Spotlight Artist - Niki - Stamp Storage

Hello all you wonderful crafty people! Niki here, I would like to show you a practical way to store some of your unmounted stamps. I know there are many websites, videos, and DIY's out there about stamp storage but wanted to share my inexpensive way of storing stamps. We want to make room for any Christmas art supplies you receive from Santa right? I hope you enjoy and may be share how you store your stamps as well. Lets begin!

Supplies Needed: Unmounted Stamps (of course!)
                           3 Ring Binder
                           Card Stock (any light colors will work)
                           Hole punch
                           Clear Trading Card Binder Pages (like how Baseball cards are stored)
                           Clear Sheet Protectors
                           Black Archival Ink

I started with a white 3 ring binder because I have numerous ones from college. The trading card binder pages were purchased at Staples on sale (I think it was $3.99).

I also had the sheet protectors on hand because of my college classes as well. These are not expensive to buy though if you don't have any on hand.

We all have Cardstock in our stash, so that should be an easy item. I used pale green for this binder. You can use black but then the stamps won't really show up unless you use white ink to stamp with.

Now to put it all together. I started with the Clear Trading Card pages for the single stamps I have. Just slip the stamps into the slot and you are done! Easy peasy! I leave the clear plastic covers on the stamps because a lot of them have the design of the stamp on one side. You also have the choice of using a piece of your cardstock to stamp the image onto and slip that into the sleeve as well so you have an easy visual of your stamps in their slots.

Now for the Clear Page Protectors. First, pick out what stamps you want for this "page" of your stamp storage book. I used BoBunny's butterfly stamps and Gates. Using your black Archival ink, stamp all of the images onto your cardstock piece. Make sure you stamp the images in the place that you want to keep them, so that your stamps line up with the stamped image when the page is turned (this is the green page that you see in the picture below).  

Hole punch your cardstock so that it fits into your binder. Now we use the page protector-I cut 2 sides of the page protector, leaving the side that has the holes intact. This allows you easy access to your stamps without having to dig to the bottom of the page protector and have to pull the stamp out. Attach the clear plastic backing from your stamps to the inside back page protector (I used a clear tape gun, you can see the white strips in the picture below.

Than attach the pre-stamped clear plastic backing to the inside front of the page protector.

When you close this page, you should have 3 parts-the front of the page protector, your stamps, and the back of the page protector. Then your cardstock page with the stamped images.

Now you have your first page done and your stamps are easy to get to, as well as being organized! Pat yourself on the back! You can categorize your stamps if you would like. I don't have a huge amount (yet), so I just kept the stamps together by the company.

Keep adding pages and watch your stamp collection get organized in a relatively short amount of time! I did this binder while watching TV. The part that took the longest was stamping the image onto the green cardstock.

This is the stamped image on the green cardstock. I did cut out the make/name of the stamp set and glued it to my cardstock. I did this because it will be easy for me to remember where the stamp came from in case I need a new one.

Now your binder is full and ready to go! This also makes it easy to take your stamps to crops, or a crafty get-together with your friends. Win, win right?

I hope you enjoyed this post and maybe learned something new. We all have our ways of storing art supplies so feel free to share how you store your stamps! Hugs and Carpe Diem! ~Niki

Remember to check out our current challenge, It's Ornamental, hosted by the lovely Cec! Now that your stamps are organized and easy to get to, you know what Holiday stamps you have. Happy Holidays!