Do you struggle with staying organized in your craft area? Do you need ideas for how to organize dies in your craft collection? Today I’ll be sharing tons of ideas for organizing your dies. I’ll give lots of options, because what works for one crafter doesn’t work for another. We have a lot to talk about, so let’s get started!
Intro To Die Cutting
If you’re new to card making or haven’t tried die cutting yet, I’ll quickly mention that this is a technique that uses metal dies and a die cutting machine to create lovely detailed shapes that can be used on your projects. For more details on die cutting, take a look here.
Is Organizing A Struggle?
Organizing craft supplies can be challenging. If you make cards, you likely have ink pads, ink refills, cardstock, designer papers, blocks, punches, adhesives, ribbon, gems, trinkets, treasures, more treasures, technique supplies…and on and on…to keep organized. The longer you’ve been doing this (or the more excited you are), the more supplies can accumulate.
If you don’t keep on top of the organization, it can explode and then you won’t be able to find anything! Let’s tackle one particular topic today with die storage. We will start by talking about what exactly to store your dies in.
What To Store Dies In
I see three main options for what you’re actually storing your dies in or on. They are:
Original Packaging
This is inexpensive, and makes a lot of sense. Over time I got tired of having to open sleeves, pull the dies off the sticky tape and then put it all back when I was done, which led to me using the next option in my own craft room.
Magnet Cards
Magnet cards are so helpful. They make it quick and easy to remove the die I’m using and then put it back away. When choosing magnet cards, I encourage you to be selective about the ones you purchase. At one time I had used magnetic vent covers as an option, but the sizing wasn’t right for my plastic sleeves and they weren’t as strong as I had hoped. Now I purchase my magnet cards and sleeves here and I’m really happy with them.
There is a third option that I love as well. I’ll share about it next.
Magnet Sheets
Magnet sheets are my favorite of these three options! These sheets have adhesive on the back, and they can be placed on any vertical surface and make it quick and easy to access your most-used dies. I placed the sheets on the sides of my paper cubes, but they can also be put on the sides of a bookshelf, on the wall in front of your table, or in a frame to hang on the wall.
Bonus Tip!
Whether storing your dies on magnet cards, sheets, or regular cards, you can trace around them to make it easier to remember where to put each die back in place. You can also write the total number of dies on the card to make it easy to count them before putting them away.
Next topic…where will you store your dies?
Where To Store Dies:
Next, where will you keep your dies? Will you store them in…
A box?
A basket?
A plastic tub?
On a shelf?
In a drawer?
On the work surface beside your die cutting machine?
I suggest keeping them as close to your work surface, and also your die cutting machine, as possible.
How To Organize Dies
The next decision related to organization is – will you store dies with or without the stamps they coordinate with? Some dies won’t coordinate with any particular stamps but others come as a coordinating set. Whether to store them together or separately is an important decision.
If you want to store them with coordinating stamps, you can insert the card with dies attached (or a magnet card) right inside of your stamp case.
For stamps that don’t come with a case, you can store them together in clear sleeves.
If you do store stamps and dies together, you’ll want a way to remember there are dies included. My suggestion is to use a sticker on the stamp set or create a dot with a permanent marker.
You can even color code your stickers! In the photo above, the pink sticker is for a stamp set with dies included. The green dot is to help me remember that particular set has a coordinating punch in my punch collection.
If you are planning to keep dies in their own location separate from stamps, you may still want to label the stamp sets that have a coordinating die set, just to remind yourself.
The next topic to tackle is how will you actually sort your die sets?
Systems For Sorting Dies
We’re making some progress here, but we still haven’t talked about how to sort your dies and keep them in an order that makes it easy to find the set you want. A few options include storing them:
- Alphabetically
- By category, like basic shapes, holiday, kids, masculine, florals, etc.
- In number order, by when you purchased them. In the next section I’ll talk about creating a notebook to keep track of the dies in your collection, and this option might make more sense after reading ahead.
Creating A Notebook For Die Storage
One really great option for organizing your dies (and stamps too) is to create a binder with copies of the dies in your collection. You can lay two die sets on a copier, create a copy, label the names of each, and place them in a binder. This makes it easy to flip through and see what die set you want to use without digging through the actual die sets.
You can even sort them by category to make them easier to find. For example, it is helpful to create one section for basic shapes, as shown below.
A notebook can be helpful in many ways, including using it with your stamps to determine which size of die you want to use.
Which system for sorting dies will work best for you? Alphabetical? By category? Or number order by when you purchased them? Whichever you choose, you may want to make a designation in your binder to help you find the set you’re looking for.
If you’ve chosen to store them alphabetically, it will be easy to find the set you need. If you’re storing dies by number or category, make sure to mark these in your binder and also on your die sets.
There are so many options to store your dies and I’ve covered just a few of them here. Make sure to watch along with the video for more information!
Video
Watch along with this video where I cover all of these die storage options in detail!
Die Storage Supplies
Take a look here at the die storage options I use in my craft room!
Magnet Sheets for Die Storage: https://bit.ly/35NtJYQ Magnet Cards For Dies: https://bit.ly/3t3F3co Die Storage Sleeves: https://bit.ly/3pXVCo6 Ink and marker storage: https://bit.ly/3CBw0Td Paper cubes: https://bit.ly/3CARH5x Ribbon storage: https://bit.ly/3tMeiIp Paper Sleeves: https://bit.ly/3JadnrN Learn To Make Cards
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I hope this helps you decide how to organize dies!
Thank You, Loved your ideas.
Some really helpful tips here, thank you, Anna. I’ve not organized things – yet! I haven’t purchased most of my supplies, I was gifted them, so got them in a large quantity, though I have purchased some, mainly secondhand but some from big box craft stores.
I was able to get some older SU sets and some punches and a few dies from Facebook Marketplace, and I’m grateful…and for those, I really do want to find a way to put the sets together because to me it makes sense to keep the dies and stamps together.
This gives a lot of good tips and hints on how to get started when I get done my current projects. Thanks again, Anna.
Blessings.
I do more art than just cards so once I finish the project I’m working on, organization will be a priority. I’m creating 3-D table centerpieces for a Senior Citizen Banquet in late June, but yes, I want to be able to use what I have and know where things are or if I need to add to my supplies…
That’s great you enjoy different crafts and that you got so many supplies as a gift! I wish you the best organizing your supplies. It takes time but is so worth it!
I’ve been looking at purchasing sleeves/plastic envelopes for my dues. Thanks for the info!