Tidy dies!

Good Evening friends!
Yes another week gone and also January drawing to a close. The snowdrops are out in the garden (as they should be) but all my little tete a tetes (tiny daffodils) are flowering too! they are a tad early and sadly will be over before I declare Spring has sprung! They do not seem to know what time of year it is!

No card today...been busy, but nothing I can show you yet in the card dept I am afraid.......so..........for those of you that have asked...and those of you that haven't............grab a cuppa glass of wine (drink responsibly though)and look at pics of my recent die tidy marathon. If you are not keen to look at a picture heavy post, then I will hopefully see you next week.

I have lots (yes lots) of dies of varying makes and sizes and thus I have about 4 different ways of storing them. Odd you may say but it works for me.

OK
 I am sure lots of you already have Really Useful Boxes so it will come as no surprise that so have I!!  I have put all my Spellbinder dies in one (almost full) and my Christmas and Sue Wilson dies in another. Here's one of the boxes....

I made dividers from brown recycled ? upcycled (call it what you will) cardboard covered in coloured paper. The dies were stored in their own folders. The early Spellbinder dies came in a folder,I had to cut them down a bit, the later ones and the Sue Wilson ones I had to add cardboard to the back to make them into a folder and the newer ones are in envelopes. I put the dies on magnetic sheets in their folders/packets to keep them safe. Be warned those boxes get very heavy!!

My very big dies are just in an A4 ring binder on magnetic sheets placed in clear A4 pockets.(no picture.....you all know what an A4 binder looks like)

Next up.....the majority of my other dies..............in Papermania cases made for the job. I have recently bought the second one and I am pleased to say that the magnetic sheets that came with it held the dies a lot better than my first one. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this. I think I am going to have to replace the magnetic sheets in some (when funds allow) as it is so annoying when they drop off when you look at them! I also only place the dies on one side of the sheet.

They are a bit of a mix in these...all different makes, hence when I make and blog a card I sometimes cannot remember who's die it is. All my Memory Box are in here but I still have the packets for those....just in case I run out of room ,(hmm that's only if I buy more dies of course) and then I could store them as the Spellbinders (smaller box of course). 

I can hear you all shouting ...I've got that die! I have grouped them into categories (flowers, butterflies etc) but that's just a personal thing...you could I suppose store by brand.

Lastly...........the one I like best .....BUT it takes up the most room!.
This is for my dies and matching stamps. A while ago I bought a box of blank DVD cases (no inserts) and so, where I have matching dies and stamps.the stamps go on the right and the dies on a magnetic sheet on the left in the same box. I have put a piece of copier paper between to protect them from each other.

On the outside .....dear hubby photocopied the carrier sheet and I was able to label the spine and have a picture on the front too! (An A4 sheet of paper cut down and slid into the plastic cover).

I am going to have to re-arrange shelf space to accommodate these but I like having the two together and have added mainly Clearly Besotted in these. Uniko stamps come in cases like this so have added my dies in a similar manner to the existing ones.

So there we are...........are you still with me?...............bet you wished you had never asked now! Those that didn't I am sure bailed on me a long time ago!

One other thing before I head off.............hubby bought me this amazing hot glue pen for Christmas....its cordless, rechargeable, easy to use, and small and neat................thought you might like a peep.... (no I am not on commission from Bosch!)

Thanks for stopping by...and staying if you are still reading this. I hope you are all safe and well in this very unsettled climate of ours. Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do.

Take care

Crafty hugs
Carole xx