Hello friends, happy Tuesday! Oh, boy have I been busy? Well, I am finally done with one project and here comes another. For all of you who did not know, I am in a middle of reorganizing my craft space and there will be a lot of cool tips and updates coming on how to organize your craft space. I know that these topics are often discuss about and I will be sharing my ways of organizing and I hope you will find them helpful.

Today I am starting off with Ink Blending Tools. We all have them and use them all the time, but finding spots for these little guys can be challenging.

Since I only use these tools for Distress Oxide Inks, I truly didn’t need a lot of them since it is super easy to replace the sponges. And for a good two years I only had maybe a total of 4 of these tools. But then, when my work flow started growing, I realized that is easier to have a matching tool for each ink. I realized that I really do not like to change the sponges in the middle of ink blending and each time I change them I end up either messing up a little velcro that is on the tool or damaging the sponge, and not to mention how inky and messy my fingers would get with would cause to have smudges all over my project! WHAT A MESS!! There HAS to be a better way! So I decided to invest in more blending tools for each color of ink. But this called for another problem that needed to be solved. STORAGE! Oh, boy, this is something that I have been looking for, for about 2 years. I spent countless hours on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube… and so many different blogs and sites trying to find the best solution, and truly, nothing work. I had a bunch of these little tools in some little containers in random spots, I always ended up knocking them down and since they were so close to each other the sponges will get contaminated with different colors so I had to change them more frequently… I mean, I hated it, truly and I simply had to find a solution and fast!

After a long, long search I found a great solution: an essential oil wood case! WHAAAT! Why, yes! These cases are absolutely phenomenal and the little compartments are just perfect for these blending tools. I found these beauties on Amazon and this arrived in no time! Now this could be a little pricy for some, but I truly needed it and I found it worth every penny, especially when you have to organize the total of 66 of them and I am left with 10 more empty slots for future inks. That is if and/or when Ranger comes up with new ones. If you like this particular case, please click here. Now, there are less expensive ones to there but please keep in mind on the depth of the drawers. They might not be deep enough for the tools so you will end up return it… Speaking from experience!

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So, once I had my lovely box, I had to change something about it, or that just simply would not be me! I really did not like the color of it and those knobs jus did not match my style, so, I ended up buying a set of pulls that were just a perfect size (click here).

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I simply removed the existing knobs and instead of painting the box, I stained it with a wood stain I already had in my garage. The staining process probably took less than an hour and then I left everything dry overnight.

While my box was drying I took the time to label and organize all my blending tools. This was just so super easy and honesty fun. I first downloaded free charts from Ranger: Distress Color Palette Labels and Distress Spray Caps Labels and I printed them on a 65 lbs card stock.

Now, Ranger suggests to use .5″ whole punch, but I used 5/8″ punch for my circle labels, and it worked great! I simply punched out all the labels and then I moved to the color palette sheet. This sheet was meant for labeling the ink pads, and you can definitely use them for that as well, but I used them for labeling the tools. I used a precision paper cutter and trimmed off the labels. I then used a simple liquid glue for labeling the blending tools.

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Once I labeled all the tools, I put them all in alphabetical order so I could easily find them once I put them in the box. This lasted less than 10 minutes, I promise!

The next day, my box was all dry and ready to be assembled.

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I just simply screwed in the pulls. I really didn’t bother patching the holes because I knew that I will cover them with labels. I simply used my label maker to label my drawers. I then put my blending tools in and that was it!

Now this project might look too big or too complicated, but aside from waiting for the stain to dry, everything was pretty much quick. And I am absolutely thrilled how this now looks on the shelf and most importantly it is so useful, easily accessible and in one spot!

I hope you find this project useful as much as I do and I hope this inspires you to organize your supplies and your craft space better.

If you have a question, please do not hesitate to leave a comment below and don’t forget to connect on social media!

More organizational ideas and hacks are coming soon! Stay tuned.

Cheers!

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