Organization: Part Two

Question: What is the one thing that every stamper should start as soon as she buys her first stamp?

Answer: A stamp index!

Here is mine.  I started it last summer, after I had been stamping for about a year.  It took me a solid week of summer, but  I absolutely love it and can't imagine not having it (or starting it now!)  I have four binders: Stamps by Categories, Stamps by Company, Seasonal Stamps, and Embossing/Die Cuts.  My DH was nice enough to buy me pretty pink & brown binders at Office Depot for my project, too.  I use cheap cardstock for it, but heavy-duty page protectors (they were on clearance at the time so I stocked up).  Here are the categories I use: flowers, trees/leaves, butterflies/insects, birds, dogs, domesticated animals, wild animals/dinosaurs [there was no real need to break up domesicated and wild, but it makes me happy], people, things [I wish I would have made a separate food category], things that go, places/scenes, love, birthday, other events (baby/wedding/graduation), doodads, flourishes (two completely different things!), and backgrounds.  For the sentiments, I have an "all" category, then broken down into: love, birthday, thank you, friendship/miss you, congrats/wedding/baby, feel better/sympathy, and quotes.  I also have categories for each holiday.

For each new set, I pull out all the relevant categories and stamp. I also stamp the entire set on the company page.  Then I mark off the section and label it with company name and set number.  Learn from me: don't try to "squeeze" in different sets.  White space is your friend. Especially true for the sentiments-I started going across the page, but it is about 1000 times easier if they are all in a column like this.

This is one of my punch pages.  I punched the shape on the edge, then added the punched shape next to it.  Very handy to see if a sentiment will fit on a tag.

Which brings me to my next resource: my nestie pages!  I hate to brag, but these are awesome. I have these for each nestability set.  They are even color coded so all the circle sets are pink, squares green, etc.  To run them through the cuttlebug, I cut the paper in half (hint: cutting the paper in half at 5 1/2 instead of 4 1/4 makes it shift less).  Both sets of rectangles can fit on one sheet, as can the ovals, but circles & squares need two sheets if you're going to use both small and large.  Then I labeled them as S1, L1, S2, etc and with their measurement.  I don't keep them in a binder so I can just pull one out when I'm looking through my stamp index to see if what size will work.

Hating to throw anything away, I kept the cut portions together in a cd sleeve.  These are great to pull out to see how different sizes will fit in a layout.

And this is what I finally got around to doing last weekend-a stamp ink index.  My sister sent me a solid circle stamp that was perfect for the job.  I stamped all my inkpads on white, cream, and kraft.  And, guess what?  I chucked any pad that didn't work! I know, sounds crazy! Am I the only one that keeps throwing back dried-up old pads into the drawer (SU pigment pads, I'm looking in your direction)?

What are your favorite organizational tips or tricks?  I hope you found a few new ones here, or at least were inspired to do a little organizing with your own system!

ps-for real, start an index now.  The task will only get longer the more you put it off!