Studio Organization: Distress Ink Blending Tools

Hi everyone! I’m here today with a bit of a different post. I wanted to share some organizing tips. This may become a “series” as I share other things in my room, but don’t hold your breath on that 😉

If you are visiting my blog for the first time or have not yet subscribed – be sure to do so! I share lots of handmade projects every week delivering them straight to your inbox! I also occasionally share information about crafty classes and new product releases I love. Subscribe here.

I recently posted some pictures on Instagram and Facebook of how I am organizing my ink blending tools I use with Distress Ink, and they have been wicked popular. I thought it would be good to create this post so other people will see and I can answer all the questions I have been getting.

I should start off by confessing: I LOVE DISTRESS INKS!!!!

I use them ALL THE TIME. I love both the regular distress and oxide distress. When the Distress Mini Ink pads came out, I fell back in love with the pads again. I loved the convenience of having them all on my studio table, and they were easy to grab and use. Since I was using them so much again I made sure when I reorganized my room earlier this year, that there was space for the full-sized pads easy for me to grab and use. So I have them right in front of me in ink pad storage from Organize More.

Anyways, since I use these pads so much I wanted to dedicate an ink blending tool per color for both regular Distress and Distress Oxide. This would save me SO much time and the blending foams would last longer since I won’t have to rip them off the handle over and over.

I dedicated 2 drawers to my left when I sit at my studio table. One for regular Distress Ink

and one for Distress Oxide

Here is what I did:

• I purchased 15 compartment nail polish holders to hold the ink blending tools. The specific ones I got are no longer available on Amazon, but you can search for others. I also have seen them at stores like TJ Maxx and Homegoods.
• I cut cardstock 1.25″ square to line the bottom of the nail polish compartments – especially the Distress Oxides are super inky, so this will help protect it.
• For the Distress Oxide handles, I painted them with Hickory Smoke Distress Paint. It took two coats to cover the black handle.
• Ranger has printables on their website. I used these printables to punch out to label the handles and the inside compartment
• Even though these labels are .75″ I used this .60″ circle punch to cut them out slightly smaller so they would fit on top of the handles.

I used glossy accents to adhere the labels to the top and the nail polish holders

Yes, to have 120 ink blending tools and foam is an investment, and yes it took about a day for me to do this whole project start to finish and also it does take up 2 drawers in my studio- this isn’t ideal for everyone, but for me who uses some variety of Distress Inks on most of my creations it was the best decision.

I find that now since they are so easy to use, and are convenient I use them even more and I also experiment with them more instead of doing the same old thing I always do.

You can see all the posts here on my site where I used Distress in some way here:

• Distress Inks
• Distress Oxides

I also would like to mention, I have a facebook group: {creative chick} studio share where I host Facebook LIVES and have gone over such things as

• Watercoloring with Distress Ink
• All about Distress Oxides

You can join my group and be part of future LIVE demos here

Hope this inspires you 🙂 Thank you for stoping by!