paints and such

[Keitha]

Scrapbook.com had a freebie in Feb of storage containers for bottles; I may have placed a couple of orders and received two that fit 1 oz. bottles. Today's the day to integrate them into my storage system. I keep my paints, etc. in drawers so the containers don't fit with the tops on, but I figure a better use for them is to turn them upside down and use them as additional containers. I haven't quite decided what product will live in these, but am trying to decide if I want to keep them sorted by type - distress paints together, stains together, reinkers together, etc - or if I were to organize all the colour mediums by colour family, might I use them more? I'm curious what everyone else does - and your reasons why.
I know I should store them by how I reach for them, but I think half the time I want a specific colour, and the other half the time a specific product.

[pamcook]

Scrapbook.com had a freebie in Feb of storage containers for bottles; I may have placed a couple of orders and received two that fit 1 oz. bottles. Today's the day to integrate them into my storage system. I keep my paints, etc. in drawers so the containers don't fit with the tops on, but I figure a better use for them is to turn them upside down and use them as additional containers. I haven't quite decided what product will live in these, but am trying to decide if I want to keep them sorted by type - distress paints together, stains together, reinkers together, etc - or if I were to organize all the colour mediums by colour family, might I use them more? I'm curious what everyone else does - and your reasons why.
I know I should store them by how I reach for them, but I think half the time I want a specific colour, and the other half the time a specific product.

I have my color mediums in different containers. In a perfect world, they would be in rainbow order but they're just dumped into baskets. I don't have that many so it works for me. I see myself being more apt to sort by product and then by color (does that make sense?). I tend to think "Oh - I want to watercolor and I want to use the jewel tones." All that to say, I have changed the way I think from time to time and so I've completely changed the storage system for that product. Even if I thought "that image would be so pretty in jewel tones". It would be easy to find my jewel tone watercolors if all my watercolors are in one place.

I hope that was helpful. This is a great topic. Looking forward to hearing what others have to say.

[pbp908]

My acrylic paints are in a huge basket and are drying up quickly from disuse. You could use the contents of some of them as rubber seals at this point. Oils, thinner, linseed oil, etc. are in a case of their own. Watercolor crayons and pots are in a drawer, WC pencils are in my turntable along with the WC brushes and some other tools. The turntable is what I reach for most often so it lives on the desk beside the Ott lamp.

All alcohol inks are stored together in their own box. Reinkers are in another box. Sprays and mists are in 2 boxes. Stickles and glitter are in separate boxes. All of these are decorative boxes and were actually chosen for the size of what would be in them. One of these days I'll get around to putting labels on the boxes but for now I know what's where.

I have a cabinet section of the shelving unit that holds various liquid items, like PVA, spray glue, stamp cleaners, assorted liquid glues, gesso, and a few other things I haven't thought of. Since that section has a door they're out of sight.

It's a tad involved but it works for me, doesn't take up much room, and keeps things organized strangely enough. And when I bother to straighten things up it looks nice. What can I say? I'm a decorative box junkie!

[Keitha]

Here's what 3 drawers' worth of colour mediums looks like spread on my table. Have decided to keep them together by product line, but will separate inks and paints into different drawers. Hopefully that will help me remember to use the products I only have a couple of, like Dylusions paints or Smooch pearlized accent ink. The Stickles and Alcohol Inks are in their own boxes elsewhere but if I have room will add them to these drawers; things like gesso, texture paste and matte medium are on a Raskog cart.

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Decided while I had them out to swatch a couple more products; a slow process but very useful when it's done. For the ink sprays I punched circles of cardstock and adhered them to the chart when dry - much neater than trying to apply the ink directly. The Dylusions ink sprays are done including unclogging a couple of bottles, and I'll also swatch my Liquitex and India inks next using the eyedroppers.

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[pbp908]

You're more organized than I am! I love Dylusions sprays because the colors are so vibrant. I need to invest in some more of them but that would mean buying another box.

[Keitha]

I agree Pam, they're my go-to ink spray. I suppose that means I could purge what's left of the color wash and glimmer mist sprays, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet. Maybe I should take a big art journal and spray the heck out of all the pages to use those up, LOL. Haven't bothered with the Dylusions Shimmer or Mica sprays (tell me again why they make both shimmer and mica spray?); I still have Perfect Pearls sprays if I need to add shimmer to anything. Not to mention Heidi Swapp Color Shine; they were my favourite of the shimmer sprays.

[kacarr61]

I need to organize my paints and such. I like that you swatched them on charts!

[paddlegal]

Keitha my jaw dropped when I saw your desk of paints and then I realized if I pulled out all of my paints and such it would look just like yours.

Most of the sprays, inks, paints, markers and pencils that I really use are right above my craft desk in clear Binz in the wall cases Bob built for me years ago. He liked to say it “revolutionized” my card making, LOL.

[Debbie J]

I have my spays in an IKEA drawer and the other paints in a tub. It works for me for the most part.

[Keitha]

I'm amused that this thread popped up again as I'm in the process of swatching my various pastes and mediums today. Here's the hot mess that is currently my desk. I've swatched the coloured pastes which you can't see off to the left. For each of the different embossing pastes I've done a sample of the paste over top of ink, plus one on white paper where I've added colour over part of the stenciled image. This lets me see what the paste looks like plain, how it takes or resists colour put on top and how it absorbs colour from underneath. It's a work in progress. I will do a swatch card for the different gessos I have including clear and black, and also the various gel mediums. I'm adding a piece of Press 'n Seal when I put the lids back on to slow down the drying out process. I've also pulled out all the other random products from crackle medium to glaze to texture spray. I will swatch them all so I can refer to my book and see what I have when I'm looking for something.

Kathy, I've been working off and on at swatching my products for a few months now and have shared some of my efforts here previously. I find the swatch samples so much better for choosing the right product or colour. As I create my swatches I'm also adding an inventory in Evernote so when I'm at the store I can look up if I have something already.