Craft Storage

You may be asking yourself why I was so excited to receive an Ikea kitchen cupboard for my birthday?  Well, it is the answer to my storage problems :-)  I had an epiphany one night while sleeping and the next morning I tested my theory and it worked, so I have been planning ever since!

I use the Artbin Super Satchels for my craft storage.  We sell heaps of them at the shop but we do get the odd cracked one and then they become mine.  Over the years I have accumulated quite a few and even with HUGE cracks they still work perfectly!  So, what is an Artbin Super Satchel you might be asking yourself?

I find them very useful especially as we move semi-regularly and the house gets quite dusty with the air-con on.  The double deep ones have removable dividers and they are very useful for embossing folders, 6x6 pads, paints, sprays and other bulkier items that you might not want falling all over the place.  They also do narrow ones with lots of divider for smaller items.

But the main problem I have faced is with storing them.  Artbin do make a cube for them that they slide into on plastic runners, but over here they retail at $104 and only hold FOUR!  I just refuse to pay that much for a cupboard for them to sit in (even at cost!) and hiding them in a big cupboard with doors is a waste as I like to see things (and I also don't have a spare big cupboard with doors!).  So mine have stood proudly in the corner of my room in a HUGE stack, with others dotted around the place.  The problem with this solution is that I inevitably want something in the BOTTOM container and to get to it I have to unstack them all and then re-stack them once I have the item I am looking for.  It drives me just a little insane at times :-)

I had planned on just making my own 'Artbin cube' style storage for them but time is always against me.  We built our shop counter out of Ikea kitchen units and as we wanted it narrower we used the wall cabinets and just put legs on them to make them the right height.  They are fabulous under-counter cupboards as they aren't too deep (they are 35cm deep).  I never thought to see if they would hold the Artbin's until a few months ago when I dreamed about it.  The second I walked through the shop door the next morning I tested the theory and it worked perfectly!  So I asked for the Ikea 40cm wide wall cupboard for my birthday.  No doors or anything, just plain.  Here they are $45.  And so my mom bought be one for my birthday :-)  LOL

Here it is made up.  I chose to put in the wall fixing bracket (the silver bit) while I made it as one day when we do buy our own house again I will probably mount it on the wall.  My dad gave me money for my birthday and so I went to Ikea and I didn't realise that they also make one the same width and depth but LOTS taller.  It was even better value so I bought one of those with his money.  I believe it is meant to be a broom cupboard or a shallow pantry.

Today I ended up with an unexpected whole day off!!  I set off to the hardware store after dropping the kids and school and bought a BIG box of shelf brackets and away I went ...

See how the Artbins sit rested on the little brackets.  They fit perfectly!  It would be a little easier to slide them in and out on a rail but the only ones I could find were plastic drawer rails and they were $5 a pair!!!!  I haven't had any problems with them so far but if I find one is a bit too heavy to get in and out easily I will just get a thin piece of wood and glue it to the mini brackets as a guide rail.

And out one slides from right in the middle!  It is pure bliss!  Not all of the containers are full as I didn't get to choose which ones got broken. LOL  Some are deep where they could be the narrower ones, but over time I may get some more and then I can swap things over to get the most from my space.

And here they are all finished.  I added a shelf to the middle of the tall one to put my plain Bazzill on.  I had them on the floor behind my desk in Cropper Hopper Vertical Storage Holders (like magazine holders) but I prefer to pull my paper out from the front, not the top.  So I turned them on their sides and slid them onto the shelf.  I think it will work quite nicely.

The Artbins with green clips hold my Cricut cartridges.  I have run out of room in these cupboards so you can see a few stacked on top.  I shall just have to save for another one.  The next few I get will probably be short ones as I want to eventually build my craft room using them.  That way they can go under counter tops, or hung on the wall above counters.  The other nice part about them being Ikea units is that you can get very cool drawers to fit inside them (as in they don't have a front in the same way as an under-counter drawer does) that are designed for holding tins in a pantry.  I think they would work very nicely for punches or sprays.  However, at $50 a drawer they can be added in the future :-)

If you ever find yourself using Artbin Super Satchels, here is a much cheaper way to store them!

Chipper