Thrifted Craft Supply Storage

Several years ago, when I was very into scrapbooking (ie, before I had kids!), I found this little organizer at a garage sale for a few dollars

I brought it home and filled almost all the drawers with all my little crafty doo-dads, and all was well.

But as time went by, I started paring down my craft supplies a bit and I also realized that this little set of drawers wasn’t really right for the job.  I needed something that would be more portable, and that I could fit onto a shelf in my craft cabinet (After my first round of downsizing my craft supply stash, I bought a small multi-media cabinet at a garage sale and turned it into craft storage, with a rule that all my craft stuff has to fit into it).  Anyway, the drawers were huge and a bit cumbersome, and definitely not very portable.

I wanted a new solution, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money.  So I kept an eye out when I was at Goodwill, and I found this little guy, for three bucks:

It’s got two layers, and they both snap securely closed.  It’s completely portable and takes up a fraction of the room of the big drawer organizer.  And it fits perfectly onto a shelf in my craft cabinet.  All around awesome.

Our older son helped me transfer all the stuff from the drawers to the new organizer, and I discovered some stuff I had forgotten all about.

It’s a lot easier to see everything at a glance in the new storage container, and I’m finding myself using these little things a lot lately (they hadn’t been used much at all for the last few years).  Stay tuned for a post coming soon about a plain little jewelry gift box that I fancied up using my newly-organized craft supplies!

The drawer storage is still in use, but it’s in our garage now, holding all sorts of hardware stuff.  Our son and I are in the process of sorting out the “nut and bolt” bucket into the little drawers – much better than just having everything in one big bucket.  And in the garage, we have room for the drawers, so their size doesn’t matter. 

Just wanted to share this little organizing story as a reminder that 1) you don’t have to stick with the first solution you find, if it’s not working and 2) you can often find the storage solution you need in the used market for a fraction of what you’d pay if you bought it new.  Once again, thrift store scores to the rescue! 

Hope you all have a great Easter weekend!