3/25/12

taming my ribbon & fabric stash


My latest organizational undertaking has been to clean out and organize my craft closet.  Eventually, I will be moving some of my crafty stuff (along with our desk) from the guest room to our master bedroom...but that's another post.  

A big part of the clutter in my craft closet was my ribbon and fabric stash.  I am definitely a packrat and have accumulated a lot of ribbon and fabric over the years.  And my previous "system" for organizing it was to stuff all the fabric into a box and to stack the ribbon spools in the back of a cabinet.  It was really more of a mess than anything else.  And it resulted in me forgetting what I had (since I couldn't see it all at a glance) and in what I had being all crumpled, wrinkled, and somewhat unusable.  My first step was to pare down my ribbon and fabric collection.  This was tough, but I ended up getting rid of quite a bit. Then, I worked on the best way to store my remaining ribbon and fabric.

So here is my new ribbon storage:





















I found these great wire mesh baskets (they measure about 12" x 16") on clearance at Walmart for $3.  I love a good clearance.  And I got rid of the ribbon spools.  Well, most of them.  There are a couple of full, unopened spools in the front of the basket, as well as full spools of holiday curling ribbon in the bottom.  I took all the rest of my ribbon and wrapped it around rectangles of thick card stock.  I cut the card stock to fit into the basket so I could sort of "file" all the ribbon in there.  It's now (loosely) organized by color and pattern and I can see everything that I have.  Much better.





















I also picked up these narrow plastic baskets at Target (2 for $1).  And they fit perfectly across the basket and will be good for holding odds and ends.  This one holds a couple of spools of jewelry wire.





















As you can see above, I organized my fabric the same way.  Mesh basket + neatly folded fabric and felt + plastic basket for odds and ends = awesome.





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