OCD Stamp Index

I've mentioned in a few blog posts about my stamp index, so before I mention it in passing again, I thought I'd devote an entire post to it.  Besides, I'm still feverishly working on my butterfly challenge piece for the Loose Bead Society and don't have anything new to show you yet.

It all started with a spiral book I got for free somewhere.  It was a large book with thick pages, and I decided it would make a good stamp index.  I divided it into sections and stamped away!  It worked pretty well until I overgrew some sections like birthday and thank you... then I had to put a note that says "More birthday stamps on the following page..." and go find a blank page I could use.

The book got so out of date and confused that I was about to scrap the whole thing, but my OCD kicked in.  I was about to make a birthday card for someone and thought I should keep track of what I've used for what project so I wouldn't use the same stamp for the same person.

I'll spare you the entire thought process.  My brain can be a scary and complicated place.  The end result:  three large 3-ring binders, thousands of scanned images, and a lot of Word documents.  I got very lucky in that Walgreens had a great sale on page protectors.  I was able to get more than enough for what I have and for expansion.

I separated the stamps by theme and type.  If a stamp had a bird and flowers, it went into both the birds and the flowers sections.  I got very confused throughout the process, but I had a huge sense of accomplishment when it was done.

Here are a few pictures:

The three binders on my bookshelf.  This is very close to my desk, so when I'm in "creation mode", I can just turn around and grab a book.

The inside cover and tabs for book #3.  Yes, I have a table of contents, and my tabs are color coded based on category.  I told you my mind was a scary and complicated place.  I think the hardest part of the whole process was placing the tabs so they wouldn't overlap.

One of the pages from the Birthday section.  The titles across the top of the page are:  Stamp, Set/Information, Location, and Used on...  For "Set/Information", I have the name of the Stampin' Up! set or what the manufacturer of the stamp is.

I have separated my Stampin' Up! sets based on location.  When I set up the locations, I was using a large Rubbermaid cabinet with wire stackable shelves.  I placed the stamp sets based on what fit in each location, not alphabetically.  I'm not that OCD!  I knew that I'd have to keep rearranging the locations if I did that.  For the most part, they're organized based on when I got them.  I have number stickers on the outsides of the set boxes, so I can quickly find sets and put them back.

As you can see above, I'm writing in the "Used on..." column instead of reprinting the sheet every time I make a change.  At some point I'll go through and update the Word documents and reprint the sheets.  That won't be necessary for quite some time, though.

Hopefully my stamp index will inspire you to do something similar with your own stamps.  The best part about this system is that when my husband wants to make a card for me or to help me with a project, he can do it all on his own!  That's a sign of a good system, in my book(s)!