create with cheiron

swatching and storing seasonal distress mica stains

Hi there crafty friends! Once again, I am cleaning my studio and trying to keep all the things I love the most within reach....especially my Distress Mica Stains. I have collected all the seasonal Halloween Distress Mica Stain and Holiday Distress Mica Stain colors and wanted to be able to see them all together when creating. In addition to the swatches I always make, I decided to print out the fillable color charts for Ranger which are great to keep on hand as a reference. I like to use these to add sparkle and shine to my projects ALL YEAR ROUND! 

First I always create swatch tags using a Splat Box and Distress Watercolor Cardstock since it is the surface I use the most and I keep my swatches on a ring so I have all the colors together. This is great when you want to take them off and play around with new color combos. I cut the tags from these Tim Holtz Sizzix tag dies. 

I also went back on all my swatches and wrote the name and set number each color came from in case I need to refererence (or reorder)!  This has helped me out tremendously. 

For these bottles, I used the Small Round Swatch Labels from Ranger. I put the label on the cap and while I am creating my tags, I dip it in the stain and let it dry then wipe of any excess with a paper towel. So far they all have stayed on. 

I found a container in my collection that will fit all 36 stains and also fits perfectly in one of my Ikea rolling carts. UPDATED: The bin is an idesign kitchen bim from The Container Store measuring 10 x 6 x 3 inches.

I downloaded the printable charts from Ranger and printed them on card stock here are the links for Halloween and Holiday. I cut my swatch papers 3/4 x 1 1/4 and they seemed to fit perfectly. I adhered the dried swatch papers to the chart using Distress Collage Medium. 

I put both of my charts into a Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Everything 9.5 x 12 sleeve facing out so I have them in the cart with my stains and it is super handy to keep on my table while I am creating without my charts getting inky from handling them! 

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my organizational process. I was so glad to finally check this off my list today to make creating for the holidays much easier. All the products I used are below and I would love if you want to purchase any that you use my links (at no extra charge to you!) 

SUPPLIES:

my tim holtz ideaology storage (aka "the tower of tim")

Making the tags each month for the 12 Tags of 2014 is definitely fun for me. I have been collecting so many of Tim's ideaology trinkets for years and keeping them in their packaging. I don't want to even open the packs sometimes because I want to keep everything nice and neat! I finally found a perfect solution to store all of these little goodies and I affectionately refer to it as the "Tower of Tim". I sat down this month, and finally opened all the packages and put each set of trinkets in its own drawer. These Art Bin drawers that I ordered from Amazon.com are the ideal storage for me. 

The first one has a bunch of small drawers for the things I know will never make their way back into the package:And the second one has big drawers that hold some of the larger items: 

Here's what they look like all filled up with Ideaology goodness. I added dividers to my drawers so I could store a few items in each drawer and added labels so I could find everything easily. These units are easy to bring over to my table when I am working on projects so I can have all my little trinkets at my fingertips. Any of the items that have little stickers that go with them are kept together in the drawer with the stickers:

Here's a closer look at the drawers with all their labels: 

 
It is super easy to pick out the things I want now that I don't have to try to close up all the packaging! 

***I have a winner on my giveaway post from last week, Donna Gibson, I have emailed you!  

YOU CAN BUY THESE BINS ON AMAZON.COM: 

Art Bin Store-In-Drawer Ca binet, Translucent

Art Bin Store-In-Drawer Cabinet, Translucent

InLinkz.com

organize and store: new ink pads & a hero hues color chart

I don't know about you, but I have been drooling over the new Hero Hues Inks since I saw them. I have the rest of the collection, so why not complete it with the new ones. In order to do that, I (of course)needed a new color chart to keep them organized, and I thought that I would share the one that I made with you today. 

I printed mine on 2 pages of cardstock. I am sure it could have somehow fit really tiny onto one sheet, but I like my swatches bigger. I slide them into page protectors and keep them handy for reference.

Please feel free to download the PDF below for your personal use. If you use it and like it, I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Download Hero ink_Aug 2012

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT: The winner of the Mi Casa stamp set from Friday's giveaway is Jennyfer (I sent you an email).