Embellishment Storage - all the sparkle

Good morning! Today I want to talk about organizing and storing embellishments, in particular, gems and pearls that are adhesive-backed.

When I first started setting up my craft room last year I intended to use a Clip-It-Up to store all of my clear stamps. I purchased Avery Elle stamp storage pockets for my large sets and Simon Says Stamp 5×5 storage pockets for my smaller sets. I eventually realized that my stamp collection wasn’t going to comfortably fit on the Clip-It-Up (with room to grow) and I decided to switch to Jennifer McGuire’s method of storing my stamps in Fridge Binz containers. I ended up moving all of my stamps into the larger Avery Elle pockets as it was difficult to see the smaller pockets when flipping through my stamps. So I was left with a stack of the 5×5 pockets and I wanted to find a way to use them.

At the time I was storing all of my gems and pearls in their original packaging in a drawer and I was constantly re-buying things I already owned but had lost in the drawer or just forgetting to use what I had. I needed to find a way to make them more visible and more organized.

I started off by taking each set out of the original packaging and grouping them by color. Then I put each set of embellishments into a different storage pocket. Each storage pocket already had a piece of white cardstock cut to fit inside. The white cardstock really helps the color of the embellishment stand out. Sets with multiple colors were put into a separate stack. I cut 4.25×5.5 rectangles out of various colored 8.5×11 cardstocks and used them as dividers (I didn’t want to waste too much cardstock so cutting the dividers to a standard card size meant that the leftover cardstock was easily cut down for cards). I have all the basic colors, then a striped piece of cardstock for the sets with multiple colors and glitter cardstock for the gold and silver gems. I keep extra pockets in the back and I store the bin on a shelf above my workspace.

This storage system allows me to easily flip through all my embellishments of one particular color so that I can find the exact shade, shape, and size that I’m looking for. I use the storage pockets because I had them on hand but there are many different ways you could customize this for your own use. I’ve included links below for the products I used. Unfortunately the exact bin I used is no longer available but the Fridge Binz Condiment Caddy should work nicely!