When I bought my first few silkscreens, I stored them stacked in a pile inside a large ziploc bag.

It was easy enough to pull out the pile and sort through them. But like anything when you get a lot of them, it started to become a chore to find the one I wanted to use. I needed a way to organize them where I could see them all.

I then started to collect stencils. These had the same problem, except that the cut-out areas would catch on each other, and it was impossible to sort through a pile. 

The solution that worked for me was to store them in page protectors and photo sleeve pages in a 3-ring binder.

Now they’re each in an individual pocket and I can flip through the pages, easily seeing the design of each one! I can even organize them according to type of motif, such as one section for backgrounds, one for flowers, etc.

Some tips and observations…

• Photo sleeves designed to hold 4 x 6 photos (three to a page) worked great for Moiko silkscreens
• The sleeves for 5 x 7 photos (two to a page) worked well for Helen Breil‘s screens
• CreateAlong screens tend to be a variety of sizes and some need to use a full page
• Stencils are usually larger and tend to require full page
• Lucy Tools stencils (no longer available) fit nicely in small photo pages for 3 x 5 photos
• You might prefer using a half-size (5.5 x 8.5″ or A5) binder with single pockets, depending on how much shelf space you have