Basically, I am looking for ideas! :o)
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Posted 1 year ago #
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I think this depends very much on what those hobbies are. I make some body products as a hobby, and soap needs space to cure, and the supplies have to be tucked away when not in use. So I have racks in the closet, and a bench seat with storage in the front hall, and crates of extra things behind the drying rack in the bathroom. Then I have other things under the bed. Essential oils are in a decorative tin box on a shelf. I have moulds in a large seagrass basket on a shelf above the toilet. I also have a 3-tiered plastic basket thingy on wheels which rolls away in a corner of the closet when not in use. I have a dream of an actual closet for supplies, or, dream big or not at all...a craft room:)
For someone who has a basement or other storage the solutions would be different, and a scrapbooker would have different needs than a quilter, and someone with a larger home will have more options than a small home etc. What is your hobby?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yup, it depends on the hobby (scuba diving vs. crafting doll house furniture out of Fimo). I guess it's a matter of "how many items are necessary" and "how much room do the items need" and "how much room is actually available for the items" :o)
My interests are very broad. I don't have one hobby, I have several that I don't execute always and most of all, not to perfection ;o) So far, I have managed not to let anything get out of hand, and everything fits into one or two boxes. For some, it may make sense to store stuff differently (if they had to access it more often, or to be able to reach it more conveniently), but for me, it's ok that there is one box of fabric remnants and "to do" sewing projects and one smaller box of sewing supply, one box of roleplaying die and other related stuff including rule books, one folder of music notes and so on. The only storage I want to improve sometime because it doesn't really match my needs are my tools (including other craft stuff, screws, nails and other assorted stuff -- right now it's organized in a small drawer chest, I'd love to have a toolbox I can carry around though).
Posted 1 year ago # -
Over the years my various art/craft supply collections seriously outgrew any reasonable amount of allocated space. I've had to ruthlessly prune the collections. I was sick of having to dig in a deep linen closet. Looking for the perfect storage solution is evidently a multi-year process!
I am a bead artist and my storage has been through a lot of changes. At first I used the plastic tackle boxes you find at the hardware store. Then I started getting some of the clear plastic, compartmented boxes like those sold at The Container Store. Around that same time I discovered a very crazy catalog called American Science and Surplus where I found the best storage for beads, glass laboratory vials with screw-on caps. I ordered so many of those, they probably thought I was a crack dealer!
Then, where to put all the boxes and bottles? I bought a 12x12, 18-drawer cabinet from Ikea - twelve inch-deep and six two-inch-deep drawers. That worked, but with those small drawers it didn't hold everything.
Then, just about eight years ago, DH and I were browsing in a Chinese furniture store and found a fabulous, very tall chest of drawers - six deep ones and twelve shallow ones - each drawer divided into compartments and lined with red flocked paper - intended as a jewelry and lingerie case, 30 inches wide and a foot deep, in red lacquer with a pagoda top. This would not suit everyone's decor, needless to say. But it is PERFECT for jewelry-making and beadworking supplies. The various boxes and bottles are neatly arranged by color. The deeper drawers hold yarn, ribbon, and other bulkier supplies.
I still have a separate repository of stuff like canvas, fabric, costume supplies, etc, and just got a new Chinese antique box to hold my tools. The main goal for me is to get everything I need to make my art into easily-accessible storage that is itself beautiful enough to be part of our regular decor.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Sometimes, it pays to use items for things other than their intended purposes.
I found a "photo organizer" at Michaels - it's a suitcase-style carrying case with slots that hold 12 smaller cases. You're supposed to put photos in each of the 12 cases, but it seems like a rather bulky way to carry pictures. So instead, I put my jewelry supplies in each small case and put a label on the back of each one. This way, I can clearly see what is in the case. The small cases are just big enough to fit one small craft glue gun.
One thing I like about this thing is that I can put my most commonly used tools in it and the handle allows me to move it freely around the house, since I don't have one specific place where I work on jewelry. Unfortunately, larger tools and bottles of glue and the like don't fit in the small cases, but I just took out one of the cases and fashioned a divider out of a flat piece of plastic. That extra space where the small cases would normally go now holds my liquid stitch and a bottle of Superglue.
Here's a link to the same product on Amazon if anyone is interested:
In the "Also Bought" section below are other similar products that use the same small cases. I think when I start becoming more serious about my jewelry (read: when I'm feeling confident enough and have enough product to sell online) I'll probably buy more of these things. :P
Posted 1 year ago # -
I just use shelves, but I don't do anything that has lots of nitpicky little pieces.
We have a big house, but very little storage space. My one big, big storage item is canning and drying equipment. I'm actually right now in the process of cleaning out the little cave (our house was built in 1902; the basement walls are just roughly square rocks) that is supposed to be half paint jars/supplies and half canning jars. The painting stuff took over most of the room and the canning jar boxes don't stack nicely. (this isn't hobby painting, it's house painting/deck staining. Victorian house takes a lot of painting.)
So I'm putting in shelves for them instead, and whatever doesn't fit on the shelves is getting donated - I know about how much we'll eat in a year and how much shelf space that is (from last fall when all the jars were full) so I should be able to estimate how many we really need.
Gardening supplies fit into a big wooden shipping box on our front porch; I put a tablecloth over it and we use it for a bowl of iced drink bottles during parties.
The knitting stuff fits into a little doll cabinet (4 inches deep, 2 feet tall, with a 2-inch deep drawer) that was sitting decoratively empty on the stair landing, with the current project in a bag that hangs in the back of my closet. All the unused yarn and unfinished projects got donated.
And we have one drawer in our entertainment center for video games, everybody's has to fit in there (it hasn't been a problem so far.) The other drawer is for DVDs, we weed as needed.
Books are very nearly contained in 2 bookshelves - a wide short one, 2 shelves each 6 linear feet - fits exactly along one wall of our entryway, the surface is where we sort mail/keep the heap of packages my family gets delivered here every summer. The other shelf is a paperback shelf on the stairwell wall. When there gets to be a stack of books where the mail should be, I weed.
Luckily my boyfriend, the computer programmer, either fixes on the house or writes computer programs or plays computer games for hobbies, so his hobby space is indistinguishable from his work spaces.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Organize all your supplies into the categories you want to go together and then don't stop looking until you find a storage system that makes it easy for them to go in their places. I like drawers for this reason. One drawer for each major group of items. Although each drawer may be a hit haphazard with the different little containers and rubber banded groups of pens and pencils, it is easy enough to put everything away when I'm finished working.
Also, I find it invaluable to have a couple of spaces reserved for current projects where I can place the project and supplies temporarily when I am done working for the moment or want to move onto something else.
Posted 1 year ago #
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