution Alissa had posted. Be still my heart for mine had been tucked shoved into 12 x 12 file folders and to be honest it was getting hard to close the draw. You see i hardly ever leave them in their packaging. out of the packaging, in the packaging, out of the packaging. Yeah that's just too much work for how often i use these amazing design tools from The Crafter's Workshop. I actually think i gasped while reading her post. How simple & brilliant is her storage solution? and of course i was struck with a big "DUH, why didn't i think of that?" Sometimes you can miss the obvious.
I grabbed some page protectors and started adding in my 12 x 12 stencils. Yes i'm a dirty girl. Like Julie, i don't clean my stencils. I do occassionally wash them off but i'm not going to spend hours making them look brand new. it's just not me. Alexi helped with this task trememdously. My left side of my brain took over and demanded labels on the page protectors and of course the 12 x 12 had to go in alphabetical order. I am thinking of jacking Alissa's idea further and adding in the colored cardstock.
As for the little guys, those are arranged in 6 x 6 page protectors by groupings. I am always adding to my stash of stencils (say that 3 times fast) so alphabetical order didn't make sense to me. Right brain took control again and said they should be arranged by likeness. So i gathered them in groups of 4, what made sense to me. Alexi again was a tremendous help. She colored most of the backgrounds and added in all the labels. They now are all tucked into a grey album that's begging to be altered with stencils but that's a project for another day.
I LOVE this new storage. It has been incredibly useful to just fill through my album to search for the perfect stencil. Plus i actually put them away when i am done! There are a few protectors left to fill but i am guessing it won't take me long to add in more stencils!
