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Post by grammadee on Oct 14, 2023 16:09:40 GMT
It used to be easy. I had three 12 inch wide rolls, and they fit into their tubes nicely, so that when I occasionally turned on my Minc I could pull out a roll, cut off what I needed, and return the roll to the tube. The tubes stood in my card making tub. No problem.
But, my foils have exploded. I have the reactive and glue application varieties stuffed into a drawer in an M's 3-drawer unit. Some are the long rolls, some short. Some are flat pieces in plastic bags.
Meanwhile I have the little rolls for the Spellbinders Glimmer system. They are about 4" wide and come in little boxes that are annoying to replace the rolls into, plus take up alot of space. I had high hopes for the case that a set came in, but it doesn't have dividers and depends on the boxes to keep everything lined up. And me being me, when I pull a roll out of there to use, it often gets tossed into the tub I have for the plates and other Glimmer paraphernalia, so then the boxes in the case are beginning to tumble around.
I don't have alot of room left in the drawer, and even if I did that would just lead to crazy. While the foils all LOOK the same--at least to me--they are different and respond to different techniques to use them.
So how do YOU store your foil?
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Post by kkrenn on Oct 14, 2023 19:36:39 GMT
I have a drawer for Toner foil and a drawer for hot foil. They are still stored in their packages, I get most of mine from Bluebonnet and they come in long zip top bags. I also have a separate pouch in each drawer to hold scrap pieces or ones I'm saving for reverse foiling.
I know someone who has a ton more foils than me and she has a hanging shoe organizer (not the flat door one but the one that looks like hanging shelves) she stores all of her roles there, one side for toner and the other for hot.
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pinklady
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,978 
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Post by pinklady on Oct 14, 2023 20:01:04 GMT
Right now my foils are stored in a clear plastic box from target. I bought a few long rolls from H&H sign. They were a pain to store so I cut them in half with my dads saw. It didn’t damage them at all and now they are easier to store.
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Post by joblackford on Oct 15, 2023 1:44:46 GMT
I think I’ve seen people use PVC pipe or wine dividers but I have no actual advice. I decided foil was too much trouble and too plasticky for my liking. I would say that knowing you won’t carefully put each roll in a box when you’re done should be key to your system - easier to put away than get out, maybe broader macro categories of organization?
I don’t know if making them all into the same form - flat sheets - would make them easier to store? The form they come in probably has more to do with marketing than with what makes them the most storable and usable. I think I’d cut them all into sheets and put them in flat folders or zip top bags.
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kitbop
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,605
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Post by kitbop on Oct 17, 2023 19:01:22 GMT
Really good question grammadee . I have mine in the plastic tubes they came in. Super troublesome to put away, especially once a sheet is partly used. I only own thermal transfer foil (to use with laminator); I haven't invested in the glimmer/foil plate system because I didn't use the laminator foils enough to justify another system. So I haven't bothered to create a different/easier way to store them. While I think the rolls/tubes are SAFEST, I like @joblackfords idea of flat folders. I'd just make a thick cardboard folder (for protection), one for each type of foil, and flatten them all out in there. As a matter of fact...I think I'll go do that for my own foils and let you know how it goes! Might have an additional bonus: if we pre-flatten them, the foils won't "roll up" when you are trying to place them on your project to foil? ETA: Immediately realized flat storage would be a frustrating start: the 12" long rolls would need to be cut up so much to fit any folder, and it seemed like way too much effort  So I've left them in their tubes for now: they live with the laminator on the bottom shelf of one of my raskogs! |
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Post by melanieg on Oct 18, 2023 17:39:51 GMT
Mine are currently in the tube they came in. I have them in a box by my minc.
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Post by anniefb on Oct 21, 2023 18:23:01 GMT
I only have minc foils and they're in their exes stacked on a shelf.
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Post by dewryce on Oct 22, 2023 21:25:04 GMT
I only have a handful and they all fit neatly in the plastic boxes they came in all inside one drawer. So I’m not very familiar with the different kinds and how they’d need to be categorized.
What is the largest size they come in? And how often do you use them?
I use these for everything so I would keep them in a clear snap 12 x 12 envelope. (Smaller envelopes if I never use the 12 x 12 size). Then put a 12 x 12 piece of thin chipboard or similar in the very back so that I could lay it on its side and pull everything out to the side by holding the board so all of the different sized pieces came out at once. Does that make sense? Then sort by color or type, however you look for them.
Storing by color would be a little harder for me because I would want each color to have its own envelope but some would barely have any pieces in there. Maybe by groups of colors? Purple/Blue/Green and Yellow/Orange/Red and Specialty (glittery, multi colors, prismatic) and Neutrals.
If you use them frequently I’d consider sorting as listed above, but in those 3-drawer Sterlite units. It’s so easy to pull out a drawer and put it on the desk to look through everything in there, then quickly return it to the container. These are the main storage pieces I have in my room and I love the ease of use. My only concern would be that the foil rolled up, so I’d put the thin piece of board mentioned above on the top of the contents of each drawer.
If you want to sort by color and type you can use the snap envelopes or drawers as listed above, then further break it down with thinner envelopes, like those a lot of people use to store stamp sets, they come in lots of different sizes. For larger pieces, you can buy the super thin bags like paper collections come in but the sticky on the close would wear off. I suppose you could use the ziplock type bags as well, they come in tons of different sizes.
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So I've left them in their tubes for now: they live with the laminator on the bottom shelf of one of my raskogs!
