Sunday, 17 April 2016

Die storage and colour coding system

I am going to be talking about die storage today and sharing my system.
I have seen that lots of crafters store there dies on magnetic sheets stuck to the inside of cupboard doors or on boards mounted on walls.
I don't have any wall space to  do that and I don't trust magnetic sheets enough to stick them on the inside of cupboard doors. I feel they would all drop off the moment a door was closed too hard.

I know some people store theirs on magnetic sheets placed in page protectors and stored in a file.
I think this is a neat idea and saves space, but it's not for me. I am so ditsy I'd probably lose the file along with all the dies. 

Also I don't like the idea of searching though loads of pages to find the die I want and worse still finding that same page when I need to put them away.

So I thought I'd share my system, it's worked for me for some years now and I haven't lost a die yet and I don't spend huge amounts of time looking for the die I want to use.

Some years ago I bought 50 boxes for crafting projects. it wasn't long before I realized these boxes would be great for storing all sorts of crafting items.
I have to say these boxes are exactly the same as the boxes Stampin' Up  sell their clear and polymer stamp set in.

I line them with magnetic sheets and place my dies in them. If the packaging has a picture of the die on, I will cut the packaging down to fit the inside front cover of the box.

If I am putting two sets in the box I will put a picture in the back cover too. (See picture at top of post)

Then I type a list for all the boxes,  naming  the brand, the name of the die or the type of die for each box.


To make it easier to find the sets I want,  I have colour coded the brands.
I can generally remember the brand of the die I want to use, even if I can't remember the name. So all my Spellbinder dies are labelled in white, X cut dies are pink and Go Create are blue and so on.
I use a different colour for each brand  which makes it so much quicker to find the set I need.

Sometimes I will put two of the same type of die in the same box, even if it's a different brand...ie  circles. 

Of course these boxes are the same size as DVD boxes so finding a storage shelving for them is easy, inexpensive and doesn't take up much space in your craft space. Some of mine are stored in a dvd shelf unit and others are stored in a drawer spine facing up of course.

1 comment:

Mema's Crafts said...

Hi Laura. Thanks so much for sharing your storage system. I do believe this will work for me as well and I do need help. I have at least 150 dies of various brands and this will be a life saver. Thanks again for the inspiration.