Today we’re going to talk shallow and deep. Wide and narrow.
I’m talking about what I store my supplies in, and the why of it. The bottom line, is this:
Whatever I have my supplies in has to be logical. It has to fit my space, budget, and my needs as a crafter. But most importantly, it has to be simple. If I am storing something too far out of sight, make it difficult to find something or to put it back, the place and my organizational system won’t work. I won’t use it. Chaos will take over.
For each person this is going to be different. Depending on what you have, what you use, and how you craft your choices will be different than mine. But for the sake of sharing my own experience and offering tips for what is working here in my studio, here are some actual examples.
Punches. Oh punches. You aren’t ever easy to store – but I am ok with having a box or bin of punches. However – if I have to dig, if I have to dump my punches out just to find the one I want, this is no good. It is for this reason that my paper punches have relocated to a shallow drawer where they are no more than 2 punches deep.
I’m not including border punches in that – they’re on a shelf in a small plastic bin. Why? Because if I’m wanting a circle or a butterfly or a star, I’m not grabbing my border punches. While they both do the same job, shape punches and border punches serve entirely separate functions and as such can be separated.
You can split stuff up based on how you use it.
The key reason that my hardware store purchased set of drawers has always worked for me is NOT because the little drawers are perfect sizes for storing small embellishments.
No. The reason they work is that they’re shallow enough, AND they come completely out. I can pop a drawer out so that I have the purple buttons right at my desk as needed. I can pull the entire drawer of brads out and find what I need. More importantly – I can put them back in less than a second – just pop it back in.
Quick. Easy to use. Intuitive.
The five-cubbies long little shelf you see above I purchased on clearance at a home improvement store. Meant as a kitchen cabinet add on- it reminded me to look outside of the crafting realm for ideas. We’ll talk more about shopping another day. I want to say that I noted that it’s deep enough for any sticker sheet, and while it’s not tall enough for all of them, all my more narrow stickers, border strips, and rub-ons fit perfectly and are easy to flip through stored here.
Continue reading “Operation Clean Studio | Depth”
