Storage options - cabinet vs enclosed boxes

 I am continuing my re-organization of my studio...

Storage options - cabinet vs enclosed boxes

First let me say that I use what I have as much as I can. I also try to make something work, but as I have said numerous times on this blog, its ok to re-evaluate your solutions.

One evaluation I had most recently was to decide that the metal and plastic cabinets have issues I was no longer willing to deal with. These were made for use in a garage environment so concern about dust was probably not considered at all. But for a crafter, dust is an enemy and to be avoided if possible. One way to deal with it I was already doing was just being selective in what I was storing in these cabinets. But when I evaluate what I was storing in them and how it was causing me to divide where I store things, so I was forgetting what I had; I felt I wanted to think of getting rid of them. Not because they don't work at all but just I can find other ways to store items. 

There were three metal tall cabinets and two shorter, wider ones. The tall ones I really used and the shorter ones I didn't. The main reason I didn't was because I couldn't get to them. Mostly I didn't use them because I didn't ever get around to finding just the right items to store in them because they were hard to get to.
Mounting them to the wall was an option but one I wasn't willing to do. These cabinets didn't fit too well in the black shelves and I wasn't prepared to move them to the white ones either. Once I decided to get rid of my desk and move the black shelves I also decided to get rid of the storage drawer cabinets.  But what to do with the items actually stored in these cabinets?

My solution was to purchase more photo boxes. In 2016, I decided that for my project boxes stored in shoe boxes I would replace with photo boxes. I planned that I would do this over time by buying only when they were on sale. I had done so, but used this as  time to buy more. There is nothing wrong with shoe boxes. But the photo boxes provide consistent sizes and that is what led me in that direction. 

I decided that I would also use the photo boxes for storing supplies as well. 

• Ribbon/Trim - keeping the bags I had in the big bin, the only change was to have them 'filed'. But it did take two photo boxes to store all of it. I love being able to quickly find the color I am looking for without having to dig in the big bin. Another thing I did was to give up on the case binder. I really loved the case binders I have but I don't have enough of the pocket pages to fill up. I re-purposed it to another task.
  
  
  
  
• Flower making - I'm not totally happy with this box, but for now the items from the storage cabinets are moved inot one photo box. I plan to get these 'filed' as well.
• Kits - rearranging things from my tall plastic drawer cart to the photo boxes, I split them into Furniture and Misc. and I 'filed' them using the dividers that came in the photo boxes.
  
• Electrical - got it's own photo box. I think I may use some smaller boxes inside to help organize this as it is a mass jumble. Another solution I may consider would be the plastic divided boxes.

Meanwhile...

I visited the thrift store and found 6 divided boxes - these are the plastic fishing tackle type things. I've used some for years for my swaps. 

For the swaps, I had significantly reduced what needed to be stored by making and furnishing my Swaps Mall. So my first step with the divided boxes was to consolidate swaps into fewer divided boxes. 

I even pulled other items like my resin rabbit collection into these. They were previously stored in the drawer cabinet so they needed a new home. Now they are altogether waiting for a new home in a mini project.

Another step was to use only the smaller fixed section boxes for swaps (I have gotten these used at thrift stores, but usually get them from the local craft dept store) and use the ones with flexible divided sections for supplies. 

• Wood strips and bits - all my wood except some wider pieces are now sorted into 3 divided boxes. Yes, 3 because I had them available and also because I had that many scraps in assorted places. I now have wood in 3 places, these boxes, a drawer for larger flat pieces and a large cardboard box for the remaining long pieces. 
  
• Pencils and pens - these were in the cabinets and needed a new home. A divided box worked and a second smaller box for my permanent markers.
• Glitter and sequins - spent a couple of evenings sorting my sequins by color. I know silly, but therapeutic for me. I just love color but prefer it to be organized. The sorting paid off later when I just needed silver and could go quickly to the silver section.
  
• Plastic bits - I previously had most of all this in a shoe box size cardboard drawer. But this way I can find things easier. Larger bits (that I am less likely to use for smaller scales) are still in the cardboard drawer.
  
• Screws and such - I previously had two drawers in the storage cabinet. Oh and various other spots around. So I consolidated it all into one single divided box. This one was an odd ball compared to the others.
  
• Previously, I had a divided box of doors and windows for 1:48 scale but added a second one for other building components. Mostly I spread out the stash into two boxes because I had them, but I also found some of these stored somewhere else so now everything is together.
  

Moving all this around I freed up some other boxes and wanted to find places for more things.

• Tape - it is in a plastic shoebox. (shown above)
• Clay - these was moved from the plastic shoe box I just mentioned into a 3 section snap together box. This way all the clay and tools are together.
  
• Kid art - I keep on hand some kid friendly art items like markers, scissors and glue. These all are in an additional snap together set box.
• Small boxes - literally little boxes. I keep these from when I unpack my swaps or other purchases. These then are used when I need to ship something or for the clear ones I will use for display.
  
• Stamps - I can't seem to part with these (or these pink boxes), a leftover from other crafts. These could easily go in a photo box instead.
• Punches - these needed to move from the cabinet drawers and have found a new home
• Glue and bulky paint - these, for now, are on the bottom two shelves of a black bookcase. I still need to decide if this will be their official home. Can also see the stuff stored in the corner. I left a gap between the book shelf and the wall just for the storage of large flat things.
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• Paint bottles - I have been collecting small mail boxes to use to separate by color. I like this better than the bigger bins I had, but I wish they were deeper to fit the depth of the shelf.
  
• Scissors - the fancy kind and my handle hole punches - these all fit in the top of the medium rack tool box (see below)
• Tools - the extra tools I had stored in the drawer cabinets needed a new home. I finally succumbed and purchased the medium size tool rack system. I decided on the medium size because I felt the larger one was too big, especially since I had the smaller one to hold most of my regular use tools already. I got this one from Michael's with a coupon. I choose to elevate the small one to fill room on the shelf. I do tend to leave my tools out and so the two bins below make for quick clean up. The little shelf was a thrift store find. I also added a piece of foam-board under the toolbox so support the front cover that is sticking out. This is so a divided box has something to sit on. The medium rack box has the front cover removed. These are easy to remove or take off. The shelf above was left that far up to allow the top portion lid to be opened. All my tools including a small hammer (except rulers) are in these two boxes.
  

That's all for now.

Ribbon and Trim - update

I did it. I finally made the move to pull the ribbon and trim from the binder in with the baggies. As I mentioned in a prior post just recently I was thinking about doing this. I am really glad I did.
The ribbon and trim was in this binder

It was a great solution - just not cost effective for the volume of ribbon and trim I have collected. The biggest portion of what I have I got at a garage sale of another miniaturist who had passed on.

But I didn't toss out the binder - I will use that later for something else. I already have something in mind.

The photo boxes storage was holding all the baggies including the added in bits, but it was getting really tight.
I decided to go with two photo boxes.

This just gives me space to move the baggies to look at colors.
I already have decided to add more dividers, but since these were cut by me, I haven't gotten around to that part yet. Anything previously combined, I will just turn the card around and write the new label on it.

All the Trimmings - and more

All the Trimmings -

that is the label I have on my tin that I now keep most of my ribbons, bunka and other trims in.
When I first started in miniatures I had to buy trims nearly every time I needed something.  Over time, of course, I have been able to build up a good collection of different types and styles.  As my collection grew, the way that I store them has changed as well.  I believe I started storing them with the project.  Then as I finished a project they moved to a zip bag.  Then they were moved to a drawer - this being about the size of shoebox and was all jumbled together.  The zip bag was fine as it was a much smaller amount to sort through but the drawer was a mess.

The one on the left is ribbons that I am unlikely to use in miniatures for 1:48 scale, but I show as that is how that drawer was. The one on the right is a drawer of Christmas styles also unlikely to use in miniatures.
One day as I was getting everything out to find something, I realized that every time I needed something for a project I was pulling out two to three 3x5x3 inch plastic drawers,  and a cardboard drawer like above, and additionally I had stored some in a case binder that had business card holder pockets.  Oh wait, plus I had participated in a supply swap and it was in an additional cardboard drawer. I recognized after the other organizing I had been doing, that I needed to get my trims organized better as well.

My Solution

I started grouping the trims by color and putting then in smaller zip bags.  I even pulled the silk ribbon and bunka from their special smaller plastic drawers and put them in the zip bags.  This was a really big step for me as I was seemingly committed to the drawers for some reason.  I am not sure what my hang up was, maybe the way they looked in the drawer - all lined up like colored files that you could easily see which to grab, but it did take me a while before I decided to add them in the zip bags.  
My ultimate decision was 'what is the most efficient means to store these different types of trims?'  I thought about how I was getting out all these containers and only looking for a particular color.  It occurred to me finally that the most efficient way was to pull out a bag of the color I was looking for and then I could sort for the possible trims to use.  This truly was my best solution.

Next steps - adding more to the collection

A year or so ago, I lucked into a garage sale of items from a miniaturist who had passed.  The lady had a whole bunch of ribbon and other trims.  Her storage solution, as they were mostly ribbon, was to wrap them on paper towel tubes and then pin them.  These were in small paper shopping bags when I saw them.  I purchased the whole lot of bags and got over 200 different ones.  Granted there were some that I decided later that I could part with as they were larger in scale or a type of material that was not conducive to use in 1:48 scale which is what I prefer to work in.  Some of these tubes had 20 or so different trims/ribbons on them.  But the pins seemed to come loose and long term not a solution I wanted to keep.  Maybe it worked for her, but it wouldn't work for me.
So I removed each and wound them onto cards I made.  These cards are just some I cut from thin cardboard.  It is nice to have the ears on the cards, like the cross-stitch thread or bunka is sometimes seen on but I found it wasn't necessary.  To hold the end in place I cut a notch in the side or end of the card to insert the end of the ribbon/trim into.

Well, now my stash has grown and I needed to find a new container to hold it all.  I had been keeping them in a plastic box slightly smaller than the typical plastic shoe box.  But rather than switch to two boxes, which I needed to if I didn't have anything else, I switched to a tin that I have.  

This cookie tin is quite large as tins go and boxy.  I got it quite a few years ago.  I had been storing a project in it.  The tin did keep the dust out, but it was far too easy to forget what was in the tin where it was being stored.  I can't recall what exactly prompted me to change my usage of this tin from storing a project to storing the bags, but I did have to change my way of thinking.  If there truly is a second lesson to be learned here it is to always be willing to re-evaluate your storage options.

Large Tin used to store current collection

This tin was just right for my current collection.  However I always seem to go OCD about a storage solution and find some flaw.  The flaw in this was bags can't be sorted by color. Plus the bags are different sizes.  OK, I can deal with the not having them 'filed', but the bags sizes - I have do something about that.  Fortunately, I had spare bags available. I switched them to smaller bags.  I of course saved the larger zip bags.  Anything that couldn't fit into the smaller bags, well I just divided up the color - making a lighter and a darker of that color.

Alternative storage solution

A few paragraphs above I said a lesson I need to work on is to always be willing to re-evaluate storage solutions.  As I write this, I reminded myself of the remaining solution i have for my trims - a super cool binder - shaped like a box but it has the rings in it.  Inside I have business card pocket pages.  I confess that I am still using that binder.  Silly I know as the whole point of pulling everything into the tin was the make it easier to find what i might use, but I am still hanging on to a prior solution.  

I am not going to beat myself up over this.  I will do something about it.  But I mention it for two reasons - one to drive my point about re-evaluating solutions but secondly because it is truly a great storage solution.  The only problem with this solution for me is it currently cost prohibitive.  Only reason I started it was because I had been able to get the binder and the pocket pages when they were throwing away items at work.  This binder is called a case binder and they come in different colors and different thicknesses.  

fabric

I wrote about my fabric storage in a prior post.  It really is nothing fancy - a drawer of bags where the fabric is grouped in the bags by color.  I really only mention it here because yet again, I had a moment when I reminded myself about having more than one place for storing something.  One of the supply swaps I was in included fabric swatches.  Those swatches took a while to be moved to the fabric bags.  And it was not just because I hadn't gotten around to moving them.
I pulled the drawer out today just to see if there was really something to talk about.  Well, even though I had some new to me fabric, not in the bags, at least it was in the same drawer.  When I feel like sorting or I need a particular color then I will have them all in same place and not have to hunt down that new fabric.  That's probably when it will get sorted.  But I am okay with that.