It's Sunday and there's a new challenge over at The Studio! I had a lot of fun with this one and hope you'll join in on the fun.  Here's what's going on this week:

"alter or create from scratch a pretty storage itemfor your craft space"

This month's challenges are sponsored by Cosmo Cricket but this week there's an extra Cosmo prize for the most inventive storage item uploaded to the gallery. Two Blackboard boxes are up for grabs - so what are we waiting for? :)

Here's my take: I don't know about you but if I can't see what I have, I just don't use it. "Out of sight, out of mind" - that's what prompted me on this challenge. I keep a lot of my stash in plain sight, but one area where I tend to ignore supply is in the ink department. I'm fairly new to the ink/technique world so I need a constant reminder of how pretty ink can be. Up until now, I'd smudge the ink pads on little pieces of scrap paper which would promptly get lost or thrown out.  So, with that in mind, I made myself an ink sample selector - designed to hang on a hook in plain sight of my seat at the desk:

materials: patterned cardstock, die cut flower, numbers: Cosmo Cricket (DeLovely); cardstock: Close To My Heart; letter stickers: Making Memories; felt button: craft supply

I kept it simple and low profile since this is a tool I will be using a lot and the focus is on the ink color. This selector happens to be for Distress Ink, but I plan to make one for the other kinds of ink & paint I have, too. Here's an interior view:

To make the interior pages, I made a simple text box with the ink name and color in MS Word. I fit 5 boxes on an 8 1/2" x 11" page then printed them on white cardstock. Then I got to work coloring each one with my ink blending tool and a little bit of water splatter technique, just to keep it interesting. (It was great ink practice!) The album cover, cut from a piece of chipboard and covered with Cosmo Cricket "DeLovely" paper, is 6" x 2 1/4". The interior pages are 5 3/4" x 1 3/4".

You could customize this selector by putting your ink samples on your go-to cardstock colors. I tend to use a lot of light colors so I used white, but a kraft selector would be handy, too. I'll add it to my to-do list!

Need more inspiration? Check out the other crafty storage items over at the Studio and get the creative mojo going!
And don't forget to mark you calendars for this:

There are going to be so many great classes, challenges and prizes - it's going to be a fun day!! (And it's also happends to be my birthday, so come celebrate with me!)