The care, feeding and organization of distress inks

My major creative project this week was caring for my distress ink pads. I have worked for years to collect many of the distress ink pads and the reinkers. I consider them my "go to" inks. During the holidays I realized many of my pads were very dry. Finally I decided it was their time for considerable attention. So I treated them to their day at my craft room spa LOL!

Care and feeding- I cleaned every pad removing any glitter and frayed threads then reinked each one.

Organization- I generally work with my ink pads in tall stacks. Unfortunately the manufactures labels are not the actual color of the inks. Some time ago I began labelling the bottom edge of my ink pads with strips of paper colored with a blender tool and stamp as well after seeing the idea at the 2 Peas stamping forum.

Making color chart- I also sponged a piece of a label for each color and put it on a color chart that I download from the Ranger website.

Organization- After I was done I realized that it would be helpful to numbered the inkpads so I could quickly keep them in color order and insure I had not misplaced one during my work. Similiarly I numbered all the reinkers. Items that are missing numbers in the photo are still on my shopping list.

I plan to also label my distress stains and markers. When my project was completed I copied the color chart to track future purchases.

Thanks for stopping in! Have some fun creative time today! ...Jan