Stamping Plate Storage - Bundle Monster, Cheeky etc.

I have three full sets of Bundle Monster plates and I'm hoping to add the new Cheeky collection to them as soon as it's released so I have quite a few plates to store.  Initially I kept them in a little pot but now that the collection is mounting that was getting quite awkward and didn't give me a good view of all the plates and images I had.  So I started to look into solutions and that led me to order this little book from Amazon.

There was quite a bit of talk about using a business card holder to store plates and in the end I chose this one because of it's pocket size, 9cm by 6cm, which was slightly larger than some other card holders.  I'd measured my BM plates and they were around 5.5cm across which seemed to be the standard size of a pocket in most holders, this one's 6cm width meant that there would be a little bit of wiggle room for the plates, hopefully making them easier to get in and out.

On to the holder.  The cover is a little dull so I think I might personalise it somehow, ideally I would stamp on it so that it showed some of the images that were on the plates it was storing but I think that might be tricky as any polish would rub off pretty fast.

Inside the book has 60 little pockets, 3 to a page.  If you put the plates in back to back so one shows out each side you can store 120 plates.  The plastic sheets seem pretty tough and should stand up to having the metal plates stored inside them.

As you can see three plates fit neatly into each section.

And once both sides are filled up it's easy to flip through your whole collection, page by page.

There is plenty of room in the book and even now I have 3 full collections (71 plates) in there it doesn't make looking through the selection any more difficult.

The pockets are deep enough that the plates are well secured in them and although they move around a little they haven't yet fallen out when I have been using the holder.

The plates slide in and out easily whenever you want to take them out for a closer look or use them.

The one downside is that my (slightly larger, differently shaped) QA plates don't fit into the business card holder so I am still looking for a way to store them, if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

However for Bundle Monster, and similarly sized, plates this is definitely a great, cost effective solution and makes flipping through your collection so much simpler.

Homemade backing for stamping plates

Some image plates for nail stamping come without any backing on them, this leaves sharp edges which can either cut your fingers or scratch other plates, there is a simple way to rectify this issue if you do happen to buy plates with no backing.

What you will need:

Double sided sticky tape

Scissors

Scalpel

Card

(possibly a nail file)

Firstly, cover the back of your image plate with double sided sticky tape, trim away the excess using scissors, I find scissors work better than the scalpel at this stage, you should be left with this:

Next, peel off the backing from your tape and place the image plate onto a piece of firm card, press it down well to make sure it grips then cut around the plate using a scalpel:

Once you done that pop it out of the sheet of cardboard and tidy up the edges.  I find a nail file will take away any wispy bits you have left if you can't get them all with scissors or your scalpel.

You'll be left with neatly backed plates which won't harm you or your other plates.