Stamping Notebook

I just realized my last post on this blog was nearly two weeks ago! That doesn't mean I haven't gotten any paper crafting done - just haven't posted it.  Unfortunately, some of what I've done was so time critical that I didn't get pictures of it either, but I DO have a few things I can share with you over the next few days.  Today I'll talk about my Stamping Notebook.

As I've accumulated more sets of stamps, I began to realize that no matter how I organized them, there was still a challenge finding the right stamp for my cards sometimes.  I've organized my stamps into 6 basic categories:

1. Specific occasions - like Father's Day, Christmas, Birthday, etc.,
2. Small stamp sets - cute little sets that tend to be just perfect for card focals,
3. Decorative elements - borders, swirls, etc.
4. Themed sets - kitchen, birds, sewing, etc.
5. Word sets - quotes or greetings sets
6. Mounted rubber stamps (being bulker - these couldn't be stored with the others)

Though organizing this way has helped me be able to find some stamps when I needed them, I particularly noticed a challenge when it came to quotes and greetings.  The reason for this was two-fold.  First, some quotes or greetings that might focus on a specific occasion - could also be used just as well for some other types of occasions. Secondly, themed sets or small stamp sets, often have a few words associated with them.  These can be very useful - but hard to remember where they are. So, I decided to make a stamping notebook that has two sections.  

The first section is a list of single word stamps, arranged somewhat alphabetically.  If you look closely at the picture at the top of this post, you'll see it is composed of small 1/4-sheet sized papers - each with words that start with the letters that are highlighted on the mini-page.  I've simply taped these papers onto a larger sheet with removable tape.  This allows me to add more little sheets as needed to show all my single word stamps.

The second section is arranged by occasion or type of need.  For example, some focus on "Christmas" or "Birthday", or "Thank You".  And some pages show other types of needs like names used for people (husband, daughter, Dad, friend, me, etc.)  You can see an example of the second section here:

Here I've got a page of stamps related to occasions where one might want a "Congratulations" card.  

In both sections, I've stamped all applicable stamps from a single set together and drawn a line around them - then written the name of the set they came from in blue, so I can find them easily. 

As you can imagine, this project took a bit of time, and I found myself wondering if it would be worth it.  IT IS!!!!  Recently as I was making cards, I found myself wanting sentiments that needed to be a certain size and shape and font-type to support the theme of my card.  How nice to just be able to turn to the right page in my stamping notebook and see what would best fit my needs.  Several times, I ended up using stamps that I know I would have totally forgotten about if I hadn't had this notebook to refer to.