Thursday 13 March 2014

Stamp Pad Storage

Well, I finally managed to get this made, I've been looking at these storage units on You Tube and thinking that these people are making it look really easy to make, so I thought I'd have a go.  The upside is that its very cheap to make, the downside is there are no instructions on the internet (that I could find) as to actually how to make this thing.  I did find one site but they wanted payment for the instructions, so I thought I'd just "wing it" and here is the finished result (don't panic, I will give you instructions)


It's constructed out of foam board, now, this is something I had never heard of, but a quick search on the World Wide Web and I had tracked it down to Hobbycraft, so off I went.  One sheet of A1 sheet of this foam board is £4 and they're currently on 3 for 2, so I purchased 3 boards for £8.  I then stocked up on glue for my hot glue gun, as you will need plenty, I got through 8 glue sticks making this!

As I had no idea what the measurements were, I thought that 6 ink pads wide was about the right size and this is how I measured it!


I'm afraid my technique was not very scientific, I roughly measured 6 ink pad widths and some spacing in-between, so I roughly guessed it would be 60cm wide, which was rather fortunate as the A1 board is 60cm wide, plus if it was too long, I could always trim it off.  I also roughly estimated that the depth needed to be 10cm as this was just short of the length of the ink pad as it would be easier to remove them if they hung out over the edge.


Having never worked with foam board before, it was quite an interesting material, it was easy to cut with a craft knife but because of the thickness of it, it was quite hard to get a straight edge, quite often it ended up being cut at an angle, although this didn't seem to be a problem.  I tried using scissors but this tore the edge of the cut and you can't get a knife through all of it in one go, so you have to make several cuts to get through, but despite there already having a cut to follow, the knife did not always follow this groove and quite often make a new cut, so beware, cut against a metal ruler and press hard agains the ruler to ensure you don't make another cut where you don't want it.

I then decided that the width between the shelves should be 2.5cm, so I cut these at 8cm long so they did not come all the way forward to the front of the unit as it was quite hard to get a neat edge and then hot glue'd them at 10cm intervals as this was just wide enough to get the ink pad in.  So the first layer looks like this....


Then add layer 2, which again is 60cm x 10cm and add the 2.5cm x 8cm uprights, there was no measuring as to where to put these, I just eyeballed them to try and make them be in line with the row below.  This was not always successful and I kept having to offer up an ink pad to make sure that it would still fit, had to jiggle it a couple of times when the gaps got a bit small.  



Then just keep adding layers until you get it to the height you want or have enough space to accommodate all your ink pads.


I also tried it out for size to accommodate my copic pens, it's deep enough that they don't fall out, if you have a large collection of copics, you might want to make one row higher which is very simple do to, just cut the uprights taller.  I decided that I might like my stickles to go in as well so I roughly measured my bottles and then cut a row of uprights at 10cm x 8cm.  These were a little hard to glue as they kept wanting to fall over, but once proper up with a stamp pad, no problem!  I also stuck velcro on the underside of the top layer and corresponding velcro on the bottoms of the stickles bottles so they would hang upside down to eliminate air bubbles and make them easier to use.

I felt  at this point that it was at the right size so I needed to now measure the height and put on the sides and back.  As luck would have it, the unit was 30cm high, this was not planned as I didn't know how many rows I was going to make and the larger storage at the top was also not planned, so cutting two 10cm x 30cm strips these then went on the sides and one back piece at 60cm x 30cm.  I must admit that although the size of pieces going across was 60cm, once the back was put on, it was just a little bit bigger than this but it went on anyway so if you looks closely (but please don't) there is  a very small gap at the back.



By no means is this a perfect example as it's easy to see the uprights are a bit wonky, but it is incredibly sturdy and solid and once all the bits 'n' bobs are in, hopefully this distracts from the imperfections.  It took a few hours to make and a shed load of glue, but it was fun and as it only cost £8, so if I choose not to use it, then i'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  I still have one sheet of foam board left, as I only used 2 and am now wondering what can I make out of it.  Someone asked me how many times I was going to burn my fingers on the glue, and the answer is loads!

I now have my stamping supplies and stickles at hand so I'm sure I will now get more use out of them and I can also see which stickles I have, I discovered I have 3 icicles!

If you decide to have a go and make one, please let me know i'd love to see how yours turns out.

Thanks for looking x

3 comments:

  1. Jane! Well done!!! That looks amazing! Think I might get hubby to make me one!! I desperately need something like that, especially for the ink pads, well done, you must be really pleased!!

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  2. It's absolutely FANTASTIC!!!!!! xxx

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  3. WOW Jane, it really looks amazing. I may have to go out and get some of that board on my home this evening ... I see a weekend project :)

    Hope all is well with you

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