These are amazing!

The stamps above were my collection of stamps to use. It looks like a lot but when sticking these gems to envelopes I could easily use 3 at one time per envelope, sometimes more which means that they run out so quickly that at least every 2 months I need to buy some more.

 

I knew already that I needed to buy some more lower value stamps but when looking on eBay I couldn't bring myself to spend 50p on a 20p stamp, even today when I looked there was a £1 stamp going for £5! Its great if you're a collector but I wanted some to use. Just by chance the other day I came across a listing for a bag of stamps selling for under their value so I bought them.

They are absolutely amazing and I spent some hours admiring each and everyone of them as well as sorting them out in to their sets. Its going to be so hard to use them when the time comes.  However I started putting them in to little plastic wallets when I ran out. I ended up buying some more wallets but as I was puttng the rest in to them I just thought I could easily lose some and I wouldn't know about it.

 

About 2 weeks ago I purchased a stamp album for these stamps I received in this post and for some others that I received recently. I'd put those stamps in already but ended up taking those out to put these ones in.

I managed to put all my small value stamps in to the album but not the ones in the first photo. I really want all my stamps in one place and before I even purchased these ones I was already thinking that I need to find an alternative way to store the ones I have as they are all in an A4 envelope that Royal Mail sent with my first stamps a year ago so its starting to look a bit worse for ware. I've now ended up buying a 64 page album to put all my stamps in and hopefully that will arrive soon.

 

I've sorted all my stamps in to set, then small value to large... very OCD I know. I did consider putting all of the same price stamps together but I'm glad I didn't as it has the wow factor every time I open the album and I then can't help looking at every page. Once I get my bigger album it will be even better to have my main stamps in their too but I know already I'll have to put them in first as they are the ones I mainly use.

How do you store your stamps?

oh my!

This year with not feeling so great, things just don't seem to get done around the house but there are 4 other people who can deal with that but my bedroom was something else. I had orders sitting on the bedroom floor waiting to be put away. Things I'd put down on my desk were growing so it ended up looking something like this....

Yikes! I know. I couldn't cope with it being like this so yesterday morning I got up and put all the clothes in the washing machine. Dumped everything on the bed so it looked quite similar to my desk and got sorting it out... that it eventually looked like this.

My desk was always as tidy as this so I need to get back into that routine again. I only have my stickers, pens, envelopes, a letter I've made a start on and some decoupages for cards I need to make as well as some other bits. At least my desk can breath now. I usually have a plain sheet of paper on my cutting mat as whilst I write letters I tend to doodle a bit too.

 

I also organised all my tapes and as someone asked to see them I took a photo of all my tapes.

I put all my washi, paper and fabric tapes in to this box which I received my yozocraft order in. The diddl are the smallest tapes that I have.

I only had one draw full before my last purchase from angoo-mart but now I have 2. I decided to organise the tapes in to themes... hearts, stars etc... because that is how I tend to choose my tapes when decorating my letters and envelopes anyway so its best to have them all together so that I can see exactly what I have.

I have got 2 of some tapes and most of these are still closed so some of them may end up as gifts or in giveaways. Also quite a few of them are almost finished especially the transparent ones as they don't have much on them but they were from my very first order 4 years ago and I don't like the designs all that much which is probably why I still have them. I will try and use them more often though so that I can clear some space.

I have put some of my tapes with my letter sets also and that was already organised as I think it was in December my younger brother and I went to the local store and bought lots of boxes as my previous boxes had no lids so all the dust was collecting in them. I have one for envelopes, craft supplies, letters, rubber stamps but need to get one more for my craft paper.

Here is what my letter set/pad and now my big rolls of deco tape are kept.

Do you always have a tidy desk and are you organised?