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I'm trying to figure out how best to organize. By color? By type of embellie (brad, button, eyelet, etc)? In a jar? In plastic organizers? What about alphabets? How do I know which letters I have? Throw away original packaging?
Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated!!!
My ribbon seems to be under control, but I need to figure out a way that I can see everything I have, so nothing gets unused....YKWIM??
LOL, I feel your pain. I am still organizing myself. I am afraid I do not have any advice to offer, as I struggle with this myself daily, I just wanted you to know you are not alone.
I sooo wish I lived closer to you I would haul my behind right over to help! I kinda do the type and color and I love glass jars. You can see pictures in my gallery of my studio. If you live near and IKEA GO RIGHT NOW Ikea is your friend!!!! Feel Free to email me.
I use the little 3 in and 5 inch bags you get at the craft stores. I think they were for jewelry or treats. I put everything form the original package into a smaller baggie by color and type. It is a lot of baggies but I can see more clearly what I have. then I won as a door prize at the scrap convention a binder where the rings velcro in and out. Now all I have to do i zip that tote closed and I can take it anywhere.. i will try to remember and find a link to this place. It is my fav so far. It looks like a soft school binder. And it come with plastic pages with the compartments.
At Lowe's I found a fishing gear box. It has 3 removeable clear plastic "drawers" that have hinged lids and have two snap-lock closures. Each drawer is divided into about sixteen small compartments, but the dividers are also removeable so you can make compartments larger if you want. The "drawers" slide into holders in the main "box".
The front of the box is clear plastic and hinged. You can drop it down for access to the drawers, or snap-lock it into place for carrying the whole box, keeping the drawers snugly in place. The top of the box has a storage compartment about 3 inches deep. It also has a carrying handle.
I put all brads in one drawer, eyelets in another, and miscellaneous charms, hardware, beads, etc. in the third.
The beauty of this arrangement is that I can move my embellies with me easily if I'm on the go, or just put the box on my desk if I'm working there. Since the drawers are actually separate containers that have their own locking lids and slide totally out of the box, I can easily grab just one of the drawers to take with me if I am leaving the house to work on a project.
For my stickers, Jolee's embellies, and other flat embellies, I put them into small zip lock bags by season/ocassion (Winter, Summer, babies, Thanksgiving, weddings, etc.). I use a Sharpie to label each baggie. Then I put all the baggies in an open shoe box.
Those are things that have worked for me so far.
Hope that helps.
The closest IKEA that I know about is about 500 miles away. If I lived closer, I would probably change my whole storage arrangement. :(
I sooo wish I lived closer to you I would haul my behind right over to help! I kinda do the type and color and I love glass jars. You can see pictures in my gallery of my studio. If you live near and IKEA GO RIGHT NOW Ikea is your friend!!!! Feel Free to email me.
so...like...one jar for blue brads and one jar for blue buttons and one jar for purple eyelets?
Organizing!! A never ending battle at my house. I have purchased some small glass bottles from speciality bottle to store several things in that I feel that I need to be able to see to use. If you go this route be sure to order everything that you think you will need at once as shipping is fairly expensive. I organize by type and color. Yellow eyelets in one, blue in another etc... Good Luck
I use a Clip it up for embelishments. In bagies by style and color. Look in my gallery it is sitting on the orange cart. My ribbon is in glass jars by color and also my flowers. I do my paper and scraps by color also. I use this method because it seems to be the way I put together a project, color first! HTH!!
ETA: I suggest Patters blog also! Ihave told her a couple times that she and I should be best friends we are organizational soul mates!!
I am still going thru this process as well, but I just moved my space and I think I am finally on the right track to organization. I organize by color. I used to do color and theme, or brand, but I found I needed to simplify it, so its color. Before you make that decision you have to evaluate ur style and how you go about choosing supplies.
I separate my colors based on what I use the most/have a lot of. I use 8 color categories: black/white, browns, greens, blue, red, orange/yellow, pink/purple, and metallic. I used to keep scrap paper in gallon baggies, but got tired of that, so I have the white cubes, and bought two of the cubes with the small 4 drawers. Each drawer is a color category and the scrap paper is in the bottom. Then I found these clear school supply boxes at the $1 store around back-to-school time that had movable seperaters. In these cases I have buttons, brads, flowers, all different kinds of small embellishments sorted by color (yes this takes some time). The clips on the box were all ready colored, and some I had to just go over with a marker to make it match.
My ribbon I keep in mason jars sorted by the same categories. My paper is on the white cube paper shelves, sorted by color with solid cardstock on top to one side and patterned paper on bottom to the other side.
I also am one who needs to see it to use it, so those 8 color drawers are the closest thing to my reach and easy to see into.
My stickers I have sorted into these pocket folio things I got at Walmart. All alphas are sorted by the same color categories above in one folio, then the other two folios are by theme (pets, family, baby, love, wedding, sports, winter, summer, fall, christmas, bday/celebration, vacation)
I am still in the process of getting it together, but I will eventually post it on my blog.
My advice is just to sit down with pen and paper and evaluate ur style and see what works for you, write down any issues u have and ideas to solve it. Good luck!
Update: I made the move and bought 12 plastic containers with little compartments. It took a little time and I almost backed out twice, but it's done. I haven't crafted yet, so it's still on trial . I'm also working on some glass jars that I may put some of my metallic embellies in. I've got all the little embellies organized by color. I have had the ribbon situation under control for a while, but I've been struggling with the overflowing embellie drawer, so I hope this helps! Also, I have lots going on this weekend, but I'll try to post my result soon!! Thanks for all the help ladies!
I need organization HELP!!!!
