Distress Reinker Unit

After the success of the Distress Ink Pad shelf unit I made, I fancied having a go at making another unit to house my reinkers. I`ve only got 8 at the moment but they were precariously balance on the edge of a slim shelf on my desk and were forever falling over. It is my wish to collect all 48 eventually so I decided to make a unit that would house all 48 once I have them.... and this is what I came up with....

I hadn`t originally planned to put another unit on top for my distress markers but as I was building the unit I came up with more ideas so the unit evolved LOL!
I started by cutting 12 pieces of chipboard 11cm x 11cm

I then cut 24 top and bottom pieces measuring 4cm x 10.8cm and 24 side pieces measuring 4cm x 11cm - my poor fingers were sore after this as I could only cut them using scalpel and metal ruler!

Using the "Jim the Gentleman Crafter`s" Construction strip method I used for the ink pad shelf unit, I glued the top, bottom, side and back pieces together to create 12 open fronted boxes.

I used a scrap piece of cardstock to make a template for the holes I wanted to thread the dowels through to make sure I got each one in the right place and level on both sides, I did this with a crop-a-dile.

Then I glued 4 of the boxes together in a square making sure they were lined up as neatly as I could get them.

I repeated this three more times to make 3 shelves, each that would hold 4 sections to house 4 reinker bottles creating 48 spaces in total. Then covered the insides with Bazzil Basics Paper - Antique Script and coating them with a couple of layers of Claudine Helmuth Studios Multi Medium - Matte. Then stuck the three layers together one on top of the other.

I used wooden barbeque skewers for the little dowels, you can get them in a large pack from most garden centres and they are dirt cheap, I think this whole pack only cost me 99p!

Can you believe I didn`t have a lick of black paint anywhere in my house! so I resorted to squeezing a little StazOn reinker into a saucer and using a paintbrush to apply it to the skewers! my fingers were totally black at the end of it and the ink took a fair while to dry but the end result was great and as the ink is permanent they didn`t need varnishing afterwards and they dried to a nice matte finish. As luck would have it, the smallest hole punch in the crop-a-dile was exactly the same width as the skewers too!

I used the top notes die from Sizzix (available through Stampin` Up) to cut out 12 pelmet pieces for the top of each box, this looks decorative but also hides a multitude of sins as the areas where the shelves are glued together don`t look perfectly neat and I`m a neat freak so I had to hide that area! I just covered them in matching paper and inked the edges with black soot distress inks.
I also cut 4 long strips of chipboard and covered them in matching paper to hide the sides of the joined boxes and glued those in place. I used a combination of strong double sided sticky tape and glossy accents for the whole project. I know it`s an expensive way of using glossy accents as a glue but it is a very strong and permanent adhesive so it was worth the added cost.

The top section was made using the same construction strip method of combining 4 pieces of chipboard and then I put in the shelves using the same method I used for the shelves in the ink pad unit I made a few weeks back.
I made a collar underneath it so it slides into the top and can be removed. I hadn`t planned this in the original construction like I said, but when I glued the four pieces of each shelf together it left a handy storage void in the top which seemed a waste not to take advantage of, so this is what I did with it ...the top lifts out....

....And reveals the space underneath which I have stored the offending water colour jar in that caused me so much strife when it fell of my shelf a while back (read previous post to find out the ensuing destruction!) so it won`t fall off my desk and cause me such a headache in the future!

I just covered the inside in the same paper (I had a few scraps left from the rest of the unit) and varnished it with more of the multi matte.

The top part then can be turned upside down and I can put the jar inside it while I am water colouring and I can`t knock it over my desk (which I have done before now also!)

The final piece was to add a spinner to the bottom and I found a great company through ebay that provides swivel bearings all different sizes, no postage cost and it arrived the next day! how`s that for service so thank you to Engineers Mate Ltd.
This one is a 4" swivel bearing. I used brads and hot glue to fix it to another piece of chipboard and then I hot glued that to the bottom of the unit. The whole unit then got covered in a second layer of the Mulit Medium Matte just to seal it and ensure the covering paper wouldn`t lift and it would be hard wearing.

And that was the unit finished. I am very please with the outcome, as I said I haven`t got all the reinkers and markers yet so it can store my stickles and other little bottles of products for now but as and when I get more reinkers I can just slot them into place.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx