Organizing Your Shop Supplies

Spring means spring cleaning for us, and we all know business crafting stashes can use a little TLC here and there! We’ve been storing and packaging loose crafting supplies for years now. We’ve found some amazing products and storage ideas that we think will help make craft storage more efficient, not to mention clean and organized. We often get asked how we organize some of our products, what systems work best and where to purchase them. So we decided to compile some of our favorite organizational ideas for you all to hopefully give you some inspiration for your own organizing!

Our process has been trial and error over the years and finding what suits our needs best! (For example, if you need a good reason (and laugh) as to why you can’t overload shelving screwed into drywall plugs, read our blog post "When The Beads Come Crashing Down: Our Story Part 2”....yep, it’s exactly what you think.)

We’ve got lots of links and resources for you below! It would be a dream to be sponsored for this post (haha) but we want you to know that none of the links in this blog are sponsored :) These are just great products we really love!

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and your specific business organizational needs will be unique. But we hope you can glean a couple ideas from our process to integrate into your shop! An organized shop is a more efficient shop :)

Loose Silicone Bead Storage

If you’ve ever received a laaarge shipment of stock from us, you - and your delivery person - will know how heavy silicone beads can get. Our packing girls have muscles ;)

Silicone beads need stable and strong storage to hold the weight properly, and we’ve found that the best kind of storage for that job is actually kitchen base cabinets! Yep, just like the ones in your own home kitchen.

Specifically, we use 36” wide base cabinets from IKEA (with drawers instead of doors). We’ve found these cabinets to be the easiest to install and secure to the walls. We love how deep they are too!

IKEA has so many different variations on their cabinets, so you’ll be sure to find a style and size that work best for your space. Better yet, they have amazing online planning tools to help you configure all their pieces into a workspace that works best for your handmade shop.

Within these cabinets, we keep all our loose silicone stock items like rounds, hexagons & accent beads. You might also notice that we use bags to organize colors and sizes instead of drawer dividers - and there’s a good reason for it! We find bags are easier to reload, move around & remove for cleaning. The bags can also be sealed to keep product clean. We’re constantly adding to our stock and product lines, so we need to be able to change things up quickly.

Our cabinets are all covered with long sections of countertop, and we love the extra space it gives us to lay out your orders and double check everything.

Cording & String Organization

We’ve had this cord organizer for almost 9 years! It’s moved with us to each of our spaces and we absolutely love it! It’s kept our cording accessible, easy to fill and of course pretty to look at (almost as important as any functionality, don’t you think?).

Originally, this rack was an accessories tower (think ties and necklaces) from IKEA.

Unfortunately, it's LONG out of stock so we can’t link the exact same product, but we’ve found a couple similar racks on Amazon:

1. Folding Wall Mount Organizer (available here)

2. Wood Accordian Wall Mounted Peg Organizer (available here)

3. Coat Hook Wood Wall Mounted Pegs (available here)

Product Bins & Containers

We love having these white bins in our warehouse! They’re so versatile and have helped us keep larger stock items contained and sealed when not being used.

The less flattering official name for these bins is a ‘Waste Bin’ from IKEA, but let us assure you - these are a fantastic way to securely store stock. The lids flip easily, close securely, and the storage is really deep! Perfect for overstock or larger stock items!

Uline Products

We’re quite familiar with a number of organization brands for warehouse and business purposes, and Uline is a business organization staple! We love the modular products they offer, and they’ve been game changers for us!

The first Uline product we purchased was their Tip-Out Bins (available here), and we loooove them! They’re sold in 4, 5 & 6 unit combinations and a few bin sizes. Generally used for small parts for mechanical shops, we find these bins such an efficient way to keep loose products visible, free from dust, and super accessible. Check, Check and Check!

The other Uline product we can’t live without at Cara Supply is their Mobile Stackable Bin Organizers (available here). While they are an investment for sure, this is heavy duty storage at its best!

These mobile organizers have given us the flexibility to remove, add and rearrange our products. From clips to kits, everything fits these units. You can purchase multiple bin sizes and arrange in the way that fits your products best. While these aren’t sealed bins, they’re amazing for prepackaged products.

And since we know the question will be asked - what about the white metal shelving in the picture below? We purchased them y e a r s ago from IKEA, but unfortunately they’re not available anymore :( We’re bummed too! We wish we bought more of them!!

We hope this post has been helpful for your shop! There’s no one size fits all solution, but once you start down the organization rabbit hole, you’ll never come back ;)

If you have any additional storage hacks or products that you use and can suggest, feel free to pop them in the comments!

Happy organizing ;)

xo

-the girls