Helpful Organizing and Storage Tips for Craft Supplies

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How do you organize and store all those craft supplies when you don’t have a craft room or a designated craft space? Now that the Christmas season is over it’s a good time to tidy up and organize things. I’m going to share with you, my organizing and storage tips for craft supplies.

Where does everything go? Where can you put anything? How do you keep it all organized so that you can find stuff?  These are all questions that I get asked and have seen asked for those of us in small spaces.

First, a little background. I do not have a designated craft area or a craft room. I am envious of those who have a craft room. My crafting area is whatever is available:  my kitchen island, the dining room table and my living room floor. Therefore, things need to be able to go away when I cook and when we eat, on a daily basis. This does not allow me to leave things out. So when working on a project, I am constantly packing up and unpacking. Even if I wanted a designated craft area, my home simply has no room. Every square inch is being used.

As you may have seen from my blog, I have quite an eclectic crafting preference – I crochet, knit, sew and do things with my Cricut (vinyl, paper crafts and more). So as a result, I have, what seems to be, a lot of crafting supplies – yarn, fabric, vinyl, blanks for personalizing, etc. I try not to buy in bulk or buy for the sake of buying, but over time, one just builds up a stash. I do, however, find it hard to resist a good sale. Since I don’t have a craft room, things are throughout our home, but mainly in the kitchen/living area which is where I do my crafting.

These storage and organization ideas work for my small space. Organizing is a very personal thing. What works for me and my small space may not work for you. But my hope is, that even if you only get one or two ideas from this, it all helps.

Ikea is my main source as it offers a lot of variety of reasonable prices. I’ve linked all the Ikea products. Dollar stores are also a great source for things like bins and baskets.

As with all small spaces, when it comes to how to organize and store craft supplies, you need to go up. In other words, use the wall space. However, I am even limited with wall space as my downstairs area has windows and a fireplace, so there actually is little wall space – but what space I have, is utilized.

Organizing and Storage Tips for Craft Supplies – Shelving Units

Shelves are great for anyone looking for organizing and storage tips for craft supplies. Nothing compares to Ikea when it comes to bookshelves. You can get all kinds and sizes to make it fit into the space you have. The biggest unit I have is the Kallax shelving system. It is the 4 by 4 one. I measured the wall to get the widest shelf possible in between a window and the fireplace. This unit consists of square cubbies which are perfect for storing yarn. Our sofa backs against this unit and so some of it is not accessible. In those cubbies, I keep things I don’t need to get at very often – fibre fill and blanks for my Cricut (things like t-shirts, aprons, pot holders, rolls of toilet paper for HTV, Christmas ornaments, stockings and Santa sacks). The sofa is not that hard to move. so when I need to get some of these things, I can get at them fairly easily. I wanted to go as high as possible, so I have another Kallax unit on top (a 1 by 4). If it weren’t for the wall sconce, I’d see if another one would fit on top and go higher – but baskets on top work as well.

I like to organize my yarn by colour and by weight. I have mostly category 4 yarn, but also some thicker, category 5 yarn as well. Each cubby contains a few colours that are similar. As you can see it is very full! I keep a small container for incomplete skeins of yarn. Big baskets hold all my Amigurumi.

At the bottom of my stairs, I have a tiny wall space that I have managed to squeeze in a narrow bookshelf. For this, I’ve got the Ikea Laiva. It’s super cheap ($24.99!) and is not very deep, which works for this tight space. In this shelf, I keep a lot of my Cricut supplies. My cardstock, which is the heaviest, is at the bottom of the shelf as I fear that the shelves would buckle or bow over time if kept higher.

Check out how I hang my mats. These are S hooks – Ikea Grundtal. These can be found in the kitchen section. They fit over the Laiva bookshelf and I can easily hang my cutting mats.

Organizing and Storage Tips for Craft Supplies – Storage Containers

I prefer most of my containers to match, as I feel that the consistency creates more cohesiveness in a small space. That said, there are a few misfits in there. When it comes to organizing and storage tips for craft supplies like tools, materials and what have you,  you will need a variety of storage containers.

I use plastic containers for my sheet vinyl. These are the Iris Scrapbook Cases from Michaels – they come in a variety of colours and are intended for scrapbook paper which is 12×12. Fortunately, vinyl comes in the same size and so these make great storage for sheets of vinyl. Everything is organized and labelled by the type of vinyl, as well as a reminder of the setting that is used to cut it. I also have some sheets of faux leather that I keep in one.

My cardstock is in cardboard bins that hold 12×12 cardstock that I found at Michaels.  They have an open top and I stand everything up so that I can see and access it easily. I don’t know what these were intended for. I found these in the pet section because of the dog pattern on them. I have a mixture of 12×12 and 8.5×11 cardstock. I have 2 bins and organize my cardstock by colour. This is one thing that I find that can get easily get out of hand as it’s easy to accumulate a lot over time. I do have packages of unopened cardstock tucked here and there as well.

I also have a number of Ikea Variera bins. These are located in the kitchen section of Ikea and I like that they are smooth (so no snagging of yarn or fabric) and have handles. They come in 2 different sizes. In my Kallax shelves, I keep incomplete skeins of yarn in the small Variera bins. I find it easier to have them all together. In my Laiva shelf, I use a Variera bin to hold my different kind of transfer tapes, wax paper and parchment. Another holds supplies for glass etching, as well as polycrylic, as well as little funnels and plastic spoons which I use for glittering ornaments. The small bins are great for holding, glitter,  adhesives and cardmaking supplies.

I also use the Variera bins as project bins. I typically have a number of projects on the go and when I need to tidy up because I need to use the kitchen island to cook supper or we need the table to eat – I can put everything into a Variera bin and everything is together an contained. The bins have handles making carrying and moving them easy. If I’m doing a sewing project, it nicely fits my notes, as well as my fabrics all together.

For taller bins, I like the Ikea Gles boxes. These are great boxes and only cost $1.99! Mine are quite old – this blue is no longer available – the website has green ones. They were used for when my kids were little for toys. We have lots of these all over the house. Now I use them for crafts. They’re pretty strong – they’ve withstood my kids for over 15 years now.

I’ve got a number of rolls of vinyl that are 15 inches wide and I stand them up on a Gles box. This box is taller in comparison to the Variera bin and so it makes better storage for larger items like my rolls of vinyl.

I also use Gles boxes as project bins if it is a fairly big project and doesn’t fit in a Variera bin. For instance, I keep wooden signs and things for Reverse Canvas in a Gles box.  They’re also great for holding my blanks and keeping them together – things like Santa sacks or stockings – I had them out in a box during December so that they were handy.

The Ikea Flyt Magazine holders carry odd shapes of scraps (mine hold Oramask scraps, used for stenciling). These inexpensive cardboard holders have so many uses.

The dollar store is also a great place to find little containers.  Here you see I have a tin for my Cricut pens (I store them upside down because I read somewhere that they won’t dry out as fast) and a little plastic toolbox that holds my tools. I keep my ribbons in a gift box that I received one year.

Wheeled Carts

As I am constantly packing up and moving things around – anything on wheels comes in really handy. They are a big part of my organizing and storage tips for craft supplies.

The Ikea Raskog cart is handy little cart that holds a lot. We have a couple in our home. My kids have one with all sorts of homework and art supplies in it. I have another one that holds my current projects (the Variera bins fit in nicely), as well as breakable blanks like stemless wine glasses and mugs.  This cart is handy as I can wheel it around anywhere I am working. I can also load it up when I need to clear the table.

I love the Raskog cart so much that I always recommend it. It was even my top choice for recommendations when organizing a craft space. Check out my recommendation as well as other great ideas on this Redfin article.

Check out those cups that hang on to the Raskog. Again, found in the kitchen section – these cups hook on and add even more storage!  My black and red ones were the Ikea Bygel – but I believe that has since been discontinued as I can’t find them in-store anymore and they don’t seem to be on the website.  These white equivalent ones seem to be the exact same – they are the Ikea Sunnersta.

Also on wheels, is the Ikea Alex drawer unit. This is where I keep my heat press. I was reluctant at first about getting a heat press, as I had no idea where it was going to go, but I am glad that I have it as it has opened up a whole world of crafting that I never knew I could do. The heat press is not used daily and so it stays behind the dining room table, against the wall, so having it on wheels, allowing me to pull it out easily when needed makes it much easier.  The Alex unit also has drawers in which I keep all my HTV. There are 6 drawers (the top 3 are smaller than the bottom 3). The bottom 3 keeps my 15inch rolls of HTV. I have shallow baskets from the dollar store to keep my scraps in. My HTV is divided by type – regular, stretch and glitter.

While this isn’t everything in my home, this is the most of my crafting supplies.  My sewing machine sits in my front hall closet when not in use. That closet also contains my iron and ironing board – although I have been known to use the heat press to iron things while sewing if I have it out anyway. I have bags of fabric on the top shelf of my linen closet upstairs – but I don’t need to access my stash that often. If I’m working on a sewing project, I keep the fabric I’m using out and put it in a project bin. But the majority of my crafting supplies are all in the same area so that I can easily access everything.

Storage for me is a fluid process – I am constantly rearranging depending on the project at hand. It never stays the same – my shelves look a little different now from when I took these photos. That’s why the bins are handy – you can move and place them wherever and whenever you need them. That’s why I like the handles on the Variera bins.

You would almost think that Ikea has sponsored this blog post, but it seems to be the go-to place for most people. It’s taken me a few years to get things the way I want them and I feel like I’m pretty close right now. Well, there really isn’t any room for anything else anymore!

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