Show and Tell Sunday!

This is the first time I’ve participated on Show and Tell Sunday, which features all sorts of bloggers showing and telling about a specific topic.

For more great sites featuring today’s topic, storage, you can go Little Pink Studio.

For me, storage is a big deal because I have a lot of stuff. In the basement are tons and tons of those big plastic bins everyone has filled with Christmas, Easter and Halloween stuff. Nothing glamorous, but when the sewer backed up, I didn’t lose a lot of stuff.

I thought I’d show how I use some of my other storage strategies…

We’ll start in the kitchen. I love having sets of silverware with bright handles and I only have two drawers, so they go into colorful flowerpots!

My grandma’s old Depression glass jar is great for tea.

In the art space, I use an overabundance of mugs and mason jars for brushes, pens, pencils, scissors, skewers – you name it. Here are a couple of them, along with a painted tin can I like! Behind, you'll tea tins -- I use those for buttons and repurposed jewelry.
(The rest of those pesky pens and brushes are on a lazysusan wedged behind the bulletin board.)

I put small leftover yarn balls in a clear plastic jug from the dollar store. It’s easy to dig in and grab what I want for tag embellishments.

A smaller apothecary jar from the dollar store works for end-of-the-spool ribbons.

The container on the left of the shelf is a metal carrier, which was my favorite purchase at the Artiscape silent auction. It has about eight compartments and I stack ephemera in there, along with other items that don’t really work anywhere else. I love it. (The theme is Casablanca, and the artist did a terrific job!)

And everyone probably has these for embellishments and small supplies.

I put my “currently in use” embellishments in muffin trays.

I have envied Pam Garrison’s closet. Mine isn’t nearly so tidy, and doesn’t merit photographing, but there are a couple of things to see here.

I love the eight-slot hanging sweater dividers for storing smaller papers, booklets, thematic items. The danger is if you overload. I found the Martha Stewart line (K-Mart) to be particularly strong. It’s easy to categorize your items. (Trust me -- this is more organized than it looks, but posting all this reminds me it really is time to revamp it a bit!)

My other favorite storage trick is for paper. I do lots of collage and often buy very oversized sheets, or have odd lengths. I use a pant/skirt hanger and just clip the papers together, then hang them up. They stay pretty fresh that way, and it’s easy to get to them. I’m going in to redo this closet this summer and will probably change to divide the hangers by color.

One of my favorite ways to store tall rolls of paper is in tall wastebaskets and baskets. Some of the tall colorful metal outdoor vases (Target) work, too.

Then there are the ever-popular clear shoe boxes. They're everywhere (some labeled, some not -- but I did buy a labelmaker this week, so by Sunday, who knows?)

Do check out others Show and Tell Sunday ideas! I know I will!