I have seen a lot of sponge dauber usage on Pinterest lately and wanted to try it for myself. I was stumped on how to store sponge daubers so I hopped onto the internet and found this tutorial by a UK Stampin' Up! demo. I loved her idea! She had discovered that the sponge daubers fit perfectly in Stampin' Up!'s wood mount stamp cases!

I immediately ordered my sponge daubers and as soon as they came in, sat down to create my storage boxes. However, I soon discovered that her measurements didn't quite work with my storage cases...they must be a slightly different size in the UK so after a bit of puzzling, I cam up with the dimensions to re-create the idea using US measurements.

This is my first tutorial so please be gentle!

First, I measured off the interior of the wood mount stamp case and marked it off on my grid paper. The dimensions are 7 1/4" by 5".

The sponge daubers need 3/4" square slot to keep them in place and not shift around. Unfortunately this left me with 1/4" open space around the perimeter of my case so I added an additional piece of cardstock around the perimeter to keep everything nice and tidy.

You will need seven 7 1/4" by 3/4" and ten 5" by 3/4" pieces of cardstock. Make a mark on each piece at 1/4" from each edge and then 3/4" after that. (I also made a corresponding mark on the opposite side of the cardstock to give myself a guide when cutting.) Next make a small notch at each mark, just wide enough for a sheet of cardstock. I would suggest making a notch that's just over halfway deep onto the cardstock, to ensure the strength of the paper when assembling everything.

The next step is to assemble like this:

I found it was easier to build the outside like this and then fill in on the inside:

The end result should look like this and fits perfectly inside Stampin' Up! wood Mount stamp cases:

Next I pulled out my trusty label maker and labeled all of my sponge daubers. They almost look too pretty to use!

The last step was to create a color chart. I cut a piece of white cardstock to 7 1/4" x 5" and re-created my grid onto the cardstock. Then I inked up my sponge daubers and went to work! I used abbreviations on the color names to keep everything as neat as possible:

This little stamp case can hold 54 sponge daubers, all neat and tidy as you please! I am sooooo thrilled with my new sponge dauber holder. Many, many thanks to Sam Donald, the originator of this idea.

I would love to hear feedback from you on my first tutorial, and please let me how you store, or plan to store, your sponge daubers!