Should you cut up your Kona color card?
The answer is an overwhelmingly resounding YES. What you should NOT do is buy the color card three weeks before Kona releases 37 more colors, because the supplementary card isn't particularly cut-up-able, and I haven't justified buying a whole extra card yet. But I'm not bitter.
I've seen a lot of people on IG recently wondering whether or not they should make the plunge, and my two cents is that the card is SO much more useful as individual swatches. You can pull and shuffle colors, and actually see them lined up with each other, like the little Iceland-inspired pattern in the lower right that my husband picked out. Cutting them up isn't hard- just use your rotary cutter and ruler. Mine ended up being about 3/4"x1 1/4", with some variety. The question for most is always- how to organize them?
What I did:
The bottom rows have cut-up magnetic tape for when I decided to switch strategies!
At first, I bought this storage unit, which is actually for some type of mini Legos, based on A Quilter's Table's blog post. It definitely works, although you have to trim some of the swatches with double-line color names a bit more than I cared for to make them fit. You also have to stack them, since there's only 27 spots, and I was not loving having to dig out and find each color swatch, or dump the whole thing and then reorganize it. I really wanted to be able to see them all at once!
If you google "cutting up kona color card," you'll see a ton of tutorials for using velcro on canvas, and those definitely work. However, I didn't want to see the velcro in between the swatches, and I didn't like the idea of having to tug each swatch on and off. Instead, I found a 14x30" magnetic board that had a nice, frameless finish and didn't feel like a gradeschool whiteboard. 14x30 is enough to fit all 303 Kona colors with a little bit of extra room, and to be honest, I think you could fit the 340 on there if you trimmed a little more and arranged them a little tighter. I was a little concerned about the holding power of the 1/2" magnetic tape I bought to go on the back of the swatches, but it was totally sufficient and the tape was easy to cut with scissors (non-fabric, of course). Then you just peel the adhesive off and stick it to the back! I love that I can hang this in my room, easily accessible and actually pretty to look at, and it's super easy to pull colors down and put them back up without worrying about feline interference.
Plus, all was not lost with the lego thing- it turns out that it is actually perfect for holding the letters for my letterboard! The lid doesn't snap on, but it fits firmly enough that I'm not too worried about a disaster. And, there are enough spots that, while each letter/symbol doesn't get its own spot, I can keep things organized and easily accessible. Making my monthly markers goes MUCH faster now that I don't have to dig through a little bag for every piece!
