Getting Back into the Swing of Things and Mini Organizing Tips for Snaps

I can't believe it's been a month since I blogged last.  Dave and I are both recovering from some health issues.  I am happy to say that the physiotherapy has been helping with the Meniscus tear in my knee and hopefully I won't need the surgery and life can start getting back to normal.  Dave's health issues have been much more complicated with his kidney failure and all and hopefully he will feel up to helping with the clay again soon.

One of the things that can bog anyone down this time of year is tax time and inventory.  It seems like each year we add more items to our inventory list and it takes forever to count it all.  This year we have all our snaps and snap findings but I don't really mind as they have been a fun addition to the clay.  We have had to find new ways to organize everything and last year we set up a new area in our house to keep all of our finished clay work and a "shipping station" for orders.  I will share more of that with you in a future post.  For now I thought I would share with you a few other ways how we organize our interchangeable "Snap" art beads.

We have these plastic strips available in our online shop which are great for storing the snaps but we like to also organize them in smaller groupings.

For instance these snaps are matched up in pairs which work well for items such as earrings, a bracelet bangle with 2 snaps or even cuff links.

We also have snaps in groupings of three ready for other items such as a necklace or bracelet.

So it is easy to remake the cards yourself by simply cutting them into sections.  I cut this one just above the third hole (fourth actually if you count the hole at the top for hanging).  This will give me two cards.  One for a grouping of 2 snaps and the other for a grouping of 3.  For the bottom half, I just re-cut the top hole with a hole punch for hanging.

The cut edges can be quite sharp and a simple solution was this rounded corner punch I found at the craft store in the scrapbooking aisle.

For our cuff links, we punched 2 holes a little larger for them to fit through and rounded the corners.

It makes a nice display to show them off.

We print out our own tags to put on the back for finishing.

Another solution is the strips made with card-stock that are perforated for easy separation.  These work great for selling the snaps individually as well.

And of course the strips also work really well for displaying your snaps at shows.  You can arrange them on a table or hang them almost anywhere.  We have this large revolving stand we purchased for the Salmon Festival and didn't want to see it stored away when not in use.  It fits in the corner of the room and works really well for keeping our snap inventory organized.