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Post by wendifful on Aug 21, 2020 18:08:53 GMT
I’m too lazy to catalog them by theme lol. Can I pay someone to do it? 😆 Haha, I've actually thought about this! When I was cataloging all my stamps, I was thinking about how there's only so many stamp companies and it would make sense for papercrafters to pool their resources and create a master stamp catalog that everyone could download (maybe sorted by manufacturer?), then only keep the entries for the stamps they own. In reality, I think this would be too complicated, but it sure would be handy!
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 2, 2024 8:09:12 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2020 19:43:49 GMT
I’m too lazy to catalog them by theme lol. Can I pay someone to do it? 😆 My plan is to just stamp each set on a page and make tabs to sort the pages by manufacturer. I’m hoping I can just ink up the entire set and stamp it all at once while still on the cling and not have to remove each one lol. This may not work but I’m going to attempt it. I figure as long as I have something to flip through quickly and see what I have it will be faster than pulling out each sleeve one by one. That’s good enough for me. I felt this way at first too, and it is a pain to have to enter new stuff in every single time you buy stuff if i'm being honest BUT it is SO WORTH IT when it comes time to crafting and you want to find something or see what you have for a specific project. I promise you it's worth your time and effort. One tip that I always give is to start slow. Set aside 1/2 hour a day and start there. Just do what you can in that time period every day and before you know it you will be caught up! Also, when you are going through your stash, you may find things that you don't want anymore so you can de-stash things, or find duplicates of things. So you may make or save money while you are in the process of creating your inventory notebooks! Here is a link to my live stamp catalog. If you want to see what a live one looks like KATS LIVE STAMP NOTEBOOK
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Post by justjac on Aug 21, 2020 19:59:53 GMT
A suggestion I followed was to photocopy each set instead of stamping it. I have a 3 in one printer that I used. Then I put the papers in a binder and put a coloured sticker on the page indicating which bin it’s in. (I have a lot of stamps.) I have categories like Christmas, birthday, alphas, backgrounds, shapes, nature, people, sentiments, etc. If a set fits more than one category I intended to photocopy it twice and put the sheet in both categories, but that hasn’t happened yet.
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Post by songbird on Aug 22, 2020 5:11:09 GMT
I also use the Color My Life app. I used Evernote previously, but it didn’t work for me. I’ve been using CML for well over a year now I think, and while I do wish a few things were different (I’ve submitted suggestions and gotten a response), being able to quickly search is extremely helpful. I also like that I can add as many “sets” as I want, so those that cross themes go into any related “set”.
I hope more companies will be added to the barcode database because for me, that is a huge feature, and I get bummed when a barcode isn’t on file haha.
For my physical storage I keep everything grouped by brand and then each stamp/die set has a category assigned within that brand. If the stamp set crosses a boundary for me with my categorization, I put it with the grouping that I’m most likely to reach for it and use it. The app helps with this too, since you can add as many tags as you want and then it’ll pop up when you search for any of those keywords.
The exception to the above physical categorization and storage is for brands where I might only have 1-2 stamp sets or something, and those all go into a miscellaneous bucket and then into a category from there.
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Deleted
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Jun 2, 2024 8:09:12 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2020 10:50:45 GMT
I also use the Color My Life app. I used Evernote previously, but it didn’t work for me. I’ve been using CML for well over a year now I think, and while I do wish a few things were different (I’ve submitted suggestions and gotten a response), being able to quickly search is extremely helpful. I also like that I can add as many “sets” as I want, so those that cross themes go into any related “set”. I hope more companies will be added to the barcode database because for me, that is a huge feature, and I get bummed when a barcode isn’t on file haha. For my physical storage I keep everything grouped by brand and then each stamp/die set has a category assigned within that brand. If the stamp set crosses a boundary for me with my categorization, I put it with the grouping that I’m most likely to reach for it and use it. The app helps with this too, since you can add as many tags as you want and then it’ll pop up when you search for any of those keywords. The exception to the above physical categorization and storage is for brands where I might only have 1-2 stamp sets or something, and those all go into a miscellaneous bucket and then into a category from there. I was just given this app to try out and review. I'm just trying to find the time to do it! I'm all for barcodes LOL SO many crafty items don't have them though, but i will give it a try and see how i like it compared to my system now with evernote.
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Post by lasteve1 on Aug 22, 2020 12:55:04 GMT
I love seeing all the digital ways people are doing this... I originally tried doing something digital and it just didn't work for me. I just needed something tangible in my hands and wanted to sort by stamp (as opposed to stamp set) so anything I did digitally and printed would be outdated as soon as I bought a new stamp. I have a lot of story stamps that I have the digital for and kind of wish I had started with the digital ones to initially set up my pages and then add to them with the physical ones as I acquired more, but it's fine. I'm definitely not redoing it and I kinda like the process of "stamping in" a new stamp...
It takes forever to stamp out every stamp, definitely. But I think it's worth it. While I'm putting a new set into my collection I get to test out each stamp how it stamps and it helps me remember what I have even without flipping through the binder. Before doing this I have to admit there were some sets that I literally only used one or two stamps from once and that was it. While it doesn't take too long to stamp in new sets (once you get your initial set up), I do it once every 3 months or so and usually finish the new purchases during a movie, I do think knowing that I have to stamp new stamps into my collection makes me think twice before buying stamps. I will often look more critically at the stamp before purchasing and will flip through my binders and can easily see if I have similar sentiments/images. When I'm creating the process is so much quicker not having to flip through all my stamps looking for the "right" one and I actually use a lot more of my stamps (I used to be pretty lazy about flipping through and would end up using very general sentiments like "love this" rather than trying to find one actually about the topic). It also just makes my organizing heart happy.
I also think you can do just a little and it would still be helpful. Numbering your stamp sets actually doesn't take that much time so that is definitely step 1. It's the stamping them into binders that takes forever, but if you're not stamping the whole set and just by theme you only have to stamp as much as you have themes for... I mean, I have 75 themed categories that I stamp. But I did not start out that way, I started out with like 10. If you pick the categories that you would reach for the most it really won't take that long. For example, start with alphas and numbers, those are definitely my most used categories. (For alphas I just stamp the A from each set, for numbers I stamp the highest number or 9 if there are all the digits). Just stamping out all the A's you have won't take that long, and then you can see how you like the system and tweak things to fit your needs going forward. That's how it started for me... I would be working on a project and think "I need a heart stamp" and then I would add "hearts" to my list of categories and create that one next.
If you are stamping by stamp as opposed to by set you don't need to worry about each stamp being included somewhere. There are definitely stamps that get stamped more than once because they fit more than one category and stamps that don't get stamped at all because they don't fit any categories. Typically the stamps that don't get stamped at all are ones I would never use (sentiments are weird to me or whatever).
All that said, I think that everyone thinks/works differently so idk if my method would work for others as well as it does for me. But I do recommend coming up with some system, once you have a stamp stash they kinda get lost/forgotten otherwise. They're not like other scrappy purchases where you can use them up, so it's easy to let them just slip into your stash and buy new stuff. Doing this has definitely made finding stamps while crafting so much better, has gotten me to actually use my stamps and has saved me money in keeping me from buying stamps that are similar to ones I already own.
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Post by refugeepea on Aug 22, 2020 14:27:20 GMT
Here's how I do mine. The copy of the 2 stamp sets isn't great, but I can read them. The notes by the stamped images only make sense to me. It's how I find a stamp when it's not an entire set that is stamped. Sorry for the poor photos. It seems if I choose anything bigger than small image, the photos are huge, but they aren't blurry looking like these! This is from the all occasions section. The first photo is some of my roller stamps. Definitely not as nice as@lasteve1 ! I don't have many alpha sets, but that's on my list now!
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Post by papercrafteradvocate on Aug 23, 2020 5:10:03 GMT
I use plastic storage pockets and storage bins.
When I get a new stamp, I enter it into my Excel spreadsheet —
I have columns for each of these—Company, designer, stock#, main theme and then up to 3 sub-themes, and what storage bin it goes in (I have the bins specifically labeled.
I have the clear bins in my IKEA cabinets with glass doors—I can see them, but they’re neatly put away.
I tried stamping each image, but I still had to go through those looking for stamps. I find it doesn’t work if you have a big volume of stamps.
I can open my cabinet doors and pull out a bun by theme, or I can look and sort my Excel spreadsheet.
The only stamps I have by company are my TH Stampers Anonymous stamps—the are in 4 of the specific binders that hold them.
It was too hard for me to keep anything by company, because I was always creating by theme.
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peasquared
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,474
Jul 6, 2014 23:59:59 GMT
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Post by peasquared on Aug 23, 2020 15:52:00 GMT
Thank you marg for the information on Color My Life app. It looks amazing! I started using it yesterday and plan to spend the next couple days adding my stamps and dies. Those are my priorities, but I love that you can add so many different categories. It's even easy for a tech-challenged person like me!
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Post by Citygirl on Aug 23, 2020 18:32:36 GMT
Yes thanks marg ! I just watched a tutorial for Color My Life. This is perfect. A highly functional user friendly app. Very similar to the book buddy app I use to catalog my home library.
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peasquared
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,474
Jul 6, 2014 23:59:59 GMT
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Post by peasquared on Aug 24, 2020 1:02:01 GMT
I love this app already, but I can't wait to be done. I did 162 stamps and stencils and I'm only 1/8th of the way done. Still have 7 bins to go. I store my stamps like Jennifer McGuire, so I don't keep the packaging. It'll be so much easier when I still have the barcode. Just need to remember to add an item right when I get it. Thanks again for sharing this app.
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Post by marg on Aug 25, 2020 0:36:22 GMT
Thank you marg for the information on Color My Life app. It looks amazing! I started using it yesterday and plan to spend the next couple days adding my stamps and dies. Those are my priorities, but I love that you can add so many different categories. It's even easy for a tech-challenged person like me! I'm glad you're finding is useful! I would just say to make sure you add plenty of tags, it's really the key to its usefulness.
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Post by marg on Aug 25, 2020 0:37:43 GMT
Yes thanks marg ! I just watched a tutorial for Color My Life. This is perfect. A highly functional user friendly app. Very similar to the book buddy app I use to catalog my home library. Thanks for mentioning the book buddy app, I hadn't heard of it but now I know I need it! Yes, the CML app is very user friendly. I've tried every other system (stamping and cataloging, Evernote, etc.) and it's just the most straightforward.
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Post by anrobe on Aug 25, 2020 20:44:42 GMT
I am using Airtable, an app or PC application, that is essentially a Excel spreadsheet but it allows me to access my stamp details quickly and easily when I'm on the go so I don't buy things that I already have. I have customized it with lots of tags and categories so I can find what I'm looking for by manufacturer, or size, or topic, or type and so much more. It's really helped me manage things and not keep buying the same things over and over. I keep one for stamps, one for inks, etc. It's made a huge difference for me. I recently began to do a binder by topic with my stamps so I can find what I'm looking for easily via the binder. Between the two systems, I think it will make it easier to be sure I know what I have and to actually use them!
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