Ink Storage Directions

I wish I can remember who first posted this so I can give them credit for the idea.  I got the idea from a photo I saw on a Scraprack group I am in.

I went with the idea and figured out how to to this on my own.  She may have come up with an easier idea to assembly hers, but I will share how I did mine.

Hi, here is how i made it.

I took the larger piece of foam board and simply placed a stamp pad on it to judge how deep my shelves had to be.

for Stampin Up ink pads 4 inches worked

for Tim Holtz Distress inks 2 1/2 inches
for Close to my Heart and amuse Studio ink pads I did 3 3/4

Then using a metal edged ruler and exacto knife I cut the whole sheet in strips for whichever size I was making.

You can see some of my long strips in the photo above, along with some of the little 1 inch strips I also cut up.

Then I took one of the strips I just cut and then cut that strip into 1' sections, these are the little pieces you see in between each ink pad. This was very easy for me, I have a big rotary trimmer and the foam board fits in it so I cut all the little tabs with this trimmer. Otherwise you can use your exacto knife again to cut these.

On my long strips I still have. I again placed the ink pad I was making the storage for, on top of it to judge how wide each section had to be for my ink pads.

Stampin Up 4 inches

Tim Holtz Distress Inks 3 1/8
Close to My Heart and Amuse Studio 3 1/2

I drew a line so I knew where to add a strip of hot glue.

I added the glue to one of these drawn lines at a time and glued down a 1 inch strip. the hot glue dries almost immediately so you have to do this quickly

Once I have a whole strip with the little tabs dividing each section, I put it aside and grab another long strip and did this part all over again until all my long strips had the little tabs glued on.

The assembly was the most challenging and there may be an easier way to do this. this is how I did it.

I tried to add some hot glue to the top of all the tabs and quickly stack another strip on top, but like I said the glue dries very quickly so I had to go back and touch up some stops where the hot glue did not stick.

After making the one I showed in my photo for the Stampin up ink pads, I went back to the store and got some more foam board. I then made one for the distress ink pads.

 and I added a couple of rows on top for my Amuse Studio ink pads.

  I was planning on making one of these shelves for my CTMH ink pads but I have too many to fit in the window sill I was making this unit for.

This is what my storage unit looks like right now after added the 2 extra rows i just did for this "how to" explanation. The unit sits inside a window I have in my scraproom that use to look into the kids playroom.  It was great when the kids were little.  Us moms could scrap in my scraproom and keep an eye on the kids playing in the room next to us.  Since then my teenage son had converted this to his bedroom and there was no use for awindow anymore.  So at least now I can make use of the window space.