Frames 3 (Categorizing & stamp storage)

I cannot believe how many frame stamps I actually have. So I decided to make a grid of 9 of them. I mounted them on a block which I had placed over a grid so that I could get the spacing right (thanks for the tip from Bronwyn who was stamping with me!). Wonderful as it meant I could stamp up a bunch of cards with the same layout ... or even rotating the layout as it was a perfect square.

I wanted a crisp masculine card and so used Colorbox Cranberry, Hero Arts Charcoal & Hero Arts Soft Granite in addition to the black. I added a metallic brad to the sentiment to make it pop more. Still for the "I've been Framed" challenge at One-Layer Simplicity.

If you want to know why I have so many frames, I had bought the whole alphabetic series of stamps (full A-Z set) from Hero Arts of Sparkle Clear letters. Here are a few of them ...

But I hardly ever used them (except for a couple of flowers, a sun stamp and some birds). Bronwyn was rearranging and storing her stamps by category, so I decided to break up the packs and put all the matching alphabets together, flowers together, frames together, etc.  - using the Avery Elle plastic packets. I cut each image on the acetate, and arranged them on a new piece of acetate, and then stuck them down with transparent packing tape. A BIG job I can tell you - but really worth it in the end. It completely changes your perspective. 

Much easier to "see" :
4 alphabet sets (5 if you count the one with lower case too), 
26 frames (needed 2 packs to store them), 
26 flowers and 
a wonderful collection of birds, butterflies and little filler stamps.

I think I will use them a lot more frequently now.  What do you think?

[ I'm in the process of doing ALL my stamps and it is a mammoth task. Will post once I've finished them all. One day I did 75 packets, and not even halfway there! Scary to see my supply of stamps. ]