RAK Winner! and Tuesday Tip -- Pen storage

Congratulations to the winner of last week's RAK

Wannabescrappin said...
I love finding new blogs to follow! I saw yours in one of your e-mails for the LOM Yahoo group.
March 8, 2009 6:08 PM

Please email me at TheScrapTrap@yahoo.com with your mailing address!

All of you that signed up to follow my blog, add some other blogs to your following list. If you used blogger you can go to your "dashboard" and see updates, rather than going to each blog to see whether they've posted or not. I used to have a list I checked every day, but so many didn't post every day. Now I just check the one place. I'm so happy with blog following -- I hope you'll all find it helpful, even if you decide to quit following me! :D (But none of you will want to do that!!!)

Tuesday Tip -- Pen Storage

I've heard from multiple sources that the key to a pen/marker's long life is to store it horizontally. I used to use a pen caddy that held 75 pens on a collapsible stand (I think the one I used was from Cropper Hopper). I out grew that one years ago, and have been keeping all the other pens in a large zippered pouch, also by Cropper Hopper. This was so frustrating because I could never find the pen I wanted and had to check multiple locations for pens. I finally decided to change my system and make it more user friendly!

I spent a whopping $6 on a set of 5 plastic drawers at Walmart. Each drawer is sorted by colors.

Drawer 1 = Red, pink, orange
Drawer 2 = Yellow, green
Drawer 3 = Blue, Purple
Drawer 4 = Brown, Black, White
Drawer 5 = Metallics, Red Eye, Disappearing ink, and other specialty pens

(this is my "specialty pen" drawer)

It can now sit on my desk, I can easily reach it, AND I can find the colors I need FAST.

Bonus Tip:


You may be wondering about how a "prudent" scrapbooker can have so many pens. A great tip I got years ago -- Michael's sells a 100 marker set in their ARTISTS section (like by the paints and canvas -- not the craft paint). My pens say Fibracolor on them. They were $15 regular price when I bought mine 6 or more years ago now, and they all still work beautifully! I used a 50% off coupon to buy them during one of the holiday sales, so it cost me less than $8 to have every color of the rainbow. I'm pretty sure they're still available -- I saw them within the last year, but don't know how much they're selling them for now.


I love the look of "creative lettering" on my titles and journaling. When I go back and look at my older pages, I love the look! It makes me happier than alpha stickers, stamps, rub-ons, or even computer printed.


Hope this post gave you lots of helpful tips tonight!

Happy Scrapping!