How I Organize my Big Shot Station

I am so excited that this weekend is Daylight Savings Time, I'm really looking forward to more sunshine!  We desperately need it here in Ohio after all the snow we've gotten this year.  As spring approaches, I am going into full out cleaning mode.

 
Today I wanted to share with you how I organize my Big Shot and all the accessories that go with it.  Here's what my Big Shot Station looks like.

My Big Shot Station has lots of space and is completely separate from my desk.  When we built our house ten years ago, I got a room of my own in the basement plus an extra cabinet from the kitchen. The cabinet has three drawers for storage plus a nice flat granite top for working on.

On the work surface I only keep the Big Shot and a container with cutting plates and a book of framelits.  This gives me a space to lay out projects and not have it lost in a jumble of supplies.

Next to the cabinet, I have a plastic storage unit with three drawers.  The drawers are full of all the items I save to up-cycle plus small notebooks and other little items to embellish.  The top of the storage container has a basket with embossing folders and a few dies and thinlets that I use more frequently.  I also have a tile that I use for hot glue as well as a basket that holds the glue gun and heat gun.

Here is a closer look at the basket.  I keep the embossing folders that are slender and match the edgelits in a framelit storage container in the back.  Next to them are my full size embossing folders.  I keep them in plastic stamp boxes, they are a perfect fit.  I will show you them closer in a minute.  In the front of the basket I have a couple of dies that are used more often, right now I have the new Spiral Flower die sitting there with one of the pop up inserts.  To the left in the front is another framelit container with thinlets that I use frequently plus the Delicate Doilies Large Sizzlet.

Here is a closer look at my embossing folders.  They fit perfectly into the plastic stamp box.  I think the size is medium.  I have three boxes full of embossing folders, they are my favorite Big Shot product.  I have the boxes organized into seasonal, retired and current.  This makes finding what I'm looking for really easy.  If I am working a lot with a particular embossing folder I will leave it sitting out in the front of the storage basket to make life even easier.

Now let's go back to the framelit storage.  I use a 6x6 Linen scrap book that retired long ago.  The framelits fit wonderfully into the sleeves.

Each set of framelits gets a page of its own.  I use the white backing cardboard from Designer Series Paper cut at 6 x 6 and cover it with a self adhesive magnet sheet.  This makes it easy for the whole sheet to be pulled out of the album when I need it.  I used up the magnet sheets that retired then ordered the ones from Oriental Trading Company.  The Stampin' Up sheets have a stronger hold, but the other ones function as well.

I even have the Thinlet Flip Card dies in here, they take up two pages.  The card die itself goes into a sleeve WITHOUT a magnetic backing page.  The accessory framelits go in next on a magnet backing.  This works out wonderfully!

The best part about this method of storage is PORTABILITY!  I can just grab the book and take it with me to workshops!  It's a great way to show the framelits to your customers.  If they are curious about a particular set, you can show it to them and die cut with it right there and then!

The last part of the station is my drawer with the bigger die cuts.

This drawer keeps all the larger dies and extra cutting plates.  I  have a large plastic stamp box with retired thinlets in the back.  Along the left side is my extended cutting plates and Pop-n-Cuts base.  I have the dies lined up with labels up to read the name.  This particular arrangement came about according to how often I used a die.  I tend to keep the frequently used dies in the front.  Now that we have framelits, I use them most of the time so they are kept on the work space.

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour of my Big Shot Station.  If this type of post is helpful or interesting to you, please leave a comment and let me know what else you'd like see.  I will be doing a bit of an overhaul on my crafting space and would be happy to share more if you are interested!

Thanks for visiting!! Happy organizing!

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