Organizing my craft room

     Last night I took round clothespins (called "doll pins" - found the wooden crafts section of JoAnns online store) and organized my ribbons.  I should have taken a "before" picture because the difference is totally AMAZING.  After winding each roll of ribbon onto the spool, I put small rubber bands (from the hair accessories department of the dollar store) around the ribbon to secure it. I found this technique several places on Pinterest.

Side view of the open drawer of ribbons

     Originally the ribbons were in the same drawer pictured below (set of 3 stacking bins by Sterlite) but the drawer was extended out, completely filled and spilling out, and the yellow basket was on the floor in front of it completely filled with ribbon spools plus I had clear containers of ribbons on the floor filled with ribbons.  I only bought a bag of 30 clothespins, but I should have bought 2 bags because I had too many spools of ribbon and had to wind two identical spools of a few ribbons onto 1 clothespin to get them all on the 30 spools.  I really would like to buy more ribbon now that I can easily see which ribbons I have.  I had a few stray long strands of ribbon that I just rolled around my finger then secured with a rubber band.

     Here are the benefits that I have found with this organizational method and some additional details of the photo.

-I can easily see my options.

-The ribbons take up practically NO ROOM.

-A rolled up bag of rubber bands is in the lower left side of picture.

-Bakers twine is in the upper right corner of picture.

-Plastic containers of embroidery floss and etc are on the right, which is actually the back of the drawer.

     My daughter is concerned that the ribbon will be curled when I decide to use it but if it is and doesn't stay straight once glued to the front of a card, I will iron it.  Seriously.  It's worth it to be able to save so much space and easily see ALL my options at once.

     Today I organized my wooden stamps plus the additional clear stamps that I haven't put into C/D cases yet.  

     I found large gift boxes on sale at Target for $1.00.  I bought two of them but I should have bought 3 because one lower portion of the gift box is storing my additional clear stamps, and the two lids are turned upside down to store my wooden stamps.  

     I had enough room in my Sterilite 3 bin storage drawer for another layer of wooden stamps using another lid plus I had enough stamps to put in it.  I went to 3 different Targets and only found the ones that were not on sale at $5.99 each, so instead of buying one I went home and rummaged around and found a large photo box organizer that I was using for school supplies, and used the lid for my third layer of stamps.  It is almost the same size as the gift box lids so I got lucky.

Side view of open drawer

     This is a side view of the drawer.  The bottom of the bin has the larger part of the gift box, then there is a gift box lid, my burgundy photo box lid, then the additional gift box lid.  I can easily take out a layer at a time to find what I need and everything stays organized.  

     Prior to the organization everything was just dumped in the drawer and I had to dig through it, pulling out what I didn't need and piling it on a table while I continued looking for the needed item.  Now everything stays organized plus I am getting inspiration for cards since I can easily see stamps that I had forgotten about.  

     I had one additional stamp that didn't fit in the layers but it's one I am saving in case my young Niece wants to stamp something, so I don't need to see it.  I had room to squeeze it between the lids and the side of the drawer.