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considering abandoning SU's color families for rainbow order
Hi all,
boy it was hard to think how to explain what i am thinking about doing in a title "considering abandoning SU's color families for rainbow order" but that's about it.
I was with SU! for 7 years and was a manager, got to go on stage at convention, and, yeah it *was* awesome!!
BUT my life changed in late '05 and now i'm not a demo and haven't stamped for about two years.
It's soap opera but let's just say: went from USAF SAHW to working full time plus, separation and divorce, living on 40% of previous income, lost house, remarried after whirlwind romance to my sexy Croatian husband, moved twice, had a baby and am going to have another in Dec., yeah, well it's a lot to have gone through in a very short time.
Stamping lost out, LOL.
Now things are settled down partly and I'm starting to unpack my BEAUCOUP of STAMPING AND CRAFTING STUFF. And I do mean beaucoup. It's a shipload, lol: boxes and boxes, and boxes, and boxes.
ANYHOO! sorry i'm so chatty :rolleyes:
I am no longer tied to SU! and concerned with demo'ing and what's current vs. retired. I used to have all my supplies sorted by retired or not, SU! or not, and now I don't have to do that. Granted most of my supplies are from my years with SU!.
I'm considering -*GASP*- abaondoning the color families, separating what's retired, what's sold in kit form, all that; and just organizing stuff by type and by color.
Inks, cardstock: blues together, pinks together, etc.
Glitters, EP: same.
I'm also considering going umounted as well! Yikes.
I know i'm nuts for taking on a project like that but am on a serious re-organizing kick to get my world straightened out before baby U. #2 arrives for Christmas!!:mrgreen:
What do y'all think? Anyone done this? I mean, i have everything marked by color family, date retired, etc, and it just seems silly to live by color families now.
I see a lot of the artists on here, even those who are SU! demos using other products alongside for artworks on here and am wondering if they have SU! separate or are mixed up in their supply storage too?
Just looking for some dire warnings or encouragement or just let me know what you've done :-D TIA!!
Holly
I agree. Whatever works. I have my SU ink pads and markers organized by families, and my SU paper organized alphabetically. My non SU stuff is stored in a separate area.
I have not unmounted any wood stamps. I'm too lazy and I like having the wood mount with the index. When I run out of room, I put a bunch of stuff away and take it out months later. When I am totally sick of it, I sell it.
How about unmounting a couple of sets and seeing how you like it before going hog wild.
Congrats on the new life!
__________________ Dear Paperlicious is my blog...with a series on how I'm learning to improve my cardmaking by studying others.
I organized my paper ROYGBIV but left my inks in families. Did this so I could tell if I didn't put up my ink in the SU caddy. I may organize the ink this way not that I have some in-colors mingling in AND I had bought the extender to hold more.
Location: Somewhere in the middle...closer to there, nearer to here...
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Congrats on weathering all the changes in your life in the last few years! I would suggest taking it slowly. I know a lot of the ladies that have gone completely unmounted spent literally weeks doing this job. I have been unmounting my non-SU stamps and it is quite time consuming.
As for the storing of the color families, I think do whatever works for you in terms of what makes sense. Personally, I'm a bit OCD and like the order of the SU color families...but that's just how I do it. As you start getting back to stamping, do take advantage of all the wonderful things on this site such as challenges and galleries.
I am a demo, but am definately NOT SU exclusive (other demos please don't flame me ;) ) There are so many nice stamps and paper out there, I just can't stick with only one. Imagine life without all those beauriful and shimmery papers out there :rolleyes: .
Anyway, I have my SU paper separated by color families. All my other papers are stored in original wrapping by color. It works for me.
I haven't unmounted my SU, but I try to buy strictly unmounted now. I'm not a demo, just love SU, and I store ink and paper by family. I started doing this to be able to tell if a pad was missing. Last week I tried to re-organize and sorted them out different....Last night I put them back in families. I'm use to working with them that way! All my other ink I seperate by make, and put like colors together. Its just the SU that I'm OCD about, I guess!
I don't keep anything in families. My cardstock goes from White to vanilla, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, pink, red, brown then black. Works great for me. Inks are pretty much the same.
I'm considering unmounting too. I haven't decided yet. I've never even stamped with an acrylic block though, so I need to make sure I like it first.
I do everything by color (in paper) because I can't imagine going through 4 different piles (if they were sorted by family) to find the right shade of blue I want, and I don't just have SU...I guess if you WANT the paper to match the ink though, it would be helpful to have the families more easily reached. My solution might be to put the SU paper with the rest of the paper, but separated...hope that makes sense? Say, at the BACK of all the blues you have the SU blues within their families. So you can go straight to the back if you know you want a particular SU color.
For the inks, I find they stack better if the same brands are kept together (instead of doing it by color). BUT I DO have an index, where all the same colors are sample stamped on the same page (top half is pigment inks, bottom half is dye inks)...so, I can see if I want a different shade of blue to match something, which brand it is.
Is that clear as mud? It's kind of a hybrid system, I guess. But I am not a demo, either--if I were I'm sure it would be more focussed on SU...
__________________ Lynn
"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right�--Lincoln
Last edited by nottoocreative; 07-11-2008 at 11:29 AM..
Reason: add punctuation
Organizing and reorganizing always reenergizes me. I say, "go for it!" And organize the color families whatever way works for you.
As far as unmounting, I highly recommend maybe doing that step last, and doing lots of research before you get going. There are some great threads on here about unmounting - and you want to be sure you have a good plan for unmounting before proceeding. Steps that you really want to be ready for are indexing and storing the stamps so you don't end up with a pile of naked rubber stamps. I haven't unmounted my SU stuff so I can demo it, but I do buy lots of naked rubber, and I have to be really careful about storing it so that it doesn't get lost.
All of my stamps are unmounted now, except for the SU backgrounds. I don't worry too much about keeping retired stamps away from current ones, but I do mark the retired ones since I still participate in swaps where current is required. And I switched to rainbow order for everything - inks, markers, paper, etc., as I don't think in color families. I'm much happier with the rainbow order!
I just reorganized my all my cardstock by color. I used to have it by SU color families. I am buying PTI paper now as well. I decided that it would be easier to sort my paper by color. It is working great for me.
being a member of this site, I love the SU color combinations/challenges, and find it easiest to keep those colors together. My other point is, down the
road if you want to sell your SU stamps, will they sell as well if you have unmounted them? If you definitely will never try and sell them on this site or
elsewhere, go with your hearts desire
__________________ Carolyn
my avatar: (such desparation), Dear God, if you can't make me thin; make my
friends fat"
Do what works for you. I try having my stuff organized by family and cardstock by colors (rainbow-like). My stamps are not unmounted yet...too scare to. My craft desk is no where to be seen. So, even with good intentions to organized my craft supplies, I don't seem to have it quite organized enough yet to find my things. I do however know where my cardstock and inks are but nothing else. Good luck with baby #2.
I like the idea of arranging the colors in a rainbow too. I'm a hobby demo but don't do parties or demo products really. My stamping room has inks from many companies and all kinds of stamps. LOL about your shiPload of stamps....think we all can relate to that one. ;)
__________________ Have an awesome day!
Loretta Rathert~
I knew I shouldn't have read this thread--now you all have convinced me to abandon the families and organize by color!!! (Another project to do---and I haven't even finished unmounting my stamps yet!!!:rolleyes: )
I had all my papers in rainbow order & re-arranged them back to the color families. My inks are in (somewhat-I'm not really that organized) rainbow order though! I changed the paper back because it helped me for re-ordering purposes. It seems easier to see what I am getting low on that way. Bottom line is do what works & glad you are coming back to stamping!
I keep my SU colors together by family - when I have room. I figured the markers, WCC are like that. I do not sort out the scraps that way - they all go in a file folder labeled SU. I also do not sort DP They are sorted by colors unless it is SU then they are together in one folder. I have a 12 x 12 file that I use.
__________________ Did you know nearly 1 in 2 Americans live with chronic illness? chronic illness?
I have all my ink pads in rainbow order too, in my color caddy; my paper is separated this way too. As for the UM thing, I am only currently doing the ones I LOVE the most. lol Just go with what works for you, you're the one who's working with all of it. lol
hi Holly
You have been through a lot ..in a short time. Welcome to the world outside SU. I have my SU mounted but this week took most of the others off wood. BEST THING I EVER DID> be sure to think about ums. I use cds and ALeene's TIO&O on them. works great.
I keep my papers like this in paper storer..see pic. and then scraps all colors together except white is separate.
I have 5 sets of stamping spots and I rearranged them so that like colors are in the same box. pink/red, blue, purple, orange/yellow and green (i think) is how i store them. my cardstock is also by color. I have not UM yet, but am thinking about it. The idea of being able to store all those sets in one (or 2:mrgreen: ) photo album instead of all those boxes is enticing!
Holly, I was organized that way (by color) and now just became the mother of a demonstrator! So now everything SU/current/retired is getting separated. I am her kit maker for party projects in exchange for lots of product! Love it! She is such a great daughter and now we have even more in common! Just funny how things do switch around...much like your life, right?
I have my cardstock and ribbons in rainbow order....oooh, it's luscious to look at! The color families never made a lot of sense to me anyway, they seemed random. I also went unmounted and I'm loving it.
I have most of my stuff by colors and it is such a pain. I wish I had kept it all in their individual packages so now I don't separate my SU cardstocks or PP or markers for that matter. I also don't unmount. If I should choose to sell on ebay, I am sure that stamps that are wood mounted will sell better.
You all have convinced me to go with the ROYGBIV order even though I am a demo. Could someone who has organized their SU paper by ROYGBIV order, list their order by color names? I am a new demo and all my papers are in multipacks. By the time I try to order them, I wouldn't know the colors or even sets that they come from to figure out their names. I would appreciate any help!
I used to be a SU demo and now am not, the first thing I did was researched widely on the net how to go unmounted before I actually did it! I am a super organised person and have minimum space to store so for me it's been a plus there. I highly recommend unmounted and just love it so much. As for your colour family's I went through my stock and got rid of the cardstock and ink pads of the colours I can't stand (approx 3 per colour family) and as I have the full set of markers for each colour family, I don't need to worry if I really want to use one of those colours to match a non SU ribbon etc....as I can just use that marker to stamp with. I just figured why use colours you really don't like if you don't need to. Good luck with your organising and welcome back to stamping!!
Forgot to say I have all my unmounted stamps in clear zip lock A4 sleeves hole punched in a two hole arch folder. I couldn't do the cd even though I had papertrey stamps, as some sets just wouldn't fit and it frustrated me too much. I can flip through my folder that much easier and see all my sets at a glance. I have one folder for background sets and word stamps and the other for picture stamps etc...Hope this helps
Last edited by courtonstamps; 09-03-2008 at 08:19 PM..
I'm a new SU demo so most of my stuff is not SU and no way am I giving it up. I use what I like.
I arrange paper by rainbow, but do keep SU ink and stamps in one shelf so that when I need them I can get them. I am thinking about separating embellishments etc so that when I do a workshop or class I know. That is down the road when I buy a caddy.
I agree with the others - organize according to how your brain works and what will make it easiest for you to get at your stuff.
I'm not a SU demo but still keep my SU paper, inks and stamps separate from my other stamp, paper etc. Most of my stuff is from other companies. I do organize my SU paper by color because I can see what green,blue or ? works with another color. I suggest getting your stamping stuff organized before you decide to whether to do UM'ed. I have a massive stamp collection. I wanted to make an inventory of all my stamps and tried to stamp every image. All my stamps became so jumbled (out of normal categories) that I was so overwhelmed that I didn't stamp for a year! Boy, what a big mistake. The bottom line is do whatever feels right for you. Good luck!
I've unmounted and I love it ~ no more constant reorganizing to keep track of my stamps on shelves and all of that space they took up!! I don't even have nearly as many as some of the people here. Mine are in CD cases in 12 x 12 storage drawers (same as I use for my cardstock and DP) and sorted by theme/category. I know what I have and know where to find it - haven't done index sheets... maybe some day.
I never thought to organize in "rainbow" colors rather than color families. I still think in color families so that's been fine, and now I'm also buying Papertrey Ink cardstock because it is fabulous - and when I want PTI, I want PTI and I don't think I'd want to weed through the others to find it. Now that I think of it, I do keep my inkpads rainbow sorted... not even sure why that is!
I'm a new demo and have only had a couple of workshops and a third one soon. Since I unmount, I've had to set a couple of sets aside for demos. That's sort of a pain, but I did tell myself that this recent holiday mini preorder is justified to purchase sets that I will keep woodmounted for demos (painful just to say that!). Of course, I can unmount them when they retire or if I decide I don't want to stay a demo.
I'm in the process of weighing the benefits of being a demo (who is still working on establishing a customer base) and the freedom of not being a demo. Possibly just doing card classes with all kinds of products and no concerns anymore about what's retired and what's not. It's so much fun to use some of the different styles of stamps from other companies!
I used to be a SU demo ......<SNIP>
Forgot to say I have all my unmounted stamps in clear zip lock A4 sleeves hole punched in a two hole arch folder. I couldn't do the cd even though I had papertrey stamps, as some sets just wouldn't fit and it frustrated me too much. I can flip through my folder that much easier and see all my sets at a glance. I have one folder for background sets and word stamps and the other for picture stamps etc...Hope this helps
Hi, this is a new one one me! D'you suppose you could post a picture of your um storage? I can't really picture what an "arch folder" is...
I keep all my paper in ROYGBIV order in hanging files in 2 totes made for hanging files. I am a demo. My inkpad tower has 6 sides so I still have them in 4 families, neutrals, and all retired "in" colors for the 6th column.
__________________ ~Vee
It's not who you know-it's whom you know.
When I first started buying SU I kept everything in the color families but it was too hard to find what I wanted. I now store everything by colors no matter who is the mfg. I break-up my stamp sets by category and store them along with mounted, unmounted, and acrylics. The only stamps I unmounted were ones I bought unmounted and rarely use. I still like wood but I don't buy it for unmounted stamps.
I'm going to sign up as a hobby demo this weekend and I still plan to keep my sets stored by category. I don't plan on doing many demos so it won't be a problem if I need to put a set back together for a demo.
The bottom line is that you should do what works for you - if you design by color, then I highly recommend storage by color.
Congrats on thriving with all your changes and welcome back to stamping!
considering abandoning SU's color families for rainbow order
