Workspace Wednesday: Enamel Dots

I have two sons and one daughter.  I love them all uniquely and love to create layouts about them all.  But for years I was frustrated by all the pretty bling that just didn't work on those boy layouts.  Then My Minds Eye put out enamel dots.  I called them "bling for boy layouts."  And I went a little crazy - I think I bought one of every pack I came across for at least a couple of years - I wanted all the colors and sizes.  But it turns out I never finished a pack - ever. 


I started keeping them in a basket but it got too full.  Then I had an enamel dot drawer filled with packs of enamel dots.  It was chaos - I didn't know what I had, I couldn't find the colors I needed and I quit using them because they were too hard to find. 

 I thought about purging some of them, but honestly I will use them eventually if I can find the colors and size I want.  And I would likely just buy more.

There had to be a better way to store them.  I know some people put the packs on rings so they can flip through them easily.  But honestly, I had way too many packs for that to be functional - I would need a zillion rings.  And it would still be hard to find the color I wanted since most packs include several colors.  (I tend to look for supplies by color so that guides most of my organization strategies.)

And honestly my scrap room is full to the brim.  I don't have lots of extra room for storage so I felt like my options were limited.  But I do have a handy husband - and I have the drawer I had been using.  I just needed to make it more functional.

I wanted to do two things

• Eliminate all the packaging - it just takes extra room and makes them harder to use, and
• Store them by color so I would use them.

So I put my husband to work making dividers for my drawer.  He cut foam core into strips and we used two sided tape (that Creative Memories photo tape that is still in my stash) to put them together. I guessed at the size of the sections but new I wanted a few larger compartments because I had more of some colors.  We ended up with 13 sections.

Then I cut apart the backing on the enamel dots  so that I had strips that were a single color.  I put those into the sections of the drawer.

It works great.  It is easy to dig for just the right size and color.  It is easy to put new ones away (I am trying hard to buy none since I have a lifetime supply but they occasionally come in kits and once in a while I forget myself.)  And honestly - I am using them more because it is easy to pull out the drawer and find something that works.

Hope you're having a good week - thanks for stopping by.