Now you see it . . . now you don't . . .

The vanishing die trick -- bring a new die home to the craft room, (or warehouse as DH calls it), put it away and POOF!  Now you see it. . . now you don't . . .

I have all my thinlit/framelit dies on magnet sheets in bins from Bed Bath & Beyond on the work table that DH built for me that can hold the weight of the dies and the sheets. All the dies are in the bins together and I used the We R Memory Keepers tab punch board to make card stock dividers using #110 weight card stock from Mikes. But decided I did not need the two big holiday dies in those bins -- BOO Day (Halloween) and Christmas.  It would be easier for me working on projects to keep all those dies together in their own bins. . .

So I separated the BOO Day dies into a smaller bin and the Christmas dies into a larger bin of their own. . .  but as I put new additions in the bins these dies seemed to have vanished . . . where is it? what do I have? I forgot about that one . . . and so it goes. Decided today was the day I would finish with the tabbed dividers in the two holiday bins.  Here is a photo of the new dividers and my BOO Day dies:

In the back of the bin I have my LDRS dies that are taller and behind that is a couple of Cheery Lynn border dies that are longer dies. Here is a better photo to show the labels and tabs:

To start this project I had to decide what size dividers I wanted to use. For both of my bins I decided on a piece of #110 card stock from Mikes and I cut that to 7"  x 5 1/2". This way out of one sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" I would get two divider pieces. Using the We R Memory Tab Punch board I punched out all my tabbed pieces - one with left top tab, one with a middle top tab, and one with a right top tab. I used the large markings for all my tabs.

For the names on the dividers I wrote out all the names of Halloween things - spiderwebs, pumpkins, haunted houses, etc.  Using the Dymo label maker I made all the labels to the list I had written out. With all the labels printed and trimmed I stacked them in a pile alphabetically.  Took all the punch board tabbed dividers I had made and I put them in order - left tab, then middle tab, then right tab and repeated this until all my tabbed dividers were in a stack. One by one I added a label to the tabs keeping the stack stacked.

Took all the dies out of the bin and began the re-organizing of these dies.  Now all my pumpkins are together, all the ghosts are together, etc.. But there are some Halloween dies that come in a set - IE a haunted house with a tree, a bat, a pumpkin, etc  so I made a special divider just for "sets" so those will be kept together in one section.  With the tabbed dividers all punched out and labels printed it did not take long to start organizing the dies. Plus with me keeping them this way I am also saving on the magnet sheets ---which I am sure will get used by the time I finish the Christmas dies bin... For the Halloween dies I decided on orange dividers and for the Christmas dies I am using green. This way when I look at the bins on the work table shelves I can see at a glance which holiday bin I need to pull out and put on the top of the work table for use.

Only makes sense to make it easier to find the dies so I will use them... no sense in buying the dies that I "had to have"  or  "needed"  to just store it away unused. 

Photos of the Christmas die bin:

Much easier to find dies for sure for the holiday projects. In the back of the Christmas bin I have a couple of my favorite dies and I keep them in plastic envelopes with the magnet sheet and packaging:

The Elizabeth Craft Santa die and behind that is the Sizzix Poinsettias die set. With organizing the bin I have extra magnet sheets and certainly "found" dies I forgot I had! ;0)       TFL