How do you organize your crafts?

[PoetryLover]

I'd actually like to expand this area, but I want to know that it will be kept orderly and things will be easy to find. We have a bunch of little bottles of paint, some water color paints, non-toxic paints for DS, some markers, glue, clear beads, lollipop sticks, glue gun and glue sticks, cloth, scissors, scotch tape, packing tape, etc. I have a larger and smaller little plastic storage unit with drawers.

How do you organize your crafts?

[boogiemonster]

[OkiMom]

Mine or my girls?
Mine are kept in the storage closet or little hands can't get to them. Since sewing involved scissors/needles/pins etc that can hurt and I REALLY don't want my knitting needles being used as swords or wands they need to be kept where the kids can't get to them.. Oh and the fabric, don't start me on that.. Im missing some fabric I got for a Christmas present because DD1 decided it made the perfect cape and now I can't find it.. So, its kept on a shelf in there organized into small cubby holes. I have plastic containers to organize all the small items and rolling carts so I can roll out stuff when I need it. The machines (one of my biggest worries,a good sewing machine and serger is an investment) are kept up where only tall people can get them.

My girls stuff is kept in a plastic 8 drawer container in a locked closet. It use to be where they could openly get to it however I ended up coming up to my scriptures being, the copy of Harry Potter being blue and Shakespeare being a nice green.. Soo, it had to get locked up. I have three small containers I keep in the living room with markers, crayons and pencils in them then I keep everything else in the playroom. I also have two small bookcases in there that I keep things in. We LOVE LOVE arts and crafts time over here and have a lot but still run out frequently. The smaller items are kept in a small 4 drawer container on top. Anything thats opened gets their own small glass or plastic container. I babysat for a young baby thats parent's used baby food for and now i use all the containers for storing art supplies Its awesome. The parents were suprised I kept/used them "why would you want to do that" but I loved not having to go buy containers.
Id take pictures..... but it needs to get cleaned up first. Its a bit of a mess in both areas right now. Ive been neglecting cleaning them up after the girls were looking for something and couldn't find it.

[PoetryLover]

Originally Posted by OkiMom

I babysat for a young baby thats parent's used baby food for and now i use all the containers for storing art supplies Its awesome. The parents were suprised I kept/used them "why would you want to do that" but I loved not having to go buy containers.
Id take pictures..... but it needs to get cleaned up first. Its a bit of a mess in both areas right now. Ive been neglecting cleaning them up after the girls were looking for something and couldn't find it.

We only feed DS baby food because we get WIC. He eats about a jar a day. It occurred to me that I could use them for something, but I wasn't sure what. What do you store in the baby food jars?

I guess I'm asking for both adults and children's craft supplies. I have some special things that are *my projects* I will keep in my closet. My DSD is 11, so I'm not too worried about her ruining things, but I will need to keep them in a closet away from DS. So far they are in a little rolling cabinet that DSD will have access to. I separated them into Quart and Gallon size Freezer Bags. For instance, the stamps, stamp cleaner and ink pad are in 1 gallon bag. The glue gun and all the glue sticks are in a quart size bag. There is a bag with nothing but different types of glue. The beads are all together with jewelry wire and a wire cutter (can't think of what you call it). Like is mostly with like. The bottom drawer is all bottles of paint, some acrylic paint and paint brushes.

Thanks!

[Niamh]

I'm a bit out of control with the number of craft supplies. Both my and the kids craft supplies are all together and available except for dangerous supplies of mine, which are in my sewing area or the easily overly messy supplies like paint which are higher on a shelf, but still visible so that they can ask for them if they want to paint.

I use old suitcases/overnight cases from the thrift store for storing felt, pipe cleaners, scrap fabric, scrap magazines/books, and each girl has their own suitcase for special projects. I use baskets for buttons, ribbon, and paper.

For the ribbons, I rewind them from their spools onto those doll-type clothespins and throw them in the basket. Much more visually appealing and easier to work with.

I have a vase of fake flowers and a bowl beside it to hold flowers that have fallen or been cut off. I have a plastic bowl that fills up with broken crayons that we then use in melted wax crafts.

I have a box filled with tons of odds and ends for them to use and re-use in crafts - old board games to make into new games, paint sticks, honestly I couldn't tell you what all is in there. Anything that I think "I can't throw that away - a kid would probably find a great use for that!

I have a jar of buttons for each child. I have a small photo book filled with flowers that we dry over the summer and a 'nature table' filled with nature stuff - moss/sticks/pinecones/pods/bark/shells - that we use for crafts.

I have a tiny jewelry making kit and a marker/crayon/pencil station at their craft table along with three wooden kitchen boxes (for flour/sugar) that I got a thrift store that have popsicle sticks, old-fashioned clothespins, and doll clothespins in them.

On the main huge white shelf with seven shelves, I have things pretty organized. Bottom shelf is for newspaper/brown bags/coffee filters/scrap paper. Second shelf is more specialized paper - drawing pads/tracing paper/scrapbook (origami in this house) paper/construction paper/shrinky-dink plastic/notepads. Third shelf is for glues/tapes/crayons/markers. Fourth shelf is for tons of misc stuff in little organizers. Clays/stamps/googly eyes/stickers/temp tattoos/sandpaper/balloons/really tons of little things kept organized there. Fifth shelf is all the paints. Acrylic/glass/tempera/face/fabric/watercolor (along with watercolor paper and pencils). Also all of the brushes and the glasses for holding water and the plates for holding paint. Sixth shelf is colored sand/feathers/miscellaneous dangerous/messy stuff. Seventh shelf is pompoms. Those are up high.

Closets hold my patterns and any extra supplies that I don't want visible or that I just don't have room for out in the main room. There are also some of those small shoe hangers that hold things like fabric embellishments and pasta for crafts.

I think that's all.

[Niamh]

Originally Posted by PoetryLover

We only feed DS baby food because we get WIC. He eats about a jar a day. It occurred to me that I could use them for something, but I wasn't sure what. What do you store in the baby food jars?

You could also use them to make cute little snow globes for Christmas presents.

[Ruthie's momma]

I use this to store DD's craft and school supplies...

http://www.sterilite.com/SelectProdu...=186&section=1

I chose it because it was really inexpensive (around $10), small/compact (to fit on the bottom shelf of our kitchen pantry for quick access) and easy for DD to open/close (to encourage clean up).

The drawers house paper (construction, painting, lined and college ruled), paints (finger and water color), modeling clay, pencils (writing and colored), a pencil sharpener, crayons, glue (sticks and white), a stapler and staples, paper clips, scissors, a ruler, stickers, various writing pens, etc. (with a lot of room to spare).

[IntuitiveJamie]

Bins and jars.
I have tried to seperate and identify as much as possible. Fabric goes together.
I have a bin for random decorations like googly eyes and feathers and beads.
I have a glue bin. My glue gun is in there along with the bajillions of different kinds of glue (who knew glue was it's own world!)
They are all separated into bags within the bins.
Glue sticks are in a jar on my crafting desk. I have a button jar.
I have a place for patterns.
And so on.
Two bins are in a closet and the jars are on the desk. I also have an amazing cubby hole craft desk my husband built me that really helps.

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

My kid's stuff is stored in baskets and their markers go in a Blue Q zippered bag. My yarn is in a knitting basket and I have fabric in one Ziplock big bag and my wool in another big bag. I like that I can suck the air out of it to make it store smaller.

[sunnysandiegan]

Like items with like items in various containers we already owned.

We use our family office (upstairs) for paper crafts. We have a small awkward room on the main level that has a door to the outside, so we use that room for messy projects (not just crafts....this is also our "garage" and "workroom"). I divided up the supplies to be in the room most appropriate for use. Paint happens to be in several places, though. My paper paint (only have a few) is with the stamping supplies in the office. The general craft paints are in the project room downstairs. The house paint is outside in the tiny shed.

[OkiMom]

For baby jars we have used them for:
home made art supplies (especially bath fingerpaints and playdough)
wiggly eyes, pom poms and other small items like that
sewing needles/pins
buttons, snaps, other small sewing items we might use
small stamps

Basically anything small that might not warrent having a larger container. I like to keep things as compact as possible otherwise Ill run out of storage room.