Friday

How to Organize Craft Punches



Over the years I have collected a lot of Craft materials 
but not used all that I gathered together into my Craft Armoire.

One of the reasons for this was that I had not organised my supplies in the best way to make sure I would regularly use them.


I had found many storage items large and small for storing my crafts but now I was determined to get more organised.


Today I'm going to tell you about how I organised my 

PUNCHES






BEFORE


Originally I had my punches in square matching cardboard boxes of 
3 different sizes 

grouping 
the larger border type punches together in the largest box on the right
 
and 
the small & medium sized ones together in the small box on the left.






Then a mix of small & medium sized ones 
together with the large ones that were leftover from the large box 
in the medium box below







Yes you can clearly see it was not a good arrangement for storage
  1. Sizes were mixed together
  2. Types were mixed together
  3. Subjects were mixed together
  4. Boxes had to be opened to even try to remember what punches I had
  5. Punches on top of punches meant ones had to be lifted out to see the others.






I also tried using clear plastic boxes to store them thinking I could maybe have the same types or same subjects together and see through the sides.


This was the result:







I only got two boxes used when I realised I was going to need 4 of them if I wanted to keep them well sorted and 4 of these boxes would take up much more space.

If I didn't want to use 4 then it would always mean that some punches were on top of others and I would forget what I had and every time I was thinking of using a punch I would still need to go through all the punches which meant I would still be moving and opening boxes and to be honest I'm too lazy for that.

So I was back where I had started!!! 



Then I saw an interesting item one day online in Ikea's Kvissle Series

It's called the Letter Tray






With this item 
  1. I would not have to lift one box off another and open boxes and then sift through punches lying on top of each other
  2. I would be able to see all the punches in one section without even touching any of them.

So I got all my punches out again 






and started sorting them into subjects & types like borders,  designs, 



ANIMALS



PLANTS




So off to Ikea and I bought the Kvissle Letter Tray


I knew beforehand that I would have a choice of places to keep the tray unit as it could fit unto a couple of different shelves in my Craft Armoire (Ikea give you all the dimensions) 

and I knew it would be so much better than my previous system for my punches and I was right.



Corner & small border punches




Animals & Plants




Shapes




Large Borders





AFTER



It is now

       easy to open, 
 
              easy to see the punches,  

                     easy to lift them out 








and then maybe the most important fact of all 

it is
 
       so easy to return the punch to it's position - yes!
 


I will  NOW put each punch away as soon as I use it 

because 
it is just a matter of pulling out the right tray and placing it where it came from.








Doesn't it look so neat here in my Craft Armoire





even now when I got a few extra punches and put them in the wicker basket in front but that is easy to lift out and then I can pull out the trays.



NOTE to SELF
Please try not to be tempted to buy more punches