Non-sewist might think it’s hording, but us sewing folks know that scraps are handy, I probably keep way too many of the super tiny ones (I justify it in that with doll clothes some pattern pieces really are that small…)
After some trial and tribulation I’ve come up with the ‘scrap management’ method that works best for me and my filled to the brim craft room.
I have a plastic pretzel barrel that holds all my scraps.
To keep it easier to ‘root through’ I safety pin all my like scraps together.
If I have a large scrap piece I’ll pin those right to the yardage I have left.

Other Scrap Management Ideas

Someday I’d love to do open labeled boxes like Karen at Sew Many Ways, actually, I’ll just take her whole sewing room!

Clover and Violet sort their scraps into plastic shoe boxes by color.
American Sewing Guild in The Salt Lake City always has great informational posts, here’s there’s on organizing scraps.

My favorite idea from this post is using a shoe organizer like Pioneer Valley Girl, you could even make your own with my over door organizer tutorial.

Pleasant Home uses wire baskets, I use a big elfa wire basket in my Mom’s Sewing room, to pretty good success since it’s easier to see through than plastic.
What’s your favorite way to tackle scraps?

I’ve finally found the perfect solution for storing my ribbon and trims that I have short yardage of. I ditched the rolls that are primarily hollow cardboard ages ago. I thought about doing the wrap around cardboard, method a lot of scrapbookers use but it still wasn’t perfect. Then I got delivery of clothes from a online retailer and I found the perfect ‘free to me’ solution, those little plastic clips that they use to keep things folded!
These work perfect, they don’t dent the ribbon, they grip well, and they aren’t gonna poke you like pins do.
After winding and clipping my ribbon and trim I then store them in my custom over the door organizer so they are easy to track down.



This post is partying it up here!

I’m sure you’ve seen this in other craft rooms, but all my American Girl clothes look too cute not to share. I’ve got them hanging on a piece of curling ribbon between my two curtain rods using baby clothes pins.

Yes I have a back log of doll clothes I still need to write up posts for… can you tell?

This post is partying here.

You can find these plastic divided organizers in at least 4 different departments at Wal-Mart. My favorite and the cheapest are in the Rubbermaid brand in hardware section for $3.97, they are a little bigger than the jewelry and fishing ones at 14” x 8.5”  and all the dividers are movable, which fits my shelf perfectly.

Coats and Clark thread fits perfectly, nice Silky and Gutenberg fits as well, but not as well. I keep my bobbins in a plastic bobbin organizer, but it’s far from perfect. Serger cones are in plastic shoeboxes.

I also organized my button collection and my various hardware and bias tape makers. Yay for “High Density Storage”.

Overall these have worked out to be a great cheap storage solution which can be reused when I someday build one of the awesome thread racks on Pinterest.

Linking up with Sew Many Ways’s Thread Organizing link party, pop on over for even more great thread organizing ideas. Be sure to visit Karen’s swoon worthy craft room tour too!

This post is partying here.

After trial and error I finally found a good way to keep my patterns organized without taking up too much space.

I store all of my patterns in the gallon size ziplocks, then ‘file’ them in a briefcase style bag, you know the ones you get at conferences and then never use again because they have a dorky logo on them…

It works great, cause I can store it on the floor tucked in a corner, but can grab the whole thing to sort through it on chair.

This won’t work for a large collection, but it fits a lot more than you would think, and could work well for a category of a larger collection.

If it’s a full blown pattern I give it it’s own labeled ziplock, but lately I’ve been printing a lot of little 3 or 4 piece patterns from the net, for these pattern pieces, I paper clip all the pieces together, then put them in a ziplock for the category. Here are all the free American Girl patterns I’ve found clipped and ready to file.

How do you deal with pattern organizing?