Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Easy DIY Wood Crate Storage and Drawer Organizers

In our early just bought a new house and need new stuff to store our old stuff days I turned some vintage fruit crates I discovered neglected in the basement of our old rental into a down and dirty wood crate storage dresser by slapping the drawers from an old cardboard night stand into the crates and calling it a day. The storage boxes aren’t very pretty but it worked at the time. I had every intension of upgrading to a better solution later.

You can probably guess that Later never came.

This version of my fruit crate storage dresser is not working for me any more. The supplies inside quickly turn into a jumble that I have to paw through to find the thing I need. The final straw was finding feathers turning up here, there, and everywhere in the drawers and room except in the drawer that is supposed to store them with my hat making supplies. Gah! I need an organization makeover – stat!

I used a hodge podge of baby food jars and such to store beads and jewelry findings that barfed out their drawers. This isn't pretty, but it is honest. An honest hot mess!

DIY Door Sign and Friday Favorites Week 580

It's funny how you think you come up with a totally new and original idea for a craft or decor project to find out someone (or many someones) have done it too. It's fun to see how another person put their creative spin on a great mind think alike situation. Case in point:

I added a hanger to a sign I made with this exact Home paw print stencil and added my little creative spin using a woodburning tool like this one to add texture so it looks like the bottom of a dog paw. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.)

how to stencil and wood burn a Home door sign

I hang the sign on the front door sometimes instead of decorating with a wreath

How to Make Easy Storage Bin Labels

I am a famous for storing something in "a better place" and forgetting where I put it.

And that goes double for my sewing room and craft studio.

I eventually learned that if I take 10 minutes of my time to make a label for an item, I will always put it back where it belongs and save an hour of searching for it later. It also keeps family members from asking me to stop what I'm doing to find household items that are staring them in the face. I tell them to read the label to the bin/caddy/pocket/shelf/whatever.

Genius!

I need to label the new storage bins I'm putting in my craft room. I want them to look cute but they also need to be something I can easily update because my supplies rotate in and out. I considered chalkboard labels like these but figure the writing will wear off with handling based on other chalkboard labels I use (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.)

how to make clip on storage container labels

Save this tutorial to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

One thing I like about decluttering and organizing a creative space is I often find a long forgotten cache of supplies that I can use to make or build the custom storage solution I need. In this case, the buried treasure is a bunch of discontinued countertop samples a friend gave me. I'm going to craft those countertop samples into storage bin and box labels and show you how to do it!

The Best Ever Quick and Easy Sewing Pattern Storage and Organization Idea

I store my sewing patterns in a recycled shoebox because it is the width of a sewing pattern envelope.

Also, with a husband who is a long distance runner, I can get a replacement shoe box when I need it on the regular.

It worked for awhile - until it didn’t.

As I’ve done more costuming work, my pattern envelopes are in all shapes and sizes. On more than one occasion I plopped the whole pattern into a gallon size zipper baggie because the pattern pieces won’t fold to fit back into its envelope. I try to store my sewing patterns by category but they quickly return to their natural disorganized state – a pile busting out of its shoe box(es.)