my DIY stamping plate storage! + tutorial!

Hey guys! Happy Friday!

Lately I found myself seriously annoyed with my storage for my stamping plates. I have a lot of them (2 Bundle Monster sets, some Konad, and a lot of cheap ones from eBay) and I had them all stuffed into a cosmetic bag.
It was really annoying to look for plates when they were all mixed up in the bag, and if my nails were freshly painted I couldn’t look for plates because it would ruin my nails digging in the bag!

I know some people use business card organizers/binders. I bought one at Walmart, but the slots were not big enough! So I returned it.
Some people use trading card binders, but those things are really big, and I wanted something smaller.

I asked my polish friends on Polish-Aholics Anonymous how they store theirs, and some people said photo albums. Betty from Kewt-ified showed me her modified photo album. I studied hers for a while, and came up with my own way to modify one.
And now I’ll show you how!

First you're gonna need a photo album. I chose 4x6 albums and I got 2 of them because I have a lot of plates.

Each one holds 36 photos, which means that after modification, it will hold 72 plates.

I got these cute ones from Walmart and they were $1.96 each which is a great deal! They had lots of patterns to choose from.

Whatever type of album you choose, it must have pockets like this. There must be a divider between the 2 pockets.

Now to the customizing. The first thing you are going to want to do is make a cut on every page.

The cut should divide each page in half, but you must only cut the top layer.

You can do this carefully with scissors, or do it like me an use an exacto knife and cardboard.

I cut a piece of cardboard to fit in the slots. I measured my first cut and used a ruler to make it straight.
This put a groove in the cardboard and I was then able to easily cut the rest of the sheets even and straight by following the groove in the cardboard. (Don't cut through the cardboard! A light touch is all you need to cut the plastic.)

Do this to the front and back of each page.

Now you'll have something like that! 

The bottom is a pocket, and now you need to make the top into a pocket as well.

We'll do this with tape.

You want to tape the top piece to the white divider.
Use something to prop open the bottom pocket, and tape down your top pocket.
You don't need to tape from edge to edge because the plate is not going to fall through small gaps on the sides.

That's where your tape will be.
And now you're done! Fill that baby up with your plates.

Now you can easily look through your plates and find the one you want without digging around and shuffling them in your hands.

I left a full pocket in the back of each of my albums to keep the sleeves the plates came in.

You can also label your albums!

Using some black paper and sparkly silver stickers, I made labels for them. And now they are super cute.
And perfect!

This project takes a bit of time, but I think it is totally worth it and really helpful.

I hope you guys like this! Let me know if you make your own!