If you've been following me you know I've been sharing how I organize the products I get when I pre-order from the most recent Stampin' Up! catalog. Pre-order for the Holiday Catalog is in full swing and I received my order yesterday and have been busy getting everything unpacked, labeled and ready so I can sit down and begin creating some wonderful samples for all of you to see.
I have lots of catalogs on hand so if you want one let me know and I will make arrangements to get one to you. I give the catalogs out for FREE and only charge postage if you live out of town so let me know. I would love to have you be a customer of mine and if you are I have a rewards program in place to make ordering from me even more fun.
On to the next phase of organizing my pre-order, the Thinlits, Framelits, and Punches.
First up are the punches. This is really easy.
Step One: I just punch out one of the designs with basic black card stock. I scan the image and open it up in my Silhouette Cameo soft ware. There I use the trace option to trace the image and save it as a Stampin' Up! image. This is really great because with my Sihouette I can cut multiples in a very short time. There are a number of other reasons why I put all of my punch and die images into my Silhouette but I'll get into that later.
Step Two: Make a copy of the image to put into my "catalog" under the "punches" tab. In the catalog I make a note of the name of the punch and what catalog it came from and also if it coordinates with any of the stamp sets.
Step Three: Put it away on the shelf - that's it! I told you it was easy. I do use the punch organizer shelf from Stampnstorage.com and I love it. I used to just stack the punches which they are made to do but it meant having to unstack to get to the one I wanted and this eliminated that issue for me.
Now on to the Thinlits and Framelits. I will warn you this is a little bit more time consuming because I put as many of the die cut images into my Sihouette Cameo as I can. Here we go.
Step One: I don't like having the dies in the plastic sleeves they come in. I take them out and use the standard stamp cases to store them in. I order that are strong enough to hold the dies and have a sticky back on them to adhere inside the case. I just cut them the size I need for the dies to fit on sometimes bigger sometimes smaller I just don't like to waste the magnetic material so I make it just the size I need. Just a note - there is one set I have, the Window Box set that won't fit in the standard stamp case. For this I have designed a box that I cut out with my Sihouette Cameo that works. It is the same box that I made for the larger embossing folders that I told you about yesterday.
Step Two: I label the spine of the case or the box with the name of the set and the catalog it originated from. I also put a tag on the back of the case or box that lists the stamp set it coordinates with, the catalog number, price and page number.
Step Three: Next, I cut out all the images from the set from basic black card stock. This may seem silly but I have had times when a die set didn't work like it should and by the time I used the set it was too late to get it replaced. By doing this I know if the set works like it should. It also creates the pieces I can then place on my scanner and scan into my Silhouette software.
Step Four: I scan the images into my Silhouette software. Once I have it there I trace it and create cut images of as many of the dies as possible. Most of the time this is a straight forward project. However there are times when there are score marks where something should fold and those don't scan so it takes a little time to add those. There are also times when it is a die that doesn't stand alone but instead only cuts part of the image out. I have learned how to make these work but it takes a bit of ingenuity to figure it out and I don't think I could explain it adequately here. One image that is like what I am talking about was the Starblast Die from last year. The picture on the left are the die cut images. I was able to nip the star image out and then save it to use in projects on my Silhouette. The picture on the right is a placemat I made where I used the Starblast image without the bottom border so it cut out the way it was originally intended to. For this project I was able to then stand the star images up and place a rocketship lantern in the center to make a centerpiece. You can see more detail of this on a previous blog HERE
Step Five: Use the scanned images to make copies to put in my product "catalog" where I keep pictures of the dies, stamps, punches and embossing folders so I can look through them easily to find just the right product to use in a current creation. I keep all of these images actual size as that is important when building a design.
Step Six: Use the scanned images to create a picture to put in the front of the stamp case. As you know the dies don't come with a picture so this gives me a picture I can use. Sometimes I have to re-size the images so it will fit on a piece of paper that will fit in the stamp case front but just for viewing what is inside that works.
Step Seven: Place them on the shelf in alphabetical order.
I guess it wasn't that much, it does take some time to do the cutting, scanning, and prep in the Sihouette but I like the end result.
Of course there are still the ribbons, washi tape, embellishments and more so I will share just one more day what I do with some of those items.
Thanks for stopping by.
Kate