Distress Ink pad rack

This is going to be a long post and I apologise in advance for some rather blurry pics but light conditions were very variable when I was working on the construction and I had to take the pictures of progress as I was working to show how I worked on putting the rack together.

I saw a number of ink pad racks on Pinterest that inspired me to have a go at putting my own together. This is the one that gave me the idea of how to construct mine. I also took the idea to allow a tiny protuberance of each ink pad beyond the shelf edge to allow me to pull it out with my fingernail.The person that made the rack I have linked to managed to get black chipboard which I couldn't source, so I used greyboard as that is all I could get hold of in my local art shop, so I had to paint mine with black acrylic paint as I went along. I used two large sheets of greyboard and 2 pots of acrylic paint in my construction.

I was guided by measurements of other units, but in the end, I made my own up for what I needed. Although I only have 37 DI pads, I decided to make a rack with 48 spaces in case my collection expands in the future.
 

I started by cutting two strips for the sides of each of the four towers (36 cm x 7 cm) and 12 spacers (2.5 cm x just under 7 cm) to be stuck on to each side, I used a piece of scrap greyboard to guide the positioning of each of the spacers and stuck them on using Cosmic Shimmer acrylic glue. After I had stuck the first set of spacers on, I used them to guide the sticking of the spacers on the second side in the hope of lining them up as accurately as possible. I checked the lining up against what would be the front and back sides of the second panel for each of the spacers to try and make sure they were as nearly parallel as possible.  
 

Once I had completed each pair I painted them with Plaid acrylic paint in Liquorice.

I then cut 13 shelves (7 cm x 8 cm) for each tower and painted them before sticking them into place in the slots I had created with the spacers. All this painting was a really messy business. I also have to say cutting the chipboard with a knife was pretty hard work and I had to do it in stages to stop my index finger going numb from the pressure I needed to exert!!!! Plus it was pretty boring too!

 

 

Sticking the shelves in place in each tower was one of the trickiest elements of construction. I ran glue into all of the grooves on each side at once, standing them on their long sides on my glass mat, I slid the top and bottom shelves in place to get the width of the tower established and then worked quickly to slide the other 10 shelves down into place. It is important not to use too much glue as otheriwse this pushes out as the shelves are pushed down into place. I tried to make sure the front side of the shelves, those pushed down against the mat I was working on would be as flat as possible, this was for neatness on the finished shelf unit. Only when the glue for the shelves were dry did I stick the final shelf which formed the top of each tower into place. It was during this process that the speedy bond formed by the Cosmic Shimmer glue really came into it's own.

This is three of the four towers completed.

 
I had planned to make a solid chipboard back for each tower, but thanks to a bit of uneveness due to my hand cutting, this would have been impossible to stick into place, so instead I made a wrap for each tower out of kraft card, painting the back panel which would be visible through the shelves, after scoring the card ready to wrap around three sides of each tower. The wraps were stuck into place with glue on the two sides, pulling them round to fit as tightly and neatly as possible.
 

This was what the wrapped towers looked like and then I was ready to start sticking them together. The plan was to place the towers so that there was one set of shelves and one blank side on each side of the tower.
 

First of all I stuck the towers together in two pairs, using strong elastic bands to make the joins as tight as possible. When these joins were properly dry, I stuck the two sides together  to make the final set of four towers. My meaurement for the side panels of 36 cm allowed for a little gap at the bottom of the mounted shelves which shows quite well in this picture. This proved very useful when mounting the towers the way I did as I enclosed this bit with the beading, without encroaching onto the bottom shelf space.

Once this was all dry, I had a pretty uneven top which I am rather embarassed to share! You can see I used some masking tape on one of my units as I was worried that one wasn't sticking as well as it should have been. As I already wanted to make a small box to top off the unit to accomodate my small collection of Distress Reinkers and Distress Stains, this was a great way to disguise this mess!  

 

As the top was quite uneven, I decided to use some foamboard to help cushion the uneven surface. I reasoned that it would squash a little to make allowances for any of the uneven protuberances!!!!! I backed the chipboard with the layer of the foamboard as you can see here. Some people make whole ink racks with foamboard, but just from trying to get a tidy edge on this piece I am not sure I was fancy doing that!

 

This was the completed box. I glued strips of scored black card to join the chipboard sides and make the corners both inside and outside of the box. I won't give the measurements for the box I used as these need to be customised to fit the handmade tower nice and tightly.

 

This is the finished box on top of the four towers stuck together.

 

The base just showing in the picture is taken from this revolving spice rack I bought in the charity shop.

 

I realised at this point that it was going to be tricky fixing the completed tower to the base and I needed to have a rethink. My OH cut a new piece of wood which was slightly larger that the spice rack base and some beading to complete the project for me. He fitted the new base to the revolving Lazy Susan mechanism from the spice rack. Stupidly I forgot to take pictures of this last stage of construction. I think I was getting overexcited to be nearly finished!

Everything was painted black because I wanted a cohesive look to the whole project. I thought of all sorts of fancy ideas to embellish and decorate the project in a grungey vintage style with lots of TH die cuts accented with Treasure Gold, but in the end, the plain look was what seemed to work best for me.

This picture shows how the pads protrude slightly to allow them to be pulled out with a fingernail.

I originally planned to stick blending sponges adjacent to each slot so I could easily keep each coloured sponge separate and bought two sets of the new round mini distressing tool sponges to  do that. At the moment though, I have used self adhesive velcro strips stuck to the underside of each pad where the hollow bottom accomodates the corresponding sponge. I made up a label template for strips with the names on each side and inked each one so my labels are a true representation of the colours which is important to me. My rack is sorted into four colour families.

Red, oranges and pinks

 

Blues and turquoises

Greens and yellows

 

Neutrals

 

Apologies for the long post, but I hope the explanation of how it was all made is useful.

Have a Happy Easter

Elaine x