Distress Inks BLENDING FOAM Storage Solution

I really like Ranger's / Tim Holtz's Distress Inks. I have quite a collection now, and they reside on a Lazy Susan right on my work table. I stack them upside down and I have labeled the sides of the ink pads and grouped them into colour families. I reach for them all the time.

One of the great ways to use these inks is with an Inkssentials Blending Tool and Foam. This is a wood-handled mount with a piece of rough velcro attached to the base. (I staple-gunned the velcro in place so it will never come off.)

A piece of blending foam attaches to this base to pick up and apply ink. I recently acquired a rectangle of foam for each of the ink pad colours I have, but I only own three wood handles. I devised a system to store the foam pads so that I would know which ink colour they are for. I had a plexiglas upright document stand that was gathering dust (remember these from typing class?). I put strips of adhesive velcro (the rough part, like on the base of the blending tools) across the holder in rows, then attached the foam pads and labelled their locations. You can see the stand, and a closeup with the tools sitting on the document holder shelf, below.

I can now peel off the pad I want, use it and put it back. Easy peasey lemon squeezey!

If you are new to these inks, please check out this series of amazing videos on YouTube that Jennifer McGuire did:

Intro 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zRk1zYwVLw&feature=channel
Week 1 Part 1 Distress Inks 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjXNnOTAYFA&feature=channel
Week 1 Part 2 Distress Inks 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQKR5xHgCJY&feature=channel
Week 1 Part 3 Distress Inks 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU1OYfYDuik