Storage time, again

In my never-ending quest to find the perfect storage solution for my stash, I spent the last two days out and about.

My biggest concern is floss storage. I've tried so many different ways over the years, and always return to bobbins. But, as I've hoarded floss over the years, I realized, I don't like winding floss on bobbins so much, so I shove the floss in bags and hide them all over the house, like an enormous squirrel (who knows better). A few years ago, I consolidated the bags into a plastic tub, then made effort to organize that plastic tub into at least Ziplocs organized by numbers. I have one set of DMC I keep in a Jammer box, the spare floss already wound onto bobbins organized numerically, and then the large (and dreary) box o' floss which is basically depressing to go into.   And rarely ever gets used.

And I'm sick of it. This isn't working for me anymore. I end up buying floss and it feels like when I've been on a diet and cheat, or have to buy bigger pants. I disappoint myself.

My friend Enid told us how she organizes her floss one time, and that struck me as reasonable. She uses a large plastic bin, and puts all her floss in mailing envelopes, sorted numerically,  and then pulls from that. I misheard her say that they were memory boxes, and have been looking ever since. Well, Michaels had those boxes on sale this week, $2 a box. We were out and about , and I bought 5, all kind of matching. I bought snack-sized baggies to put them in. I know someone will say, "But that is not archival, and the threads will decay over time."  And my response is, "probably, but they're definitely going to decay over time in this giant tub of BS if I never use them, right?" 

The only drawback I see to the system as it stands now is that I need more memory boxes. My floss will not fit in 5 boxes, even with me keeping the large Jammer box of floss intact. So I'll do the best I can do, if I have to spend a little more to get some more boxes, then that's cool. It will be better than wasting money, buying floss I already have because I'm too annoyed to search. And I probably will switch out to paper envelopes as storage because the air gets trapped in the baggies, but this is a good start.

That wasn't all that we bought. One of my other big needs, and I think I go through this every year, is secure storage cases for current WIPs. I have a weird collection of them, but, considering how many WIPs I have, there is never enough. I really needed something for Santa's Pets and it was not looking easy to find--since the chart is part of a calendar, it made it difficult to use anything I had in my "stock". So, it was a pleasure to find that Michaels had their scrapping cases on sale.  Normally, they are $9.99, but they were $3.99 on sale. I figured it might be worth a shot, and, for $4, what could it hurt, so I bought one. And Santa's Pets fits! Everything.  The chart/calendar, the floss, the HOOP!, and the WIP. So much better than trusting it to the "the elements", one of whom sheds and the other who has a thing for pens.

Friday night, we went to Target to do a little after-birthday shopping, and, while we were there, I noticed they have the school supplies out already.  It's a little weird--didn't these kids get out of school like 3 weeks ago?--but it was worth taking a look. And I found a large plastic pencil case that will also work well to hold small WIPs, like those freebies I love. $2.47 for it. Perfect! I also picked up a couple things for the office, supply-wise, but I was pretty pleased to get that pencil box.

If anyone wants to see pictures, I can post them. I would say check your Target and Michaels to see if they have these items still on sale if you are interested.