Distress Ink Storage

I have been thinking about making a storage unit for all my Distress Inks, applicators and re-inkers and here it is.  I previously had all the ink pads stored three to a drawer with their re-inkers in two  small parts storage drawer units (the kind that come from a hardware store).  They sat on my main work surface and it was ok.

Two things lit a fire under me to do something - first, it wasn't really convenient to get the ink pads out of the drawers, and secondly, whenever anyone else wanted to ink something it wasn't a very convenient setup.

I had seen several ink storage systems made out of foam board and thought that foam core looked like a very good solution for a custom storage unit.  My only concern is that once it is loaded up with everything - including the re-inkers - it is pretty heavy so I hope it will hold up.

Basically it is a four-sided unit and each side stores 12 ink pads and their applicators.  There was a little extra space in the applicator column so I made a little cubby to hold extra re-inkers or small bottles.  There's a turntable on the bottom so it spins.

Sarah helped me organize the ink pads - inking the labels and then participating in the "really fun part" - deciding which colors would go in each column.

The re-inkers are in four sections which correspond to the ink pads stored below.  Even though they are grouped together they are in the same order as the ink ads so it is relatively easy to get the correct color without having to look at every bottle.  There's a small section in the center that can be used for extra storage.

If you are interested in how I designed this project, I made a pdf of my process with some sketches.  It's called "Distress Ink Storage Unit" on the In the Workroom page under Organizing.