I am back as promised (albeit later than I had planned...sorry!) with a new organizational post. This week we are going to talk about embellishments. As mentioned in my first organizational post
here...I sort items by color. When I start a project color is usually an important factor. I used to store all my embellishments by type but got tired of looking through soo many bins to get what I need. Sometimes I knew I needed something purple but wasn't sure what so I'd have to pull out all my brads, eyelets, flowers testing to see which suited my project best. It was just not working! So now I store all embellishments of one color together in a
snapware container.
The snapware containers all snap together to create my embellishment tower. I labeled each "drawer" in rainbow order using a light scallop circle, a darker circle and also a white circle stamped with a stamp from SU's circled Circus to make it look pretty! These labels match my paper scrap storage labels but all you really need is one circle to designate which color is in which "drawer".
Above you can see he inside of the green "drawer". Some of the stackware came with the 3 compartment inserts...but not all. I'm not sure why but they only give you enough for a few of the drawers. The snapware I bought after Christmas on clearance didn't include any of those compartments. That's okay though...I have a solution for that.
As you can see in the orange drawer above I put some rubber shelf liner on the bottom to keep things from sliding around.
I keep baker's twine in small zippered baggies found in the beading department at Wal-mart. The little boxes actually are used to store microscope cover glasses. I ordered them from JDTtwo on Etsy. She is a wonderful seller who is great to work with and ships fast! You get a ton of these boxes. They fit perfectly in these snapware containers allowing me to separate brads, eyelets, buttons etc. I prefer these over the zippered bags. You can find her boxes
here. Oh and pictured above is the brown "drawer". I don't have many embellishments or ribbon in brown and black so I just store them in the snapware instead of in my jars as shown in my
ribbon organization post.
I ran out of snapware drawers so I store my gold and silver embellishments in a double sided fishing tackle box found at the Good Will store.
I love white embellishments! I can easily color them to match my projects with Copics. So I have a ton of white embellishments. They are stored in the top drawer of the plastic storage container that holds 12 x 12 paper. The bottom two drawers have my most neutral card stock in them. Hmm some of those flowers look pretty sad...I think I need to donate them to the kids!
This storage system is great for showing you what color of embellishments you are lacking. I went nuts with the pink when my daughter was born so there isn't much more room for pink things. However, red is lacking! So I now know when I see that totally cute pink glittery flower that I should back away and reach for the red one! Another great pro to this storage system is that it's a "snap"...(tee.hee..pardon the pun) to take to crops. Just make sure all the levels are snapped together and grab the handle..never worrying you'll leave something behind!
Oh and I apologize for the poor photos. I did take them outside in natural lite and edited them in PS but they still don't look that great. Hopefully, if you click on them to enlarge them they will give you any details you need to see.
Items needed for my embellishment storage:
small zippered bags or small plastic or metal storage containers (optional...you can just throw everything in the "drawers" and not separate anything if you wish)
rubber shelf liner (optional...keeps smaller containers from sliding around when you travel)
I am going to show you a few specific ways to store specific embellishments in the rest of this blog post. I am only going to highlight some unique ways. You can see more on my Pinterest board
here. I will continue to add to this board as I find new storage options.
I absolutely love Karen's brad storage as shown above! It would take a while to do but the results are a stunning artwork display that easily lets you see what you have and make use of it! Check out more info on her blog
here.
Isn't that the cutest button storage you have ever seen! Linda did a great job displaying Stampin Up buttons on this baking sheet! Linda used the containers the buttons came in and placed magnets on the back and then labeled them soo sweetly! I bet you could do this with those containers that hold spices too if you don't buy SU buttons. Check out more on Linda's blog
here.
This is yet another wonderful button storage solution! It is from Mallia. It involves a bunch of buttons stored in little clear tubes with an actual button glued to the lid so you can see what is inside the tube at a glance. I think this would work for brads, eyelets, small flowers etc. This is a flickr photo so I don't have any blog to direct you to...sorry!
Did you see what Marthe created! OMG! A whole table filled with flowers! This reminds me of something you would find in a craft store not a craft room! How amazing is this! I don't have many of these purchased flowers but have admired those who use them on their cards. I think they look great but...since many of them come in bunches with the stems on..they would be very hard to store. If you have the space this is a great way..don't you think! Check out a tut on how to make your own floral storage table on Marthe's blog
here.
Okay that is all for today...I think this post is long enough! I hope I gave you some ideas on how to store your embellishments! Thanks for stopping by! Check back again...I'll have some inventory posts for you...sometime in the future!
