Storage for Tsukineko DewDrop Inks

My mother-in-law always comes bearing gifts.  To her, many times, I know they're just castoffs (like 28 practically brand new Tsukineko Dew Drop inks), but there's a lot of new stuff in there, too.  I got a stamp set from the most recent Sale-a-Bration through Stampin' Up! because she always orders a lot and then sometimes doesn't want any of the free stuff, so I get the free stuff.  It's so awesome!

I'm pretty sure most people know how to make these little boxes, but just in case, I'll give a brief explanation.  If you need a ton of details, look around online at how to make cardstock boxes, but chances are you can figure it out just from written directions.

Each of these boxes will hold 24 Tsukineko Dew Drop Inks.  These are not the sturdiest boxes, but I will say that the first one I made several years ago is still practically perfect even though I repeatedly dragged it with me to classes in tote bags (laying flat, of course, not on its side) over the course of about 3 years.  For the purposes of neatly storing your inks, they work perfectly.

The inks fit into the boxes as shown below... one pointed up, one pointed down, six of them across the slightly longer side, and four down the slightly shorter side.  I use regular cardstock to make these and, as always, my favorite glue is Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive.  It dries hard and makes the finished boxes feel more sturdy.

The box size is 7.5" by 7.75", with one inch sides.

To make the bottom, cut a solid piece at 9.5" by 9.75".

To make the lid, cut one piece at 9 5/8" by 9 7/8".

Score both pieces one inch in from each edge.

When you've scored the papers, you'll notice little squares at each corner.  Cut into ONE of the sides of each square, creating little flaps.

Fold all of the scored lines in.  At this point, you should be able to visualize how this is going to turn into a box.

Glue the square flaps to the OUTSIDE of the sides of the box.  No matter how you cut them, you'll end up with four squares glued along the edges, creating the sides of your box.  Complete this process on both the bottom and the lid, gluing the flaps along the outside.

At this point, I like to make a mosaic of favorite scraps along the top of the lid.  This is for decoration as well as strength.  The first box I made a few years ago is on the right, the most recent one is on the left.  Basically, glue pieces down, and when you get an odd hole, measure it with your ruler, cut a piece that fits, and stick it in there.  Because the lid is actually 7 5/8" by 7 7/8", you will end up with some pieces needing to have an extra 1/8".  Go until your entire top is covered.

Glue one inch strips along the outside edges of both the lid and the box bottom.  I basically just cut a bunch of one inch strips and start wrapping all around, not cutting at the corners.  Gluing these strips makes the box sturdier and hides the square flaps you folded and glued to create the box shapes.

Arrange the inks inside according to color.  I go pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, neutrals.  It creates a nice little rainbow look that is really pretty!

I also take the time to stamp with each pad.  This makes sure that the inks are still good, but also, since I store the inks upside down, it helps me identify what color I'm looking at.  The tiny strip on the bottom of the ink is not enough for me to see very well.  I use a roughly 1/2" stamp (a wood mounted rubber stamp, ideally, because of how often you'll be cleaning it, but another stamp will still technically work) and a 1/2" circle punch.  Punch each stamped image and glue it towards the top point of the back of the ink so that you can see the color itself in the stamp and the name of the color just over the bar code at the bottom.

The boxes stack really nicely in my second desk drawer, towards the back.  The footprint of these boxes is somewhat large, but they stack nicely and as you can see, I have nice, deep desk drawers and I stack almost everything in layers to fit more in.

Hopefully this was helpful to anyone!  I'd love to see the box you made to hold your little inks.  They're so handy and so cute and I love having that many colors at my fingertips in a relatively small space.

Yarn Leftovers

I just reorganized my yarn leftovers!  They're so pretty!

The short of it is that I reorganized all of my yarn leftovers by weight and separated them and put them on display in various dishes I had in my house.

The long of it is:  I originally stored my yarn leftovers in a huge hurricane candle jar.  They were so pretty and since they were on display, I started actually using my leftovers.  I thought I'd never be able to fill the jar.  I laugh at myself now for thinking that, of course.  Never fill up a yarn jar, indeed!

Over time, the jar got filled to the absolute top.  I had even reorganized within the jar and put all of the smallish balls in between bigger ones to make it all fit better.  Eventually, because I couldn't easily get to the things in the bottom, most of my leftovers ended up being forgotten.

For a while now, I've been toying around with the idea to organize my yarns by yarn weight and store them in pretty jars that way.  Alas, time passed, and the budget never really left room for frivolities like buying a bunch of jars to store different yarns, and the idea seemed to languish along with my poor, forgotten leftover yarns.

Today, though, something inside of me snapped.  I wanted to organize my yarns.  As I sat knitting, I thought of how I could possibly go to a thrift store and get jars, and that would be better than buying new ones anyway, right?  I'd be reusing something that someone else had gotten rid of, keeping things out of landfills and all of that.  Not only that (here's where I got excited), I could purposefully get mismatching pieces and make a cool, eclectic glass display of a mismatching, eclectic collection of yarns!

Then, since my new plan was to do mismatched glass dishes anyway, I suddenly remembered this cabinet I have in my kitchen that, quite frankly, scares the living daylights out of me every time I try to open it.  Each time I open that door, I wonder if this is going to be the time that all of the glass dishes I have in there will go crashing down around me.  There's a mixed feeling involved there, too, actually.  I'm both horrified at the idea of losing the dishes and also thinking that if they all broke, I wouldn't have to store them anymore, and that would be pretty awesome.  These are the kinds of dishes that are nice to have at holidays or parties, right?  They're for decoratively displaying food at multiple levels, making even cheap things look somehow so much more fancy.  I remember one time I piled Oreos, just plain Oreos, decoratively and in cute stepping stacks on my two tiered glass dish and out of all the fancy foods I'd prepared for that party, people got the biggest kick out of the Oreo display.  These dishes always make my parties look cooler, but they take up a lot of room.  I don't want to get rid of them, but I don't want to store them.  It has always been a huge dilemma to me, every time I declutter.

Until now!

I adore this little display.  It puts my yarns out and lets me see them.  They're not going to languish anymore, forgotten and alone, the unwanted, unused little leftovers from bigger skeins that have already gone on to fulfill their destiny.  No, these precious leftovers have a purpose and a destiny all their own, and now they get to fulfill it, too.

The yarns are organized by weight, clockwise from left to right: Lace weight (0), Worsted weight (4), Sport weight (2), Sock weight (1), and DK weight (3).  The Bulky (5) and Super Bulky (6) container wouldn't fit on this shelf, so that yarn is tucked away a closet, but it's still organized and I can get to it quickly.

I'm already planning striped scarves, flowers, hats, striped socks, etc...  I'm going to be unstoppable.  The only problem I can think of with this is... If I knit all my leftovers, then my kitchen cabinet gets scary again.  See?  Buying new yarn and making new projects and new leftovers has now become practically essential to the entire organization of my house.  (Bonus!)  I wonder when TYF is getting its next Malabrigo shipment?