I'm an Embellishment Hoarder

It's is something I'm trying to overcome.   I LOVE the look of ribbon, buttons, brads and lots of bling.  But I have this fear that I will use them up and won't have any left.   It's not like I don't know where I can get more! I remember once doing a card in a workshop that was embellished with 15 tiny brads in a semi-circle.   It looked really cute but OH MY it was hard for me to add 15 brads for just ONE card!  I'm getting better though.  I think I'm about to overcome this behavior.  But in the meantime, I've got lots of embellishments!   I love the look of embellishment jars that you see lined up on cute little shelves in magazines.   But until I get that dream scraproom that is just not functional for me.  I need easy access and if I go to a crop I want to be able to take what I need without having to pack a box of jars!

I'm ALWAYS looking for ways to store my embellishments.  It will be one of those ever changing parts of my scraproom.    But I'm going to share with you how I'm storing them..... for now.   I have found a couple of things to I do like though and I will point out the reasons why.

Close To My Heart used to sell their embellishments in tubes that contained 6 jars of different types of embellishments.... like brads, conchos, safety pins, photo clips, etc.  When I first started as a consultant with CTMH, I purchasd these Accent Tubes in various colors.  I purchased a My Accents Organizer last year and organized many of the accents I had from these tubes.

My Accents Organizer (left)

Organizer Holds 60 jars.  Jars sold Separately Z188 - $3.50 for six jars.

Now here is something I thought would be just great when I found it in the craft section at Walmart.  I was so happy and couldn't wait to get home to organize all my brads.    See the little acrylic case to the right of the Accent Organizer?   It contains 24 little containers with lids.   I sat down and labeled each container with the color of the brad.   "This is so perfect" I thought! It's small, holds alot of assorted colors, easy to pack to a crop. Not so I soon discovered.  The lids easily pop off when I try to remove the container from the case.  The brads spill out everywhere.  Even when I was trying to take this picture a lid popped off and brads spilled out when I was removing it from the container.

Here is something I do like though....  My Acrylix Organizer.    They are not only just for storing our My Acrylix Stamps!  I use them for my accents!   The 3 dividers help to keep things neat.  I use one box for our new Mini Medley Accents and some of the trendy new Level 2 Accents that we sell.

I love the inexpensive way we sell our accents now.  These mini medleys give us a variety of accents that are trendy.  They are packaged small enough that you don't end up with a bunch you'll never use (like conchos!)

I also use a My Acrylix box for my Waxy flax, Floss and Hemp. These are stored in the front of the box while I keep the envelopes of paper flowers and older sassy strands near the back. I also have some journaling spots in here.   I like how I can lay the threads on their sides and I can easily see what colors I have.  I hope to eventually have this box for ONLY threads.  I'd love to have all the colors of waxy flax!

I have two other boxes of embellishments.  One for ribbon and buttons that I put into old ribbon tubes, the other box has yet more embellishments.   I do like these boxes. They have handles that snap onto the lids and they stack nicely.   They are clear so I can see a little bit what I have stored in them.  I got these at Walmart.

I can stack my embellishment box on the top of my workstation shelf for easy assess.    My Accent organizer and that hated brad case are on lower shelfs.






The Accent Organizer shown above is a retired item and Close To My Heart no longer sells them.   Hopefully, they are coming out with something in the fall that will help us all to be more organized!

So, what are some GREAT suggestions you have for organizing your embellishments?  What would YOU like to see in embellishment storage that no one has thought of yet?