How to Organize Craft Punches

Over the years I have collected a lot of Craft materials 

but not used all that I gathered together into my Craft Armoire.

One of the reasons for this was that I had not organised my supplies in the best way to make sure I would regularly use them.

I had found many storage items large and small for storing my crafts but now I was determined to get more organised.

Today I'm going to tell you about how I organised my 

PUNCHES

BEFORE

Originally I had my punches in square matching cardboard boxes of 

3 different sizes 

grouping 

the larger border type punches together in the largest box on the right

 

and 

the small & medium sized ones together in the small box on the left.

Then a mix of small & medium sized ones 

together with the large ones that were leftover from the large box 

in the medium box below

Yes you can clearly see it was not a good arrangement for storage

1. Sizes were mixed together
2. Types were mixed together
3. Subjects were mixed together
4. Boxes had to be opened to even try to remember what punches I had
5. Punches on top of punches meant ones had to be lifted out to see the others.

I also tried using clear plastic boxes to store them thinking I could maybe have the same types or same subjects together and see through the sides.

This was the result:

I only got two boxes used when I realised I was going to need 4 of them if I wanted to keep them well sorted and 4 of these boxes would take up much more space.

If I didn't want to use 4 then it would always mean that some punches were on top of others and I would forget what I had and every time I was thinking of using a punch I would still need to go through all the punches which meant I would still be moving and opening boxes and to be honest I'm too lazy for that.

So I was back where I had started!!! 

Then I saw an interesting item one day online in Ikea's Kvissle Series

It's called the Letter Tray

With this item 

1. I would not have to lift one box off another and open boxes and then sift through punches lying on top of each other
2. I would be able to see all the punches in one section without even touching any of them.

So I got all my punches out again 

and started sorting them into subjects & types like borders,  designs, 

ANIMALS

PLANTS

So off to Ikea and I bought the Kvissle Letter Tray

I knew beforehand that I would have a choice of places to keep the tray unit as it could fit unto a couple of different shelves in my Craft Armoire (Ikea give you all the dimensions) 

and I knew it would be so much better than my previous system for my punches and I was right.

Corner & small border punches

Animals & Plants

Shapes

Large Borders

AFTER

It is now

       easy to open, 

 

              easy to see the punches,  

                     easy to lift them out 

and then maybe the most important fact of all 

it is

 

       so easy to return the punch to it's position - yes!

 

I will  NOW put each punch away as soon as I use it 

because 

it is just a matter of pulling out the right tray and placing it where it came from.

Doesn't it look so neat here in my Craft Armoire

even now when I got a few extra punches and put them in the wicker basket in front but that is easy to lift out and then I can pull out the trays.

NOTE to SELF

Please try not to be tempted to buy more punches

Scrapbooking Freebies!!! - Coffee & Conversation

I have an interest in Scrapbooking but I'm not so keen that I have done several.

For my mother's 90th Birthday I made a scrap book covering all the big events in her and daddy's life together.  This was an actual scrap book and I have always thought that I would do more to cover special events in my life too but so far they have only been in the planning list stage with only a few items gathered together.

Now the emphasis is all on digital scrap booking and I have started to dabble into this too.

Of course unless I am sure that I will make great use of something, I am reluctant to spend money on it (hence my iPad is full of free apps - and they are very good too).  So when I discovered a place where I could get free downloads I waded in and now I get emails with scrapbooking freebies.

SCRAPBOOKING FREEBIES!!!

So I thought I would share this with you for any other dabblers like me or more serious digital scrappers.

Go along to My Memories and register for the emails which will bring you notifications of lots of free items.  You will also receive info on all the products for sale and special offers on a regular basis.

Then have a look on the left side bar of their site for the words  "Free Kits" and make sure you free up some time to look through all the many pages of these.

I won't guarantee these will to make you a better scrapper

but there is the potential to do so 

however

please don't blame me if you are tempted to buy some things too.

Simple Ribbon Storage Solution - Organising My Home

I have been trying to get a good storage solution for keeping ribbons and strings etc. for the last few years.   You would think it was easy to find a simple solution for ribbon storage but rolls of ribbon are likely to move in different positions and then the ribbon becomes loose and that annoys me.

I had been searching Pinterest and Ebay and Amazon for all the different boxes and rails that are out there to buy and to make.


Here are a few of the ideas I had found and some I actually tried.


Plastic Storage box

This is the type of plastic container that my spools of ribbon had originally been in

but they always moved about and un-wrapped in this.




The Bekvam Spice racks from Ikea 

These were recommended by various bloggers.

Screen Shot 

I could not really consider this even though they are very cheap because I did not have wall space in my study (at an easily accessible height).



Thin Dowel Rods

Many people have made up something themselves using thin dowel rods to slot the rolls of ribbon along so I considered that because maybe it would have been possible to connect to something already in the study.

I didn't really have anywhere I could use for the dowel idea.

But....

This led on to thinking if it was possible to come up with an idea to attach something from one side of my wicker & metal shelving unit underneath the shelves.


However  in the end I decided this was not a viable solution either.



Pringles Cans / Postage tubes

Some people are very creative and made ribbon containers from tubes.

And I did happen to have a few of these in the house so this was considered ....

until I decided that it was too much effort to cut it down along the length of it and then paper it or paint it or somehow to decorate it.

Plus the biggest downside to this was that some ribbon spools are quite large and I didn't have a tube wide enough and the spools I had were different diameters, so some might move around inside.



Drawers with Ribbon Cards

This also seemed to be a very popular idea but I just could not understand why.

Perhaps I was just too lazy to 

• take my ribbons off the round spools they were on,
• cut pieces of cardboard to a certain size
• then wind the ribbons round the square or rectangular pieces of card
• and place them upright in a drawer

Plus I didn't have a free drawer to do that.

(Probably could have used a box but as I said - too lazy!)

Several years ago I had seen these black and white boxes which were designed specifically for storing ribbon.

I love black & white and I love boxes and I decided I could buy a few of these and they would stack on top of each other and not take up too much space in the Craft Armoire


Well that is true enough they were easy to stack together not taking up too much room but after a few times lifting the boxes out and in to use the ribbon I had discovered there was a slight problem with them and it became an annoying problem

The wider, firmer ribbons were okay.

But...

The narrow ribbons and the wide flimsy ribbons would not stay in place.

They partly unwrap and slide back out of the slit along the long side of the box so that each time the box has to be opened and some of the ribbons slotted through again.

This is a bigger problem in another box with more of the narrower ribbons and also in the box in which I tried to keep some coloured string & cord.

So that was why I was looking for some other way to store my ribbon, however I was reluctant to have to pay very much after having already paid for these boxes.

But none of the ideas I saw were going to work for me.



Then just last week I had an idea ....

Even though many pictures I had seen showed that crafters were putting pins in their ribbons to stop the unwrapping when their spools were on shelves or on rods, I also did not want to be pinning and unpinning ribbon all the time

But ...

I could stick the ribbon instead!

Yes one of my favourite crafting things is double sided tape.

So

First I took the ribbon out of the box

Then out with the double sided tape and cut a piece the same length as the slit along the box and stick it on just below the slit

and peel off the tape

return the ribbons and press each one down against the tape.

The ribbons are held there nicely against the box and will not roll back into the box again or unwrap themselves.

Now each time I want some ribbon I can

• pull the ribbon away from the tape, 
• measure a length,
• cut the ribbon and
• press it down against the tape again.

Here is another box with the tape applied and you can see it holds the string as well.

Now I don't need to take up any more space than I already had with the boxes.

Simple Solution Found 

      

and it was basically at no extra cost and only a little bit of time involved.

FUNWORK  not  HOUSEWORK for this task definitely as this was such an easy solution.

How to Make an Attendance / Chores Wall Hanging

Here is a simple tutorial for making an

                      Attendance / Chores Wall Hanging 

for your Sunday School class or a small Children's Church, which will cost very little to make.


It has been made so that it can be reusable by changing the simple decorating feature.


It can also be easily adapted to suit a Home Chores Chart

PLANNING


I got out my card table and some card and a ruler and pencil to brainstorm the first day.

I wanted something that the children could actively take part in each week as an attendance incentive and this is what I can up with.

Some form of card or light wood for the Header, ribbons representing each week hanging down in sections of the 4 months up to Christmas.

As you can see I sort of drew part of it out and then wrote down my ideas.

But as you will see later - I modified it!




PREPARATION


If you are like me you will have various leftover crafting embellishments from other projects so you can hunt them out to help with this one.

I got a sheet of A3 coloured card.
There was no choice of colour as it was the last sheet in that size.
(Just hoped the boys would not object)


Then I folded it in 3 lengthwise but with one end section slightly narrower than the other two.


Next it was off to the computer

and I used a nice thick Alpha from my digital scrapbooking files to use for the font of the Header and this was printed on to a white A4 Card.


I made 3 because I only needed the header to be less than a third of the width of an A4 card and thought I wouldn't waste the rest of the card and I would have two headers for future use.


Then I got out my embellishments

All three containers.

Next I got out the container with the odd pieces of ribbon.

I didn't need all the pieces of ribbon to be the same colour as this would have made the Wall Hanging rather bland so I was happy to use my left over pieces which gave me a nice variety of colour.

I also needed my container with two sided sticky tape because I didn't want to mess around with glue and the tape makes it all so much quicker to do.

The next stage was getting the pieces of ribbon long enough so I placed some ribbon down flat on the table and put the larger embellishments beside to measure how long to cut the ribbon.  I would probably have 12 children at the most in the class so it just needed to be long enough to hold 12 of those butterflies plus a little bit more to be stuck inside the card.

When the 15 pieces of ribbon were cut to the right length (15 because I was going to use it for attendance on 15 different weeks before Christmas) I then had to make sure they were all ironed flat because ribbon likes to curl round when it is cut.

So now that everything was ready it was back to the card.




PRODUCTION


I folded the card over from one side towards the centre and then the narrower section over on top of that.

Then came the two sided tape

I cut a length of the tape just slightly shorter than the length of the card and pealed off one of the coatings and stuck this down on the card in far enough from the folded edge remembering that the last section to fold on top was slightly narrower.

Next I peeled off the other coating from the tape but did not stick down the last section of card because the ribbons had to be put in first.

There were 15 ribbons so I was able to start easily with placing one in the centre and pressing it down to have it stick to the card.
I had of course taken a little time when ironing the ribbons, to consider the colours I had and worked out the arrangement I wanted to place them in.

So I placed all the ribbons in the right order of colour on the table and spaced them out evenly before I stuck each one unto the tape.

Then I folded the card over and pressed it down firmly.
I did not need to put any more tape on the last part to fold over because there was enough of the tape between the ribbons for the card to stick well.

Using my card and paper cutter I cut the header sheet into 3 pieces and put two away carefully to keep for another time.

Using more two sided tape I cut two strips and placed them along the two long edges on the back of the Header.

I peeled off the coatings, carefully lined up the Header on the Front of the Card and stuck it down.

Next I took the butterfly cut outs that I planned to use for the first week and cut small pieces of two sided tape to put on the back of each one and then tiny 2.5cm long wooden pegs were stuck to the butterflies so that the children could clip them to the ribbons.
(I had enough pegs to do for about 4 weeks but since then I have bought more on Ebay and they only cost around £2.97 for 100 pegs inc P&P)

Each week we will have a different shape and have different colours in each of the shapes so that the children can pick which colour they want.

Before the children clip their shape to the ribbon they will write their name on the shape.
Then at the end we can count each of the names and see who has attended best and there will be a small prize for that person.

All of the children will then get to take all their shapes home with them - so they will all actually get something.

Now all that was needed was to stick two other butterflies to the Card to decorate it and the whole thing could simply be used again by carefully removing the two decorations and adding two different ones (perhaps balloons, or animal shapes).

I hope you can try this out for yourself

or

use it as inspiration for something that might suit you even better.



Other Kids Resources can be found Here.

Plus

There are many Free Printables etc. in the RESOURCE LIBRARY