More Organizing...

Cream White trims, originally uploaded by ivoryblushroses.

Do you ever find that you start one project only to have it lead to 3 more? All this organizing began while I was working on a crazy quilt block and I got frustrated with not being able to find the supplies I wanted. They were organized, but not in a user friendly fashion! Everything (beads, embroidery ribbon, threads, trims, lace, etc) was sorted by color and dumped in a box. I was forever digging through and never able to find everything I wanted.

I kept the boxes, labeled by color group.

Now, inside, there are simply cards of various trim, hanks of extra pearl cotton and embroidery threads. Easy to see what I want at a glance.

The lace now lives in separate boxes, also wrapped on cards and much easier to see. I loved the visual of it hanging, but don't have the space in my little apartment to keep it out.

The embroidery threads are all wrapped on bobbins and kept neatly in boxes where I can see exactly the shade I'm looking for. One box contains the "special" threads such as the rayons, linen and pearl cottons.

All of the silk embroidery ribbon is now wrapped on padded bobbins as well. What a project that turned out to be! But it looks glorious now and is so easy to see the colors and sizes!

For those looking for silk ribbon storage ideas, another suggestion is to cut straws to fit the bobbin. I believe River Silks are packaged in a similar fashion and it does a nice job of keeping creases out of the ribbon too. I had more felt than straws, so that's what I used.

Now, I need to find a better system for the beads. I've separated the seed beads into a single box. There are various sizes of tubes of beads.

And lots and lots of little baggies and small packages of beads. Elsewhere, I have craft-mates containers with larger beads sorted by color already. But for the seed beads, I'm hunting for a system that would accommodate the varying amounts (from tiny packages of Mill Hill beads to the large tubes of beads) into something that would allow me to easily see the beads at a glance, but wouldn't involve having all the beads in one unit. I'd like to be able to take a single container of beads out at a time. But, that's a project for another day!