Peace of Mind Organizing

Organizing my lettering pens

2 February 2019

Last year I started a new hobby: Hand lettering. It was borne of my efforts to send postcards to voters for the midterm elections. Somewhere along the road of hand writing over 1,000 postcards I decided to try to learn some techniques to make the process more interesting (and to make the cards more eye-catching).

So, of course, as I learned more and more about lettering I wanted to buy supplies. Shopping is one of the most fun parts of learning a new hobby! (Shannon and I discuss hobbies in Episode 35 of our podcast Getting to Good Enough where I specifically suggest that shopping should not be the first thing you do when starting a hobby.) In any case, as I acquired new categories of pens, I sought ways to keep them accessible and organized.

A few years ago, I took up coloring in coloring books for adults, which was a hugely beneficial, relaxing hobby for me during a stressful time in my life. Now that life is less stressful (thanks, for the most part, to improved health on the part of my family members), I’m ready for a more challenging hobby. When I took up coloring, I bought pens and pencils for that purpose. Three years ago (almost to the day), I blogged about organizing my coloring supplies. I use some of the pens I bought for coloring in my lettering, but for the most part I’m keeping the coloring and lettering supplies separate.

One difference in the way I use my lettering pens, versus coloring pens and pencils, is that with lettering I intermingle the types of pens used in a single project. So I don’t really want to just bring a category of pens from the storage to where I’m working, like I could with coloring.

The solution? A turntable. Using the Linus 9-inch divided turntable from the Container Store, I am able to store virtually all of my pens in one place, in categories, and easily transport them from storage area to work area. It’s working out well!

Here’s a photo:

The turntable has 3” high sides and three sections. I used containers within the sections to separate categories of pens. Each section holds one each of the two types the containers I was already using: the Oui by Yoplait glass yogurt pots and the GODIS drinking glasses from IKEA.

I organized my pens (all of which are felt tip) into these categories:

• ultra-fine-point pens (including these Flair Ultra Fine Pens and these BIC Marking Permament Markers)
• fine-point brush pens (like these Tombow Fudenosuke pens)
• medium-point brush pens (Fiber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens)
• thick-and-thin markers (MALA from IKEA, which I adore)
• dual-point pens (from Tombow and Crayola)

I placed the pens, by category, into either a yogurt pot or a glass and arranged them in an order that makes sense to me. Now, when I need a pen I just turn the turntable until I find what I need. It’s making me very happy!

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Tagged with: craft rooms, crafts, pens

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