Edumicate Me Thursday - Inventory Your Supplies!

Because a few of you asked, I'm posting my inventory sheets here. I use these to keep track of my supplies. All these sheets are updated each time I make new purchases and kept in sheet protectors inside binders. I can easily glance through and see what supplies I have on hand.

There are three major categories I inventory:

1. Stamps - this includes all rubber stamps and clear stamps. I organize these by category so I can quickly look up all my food related stamps or animal stamps. I stamp an image on the sheet and underneath I write the name of the stamp, what company makes it, what year its from, when I purchased it, how much I purchased it for and where its located in my craft rom.

2. Die Cuts and Punches. When I purchase a new die cut (Quickutz, Cuttlebug, Spellbinder), I punch/cut it from scrap paper and post it on the inventory sheet. Underneath I write the name of the die, the company and the price/date of purchase. These are categorized into small diecuts and large diecuts.

3. Inks, glitters and embossing powders. I stamp the same image for each ink I purchase to keep track of the colours I have on hand. I keep a separate sheet for each type of ink (i.e. Stampin' Up, Palette). For glitters I place double sided adhesive in each section and put the glitter on the sticky side. With embossing powders I stamp with Versa and emboss with the embossing powder. I find this really useful when I want to match an ink or glitter colour to a patterned paper or marker colour.

You can download these inventory sheets from my website:

1. Stamps Inventory

2. Inks, Glitter and Embossing Powder Inventory

3. Die Cuts/Punches - Small

4. Die Cuts/Punches - Large


So...why should you inventory your supplies? Here's a few reasons I can think of:

1. To know what you own and prevent yourself from buying the same thing - or even similar things twice. Sometime you might already own a Christmas tree stamp - but you've forgotten you own it so you go out and buy another one...then you have two that you might not need.
2. To quickly find the perfect stamp/ink/punchie for your current project. Its much easier to flip through a binder then to go hunting through all your drawers, boxes, etc. to find the perfect pairing for that card/scrapbook page.
3. For insurance purchases. We've all invested a lot of time and money in our craft supply collections. If the worst case scenario ever happens (God forbid), you will be better off for having inventoried your supplies.

Here's a card I put together today - very simple but I'm happy with how it turned out.

Supplies: Paper (Bazzil, Stampin' Up, PaperTrey, Paper Salon), Stamp (Hero Arts), Ribbon, Flowers (Prima), Bella Baubles, Die Cuts (Quickutz, Nestabilities), Ink (Brilliance), Copic Markers

Thanks for stopping by!