Tip - Inventory of Supplies

This has been one of the most helpful things that I've come up with for myself anyway. I carry it with me in my purse all the time. It is an index card notebook that was originally purchased for my genealogy research and I decided that it would work perfect for this. Now if I'm in a store, especially good when there is a sale, then I have a list of what I have, so I don't duplicate any purchases.

I have kept the file, just in case anything were to ever happen to the notebook, but have also put my cell phone number inside it just in case I were to leave the notebook laying anywhere by accident. But within Word, I was able to make tabs for every aspect of my artistic type things using the table format. This is where a little obvious logic plays in. Make a two-row table with five-columns. The 2nd row will be merged together and sized at 3" x 5" (the size of the index card). The five columns, in the first row, should be one-inch each. Now, whether that is the first row or the second row, is up to the individual, just make sure one is five-columns, one-inch each and the other is merged together and is 3" x 5". Think about which direction you want your tabs to face. If you do the 1st row as your tabs, they will be printed facing into the notebook; 2nd row will face outwards. If you do a border line through the table with a light grey/silver color - it will give you a nice guide to cut with. Remember, you only do one tab on each table. The next one, you would do the second tab and so on until you get all of your tabs done. A couple can be printed on one sheet of cardstock. Margins can be minimized since they don't matter in this case anyway so you can maximize use of the sheet. Click here for Dividers file in Microsoft Word format.

I know I'm going to have to add more tabs as I get into the project, but so far I've got the following tabs in my notebook:

• Beading
• Books (helps to remember what you checked out from the library or actually purchased)
• CDs
• Cricut
• Cuttlebug
• DVDs
• General Crafts
• Magazines (because some stores have special sales on past issues and it helps to know what you have)
• MCPT
• Knitting
• Polymer Clay
• Refills (pens, printer inks, p-touch, etc)
• Scrapbooking
• Stamping
• Stencils
• Software

Word has a page setup for the Index Card size. I've set up a fiile for each topic in my notebook so I can keep a running file going of these. If you've already printed off some of the cards in the file, just make sure to change the printer properties to only print the ones you need. I've put instructions for some projects, so I can refer back in case I see something that might work in place of something else. Just make sure that the print isn't so small that you can't read it! You can test on a plain sheet of paper, so as not to waste the cards, and see which way the print feeds the cards (if they're pre-punched). Also keeping a card with a MCPT reference chart so I'll know what colors I have available at home - works the same with paints. (I also have a larger chart that I keep with my MCPT materials, so I can reference it - will put another post with close-up photos of those and details on the set-up).

I've been working for a while on getting all of my stamps into an 8½" x 11" notebook and hopefully (fingers crossed) I'm also going to be able to reduce those down to the index card size for the little notebook. I would just put the names and numbers of those, but sometimes it helps to actually see the image in case it's similar to another. It's all a personal preference. Some manufacturers have photos of their items on the websites, but sometimes it's faster to just lay things out and take digital photos yourself to add to the book and then you get what you want. I've actually used both. It's still a work in progress and obviously will always be since I'll obviously purchase more and as I use things up. It'll just get easier when I've got the basic of it done and only have to add things here and there.

The notebooks can be found at Wal-Mart for less than $4 and I had already purchased many packs of index cards when I found them on sale. Best to do it when they have back-to-school sales. I've gotten some packs for as little as 10 cents and 33 cents for 100 cards...so it's really affordable.