My Stamp Image Catalogue

Can you believe that I'm still working on unmounting my rubber stamps and cataloging them so that I can find what I'm looking for when I need it! AND also to stop repeat purchases!!

I decided that I would print out the stamp set name (for Stampin' Up! stamps) or the theme on 1/2 sheets of paper. I went ahead and made up a WORD document and printed out over 300 pages. I then cut those into 1/2 and ended up with a nice 6 inch stack of 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 pages with no where to put them!

I was hoping to find a binder that would fit that size with room to grow - I was just starting this process!

I did find some binders for the 1/2 page size at Staples but they were only 1 inch wide binders and I needed something much bigger.

I looked all over and couldn't find anything that was premade (unless I went to full pages) so I had to improvise.

I found some cheap scrapbooks for 5 x 7 pages (with plain coloured covers) that I thought I could work with BUT they came with the traditional posts that all scrapbooks do that are only meant to hold 10 pages.

So I went to the Home Depot and looked around for different binding options.

I found:

Solution #1: flat head carriage bolts that are 6 inches long (59 cents CAD each) and lock tight nuts (23 cents CAD each) to go on them. These will work perfectly except that I'm not ready to put my entire catalogue together yet - I still need to finish stamping images on a LOT of pages.

Solution #2: Chicago Bolts which in fact are exactly like the posts that come in the albums!! They come in 2 inch lengths and there are 1 inch extenders available as well!! They're pretty cheap too - 4 x 2 inch bolts in a pkg for $2.49 CAD and the extenders are 4 in a package for $2.29 CAD.

Here's a photo of one album that has completed images. I have another that I have to stamp images for but eventually I'll be able to put them together into one book now that I've solved my binding dilema!

The best thing about this binding system is that I can put the album up on end and flip through the pages to find what I need or just lood for inspiration.

I still have to stamp images for another 3 inches of pages, umount MORE non-Stampin' Up! stamps and catalogue them, and then make up some kind of cross reference system so that I'll know which stamps are in what boxes.

But I'm making progres...