Inventory Book

Hello and happy sunshine everyone,

I was inspired... hmmm... not strong enough of a word to describe my excitement to do this project, I was energized by Ranger Ink's "Organize Your Ranger Products" section of their website. In this section they provide beautifuly presented colour swatch charts that you fill in with the products that you have. I felt like I was playing bingo when I filled in the swatch chart for my distress inks.

They also provide coloured label sheets. You print the labels, punch them out with a circle punch and place the label on the cap of the Adirondack Dabber, the cap of the Distress Stains, etc. It all depends on which labels you have printed and what products you own.

If you haven't seen "Organize Your Ranger Products", it's a must see.

The Upcycling book by Danny Seo inspired the front and back cover of the inventory book. I used the leftover flooring from our new basement bathroom to create the cover. The flooring was not sturdy enough on it's own, especially if I wanted to stand the book up in my library. I gave the flooring some strength by glueing it to a photo mat board.

Inside the book I have various sections. The sections are divided as follows:Ranger products; Copic markers; Other inks; Stamps; Cricuit cartridges; Dies; and Embossing folders and plates;



I have incorporated the Copic image for my personal use.
I have not, nor will I sell this inventory binder. 

 

The book may seem like a lot of work to create and a lot of work to complete but I created the book to keep me organized on a couple of different levels.

I like having my friends come over and play in my studio. I enjoy sharing the tools and products I have. However, I came to realize that as they used my stamps, removing them from their sets, I was lost by the end of the day. I couldn't remember where the stamps belonged and was not able to return them to their proper home.

On the other side of the organization coin, I like to remove my tools and products from their original package and place them within my own organizing system. The upside to this is that things are placed in a more logical, easy to use, easy to put away system. The downside is that I don't have the name of the stamp set or the name of the company included on the item's new home. As you can see, in the inventory binder, I have indicated the name of the item, the company, if it's a stamp I have also included how many are in the set, if I have the coordinating die and if they are cling or wood mount (which will tell me where to find them).

To my surprise, as I was recording the various stamps that I own, the stamped images were inspiring different projects. A stamped image provides a better visual than the stamp itself.

When starting a project, I don't have to search through my supplies for inspiration, I can flip the pages of my inventory book for that perfect ink, stencil, stamp, cartridge, etc. The great thing with the book is that it is portable (obviously). If I want to assemble my ideas on the bus as I commute to work and home, I can do that.

I created the dividers using the We R Memory envelope punch.

I created the holes for the book binding using a cardboard template and the Crop-A-Dile. I laid the spiral on some heavy cardboard cut to an 8.5 x 11 size sheet and made a pencil mark at each place the spiral touched the cardboard then I used the Crop-A-Dile to make uniform holes all along the edge. I paperclipped the template to the printed pages, about 10 pages at a time and punched all the holes. I repeated this process until the entire book was punched. To assemble the book, I threaded the spiral into the stack of papers, one hole at a time.

I am very happy with my inventory book. My only fear is that I am going to run out of pages. However, that's a minor fear because I can simply undo the book, use my template to punch more papers and then reassemble the inventory book.

Hope you enjoyed this post.
Until next time, happy paper crafting.