Ink Storage Unit
Today I completed the construction of my revolving ink storage unit. This latter part of this project, making the storage for my spray inks, was much more troublesome than I had hoped, and as a result it took much longer than I’d hoped, too. It isn’t quite as neat and tidy as I would have liked, and as long as the tubes stay put, I shall be happy enough.
I really struggled with the hot glue today, and ended up getting frustrated with the whole thing. My hubby provided me with some superglue that remains repositionable for a short while and that proved to be the answer – I wish I’d used this from the beginning really. If the hot glued tubes fall off, I shall re-stick them with the superglue!
I notice that some of the repositionable labels have lifted a bit. I shall attend to these before putting the ink pads back. I didn’t want to use permanent labels, because when I expand the unit, I will want to be able to move them.
This is the superglued side which I did today. There’s a bit of mess at the bottom where I tried to remove the hot glue.
This is the other side, with the tubes stuck on with hot glue. It’s a lot more messy. I am hoping they will stay in place, though.
After I had finished, I left the unit to make sure that the glue would be fully dried before attempting to put any inks in the tubes. In the meantime, I coloured some labels with the respective colours. The small round ones are for the tops of the lids of the spray bottles – the Distress Spray Stains at the top, and the Distress Oxide Sprays at the bottom. On the right, I have coloured the top batch of square repositionable lables with Distress Spray Stains and the bottom batch with Distress Oxide Sprays. I coloured all these labels by dipping a paintbrush into the bottles. I left the bottles in the same order, so that once the labels were fully dry, I could write on them, and then stick them on. The square ones were to go inside the tubes.
Here are the labels after I added the text. For the tops of the bottles I have just used the initials as there wasn’t much room to write the full names. I should be able to recognise them OK. The ones that have the black outline are for the Oxides.
Once the labels were fully dry, I sprayed them with a matte varnish.
The bottles with their labels on top.
The labels stuck inside the tubes.
All the bottles installed in the unit.
I have got 22 Distress Spray Stains so they fill one side of the unit with one extra. I have put the Picket Fence one on the other side with the Distress Oxide Sprays. I have only got 10 Oxides so far. Putting them at the top seems to be enough to provide sufficient balance to the unit – doing a mock-up the other day, filling only one side was causing the unit to lean slightly; not enough to tip it over or to prevent the rotating base from working properly, but it felt a bit unstable. Of course, this was before I stuck the tubes on the other side, and they will have added a bit of weight, even without any bottles in them.
I am getting a couple more sets of the storage trays to add to the top of the unit, so that I can store my Distress Oxide pads with the rest. There isn’t room for them in the unit at present, and they are still in a box. I’ve got 37 of them, so two sets would add another 36 slots, and I can always take out the larger sized ink pads and store those elsewhere. I shall grind off the ridges on the sides of the new trays before I assemble them as it will be easier to get the grinding wheel flat while I can still get at them. Once added to the existing unit, these trays will then be ready to receive more plastic tubes if I add to my collection of sprays. Having a modular unit like this makes a lot of sense. The sky’s the limit – or at least, the ceiling of my studio!
I am really keen to get back to some proper art now! This has been worth doing, but not an easy project, so not quite as enjoyable as I’d hoped. The first stage, sticking the trays together to form the tower for the ink pads, went very well and was extremely satisfying. After the false start with the spice rack and trying to cut bottles, I am glad that I have at last succeeded with a more satisfactory arrangement, however messy it might be! All the inks are in one unit and it has quite a small footprint considering how much it holds, so all in all, very satisfactory indeed. It looks pretty cool, too, with all the inks in place.
Tidying up
I had a bit of a tidy-up and re-organising session around my main desk area this afternoon as well. The whole area was really cluttered. I have put away some of the things that I really don’t use that often and just kept out the essentials. I have also moved the two small plastic drawer units from under the shelf on the right-hand side and put them on another shelf.
These drawers have never been very accessible because there’s always stuff in front of them. They contained odd embellishments from years ago, and some pens that I haven’t used for years (probably don’t work any longer!). I’ve now got space for my essential stuff and have also moved the hot glue gun from in front of my dad’s old little black drawer unit so I can open the drawers! I’ve now got all my glitters, gilding powders and waxes in there, as well as some old makeup and one or two other bits and pieces. The small punches I hardly ever use have gone into a box elsewhere. While I was at it, I had a good clean-up – surprising how much mess and dust had accumulated! The desk is badly stained with ink etc. but I don’t mind that – it’s a working place, after all. The small drawers on the left need sorting through – more miscellaneous embellishments in there. If they are stored properly, maybe I’ll get round to using them!
