Thrifty Storage Ideas

Hello fellow crafters. The past couple of days I have been reorganizing the clutter that is my craft area. Besides being a great opportunity to procrastinate on other projects, I often find supplies and other gems I forgot that I had squirreled away. Ever happen to any of you?

While I was looking for ideas on how to reorganize my clutter and store my new found treasures, I came across a slew of clever and thrifty, storage ideas. So I thought I'd share a few with you here.


Jars: Spaghetti sauce and other glass jars make great storage for ribbons, buttons, and silk flowers. Not only can you see what's inside, but they look very colorful sitting on a shelf.



These "hanging" jars were mounted by nailing the lid to the bottom of the shelf. My dad use to do this in the garage for storing nails, screws, and other odds and ends.

Priority Mail Boxes: Cut one end off used Priority Mailing boxes and stand them on their sides to make vertical paper holders.

Flat Ware Trays: To prolong their use, dual tipped markers and gel pens should be stored on their sides (or flat). Divided flat ware trays are the perfect solution for these items and can usually be found for cheap at thrift stores and garage sales.

Tiny Ziplock Bags: Those tiny ziplock bags that extra buttons come in on new clothes are the perfect size to store used sponge dabbers and ink blending foams.

Plastic CD Cases: CD cases are great for storing loose or left-over embellishments. Label the spine of the case (baby, graduation, birthday, etc.) and store them in a CD rack.


Egg Cartons: Use egg cartons to sort craft supplies by color, size or type. How cute is this? An egg carton that has been turned into a sewing kit. Egg cartons also make great disposable paint or glue cups.

Pringles Cans: Pringles brand potato chips or similar long cylindrical cans make great storage for paint brushes, keeping them clean and dust free.

4 x 6 Albums: Plastic 4 x 6 pocket albums can usually be found in the .99 cent bins and are great for storing brass templates.

Shoe Bags: Mount a shoe bag over the door or on the wall for storing craft punches and other tools.

Spice Racks: Spice racks are ideal for storing, brads, buttons, eyelets, beads, at kinds of small embellishments.

Wrapper Paper Tubes: Save your empty wrapping paper tubes and use them to store oversize pieces of paper. Stand several tubes upright in a basket in the corner of the room.

Dish Drainer: Sort card stock, scrapbook page kits, and complete layouts upright in a dish drainer. This is another item that can easily be found at a thrift store.

DIY File Folder: This may qualify as a craft project, more than a storage solution, but I had to include this photo because I thought the idea was so clever.

Have you ever come across an old photo album at estate or garage sale, but the insides were falling apart? I love this idea of using the covers and mounting a file folder between them.

Making the most of household and recyclable containers for storage can save you lots of money, which you can use for new supplies. Because we all know.... you can never have too many craft supplies.