ink pads

Hi friends.  I thought I'd let you know what I've been working on this past week.  I've been storing my distress ink pads in one of those clear plastic shoe boxes, and every time I wanted one, I had to dig for it.  A long time ago, I decided to make a holder to fit all of them.  I was using cereal box chipboard, gluing five layers together to make it really sturdy.  The only problem was that it was taking way too long and other things took priority.  Anyway, the other day I pulled out what I had done and started working on it again.  Again, I realized that I was making way too much work for myself.  So I ditched the original idea and started over.  Nothing like changing course midstream.


This time I chose to make a rectangular tube (again from cereal box chipboard) that would fit around each ink pad.  I cut each piece 8"x2-3/4" and scored at 3", 4", and 7", gluing a piece of paper over the corner where the ends meet after folding.  Then I glued them together in stacks of 12 and wrapped another piece of chipboard around the back and glued to the sides.  I put paper over the open edges at the top and bottom.  Then all four stacks were glued together, and I added extra layers on the top and bottom to reinforce them. This first picture is after I put all the pieces together, but had not decorated it yet.  The ink pads fit snugly, but not too tight.  I have labels on all four sides of the ink pads, so it makes no difference which way they go into the shelves.  And I prefer storing them alphabetically.  It's so much easier to find them that way. 

I used torn old book pages to cover the outsides and painted the front edges white.  If you peek inside, you can see the print from the cereal boxes, but I'm not going to worry about that.  Notice the difference the white paint on the front makes. 

Now it's all loaded up with my ink pads and I'm happy with it.  It's relatively sturdy, so I think it will be sufficient.  Hopefully, Tim won't add more colors anytime soon.  If I were starting over, the one thing I would change would be to add some sort of notch at the front of the shelves beneath the ink pads to make it easier to pull them out. 

 

 

This last picture shows a bit of the outside - not fancy - just practical.  The only other thing I need to do is add a color swatch to the labels. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.