Monday, May 11, 2009

MANIC MONDAY: Organizing Your Clay by intothedawn

MANIC MONDAY: Organizing Your Clay
By IntotheDawn

So you’re addicted to polymer clay? Don’t worry, it happens. We know.

But you’ve got packages of it everywhere, new colors you haven’t opened yet, packages that are half used, balls of special colors you’ve mixed and have left over. Those towering stacks of unopened packages are threatening to tumble everywhere, and you don’t want to leave all that opened clay lying about collecting dust and random hairs from around the house. What’s a clayer to do?

Organize with one (or two…) of these three-drawer storage bins! These are made by Sterilite and you can find them (or something similar) at most discount stores in their storage organization area. Sometimes craft stores will carry them too.They are the perfect size for keeping your polymer clay in order. They’re lightweight and fit nicely on a bookshelf, too.

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Pull open the bottom drawer and organize all your unopened packages there. I put the new packages in the bottom drawer because they’re heaviest and the bottom drawer has the most support. There’s enough room that they can stand on end so you can see how many packages you’ve got of specific colors. If you’re obsessive like me, you can even line the colors up in ROY G. BIV (color spectrum) order.

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Those opened packages can be placed inside snack-size baggies-- save the package wrapper, so you know what color the leftovers are. Remnants of special color mixes can go in snack baggies, too. I organize my leftovers by color group, so I know exactly what I’ve got to work with when I pull out my remnants. That way I don’t go opening another package or mixing another color by accident.

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The more clay you have, the more drawers you use. I have a different brand of clay in my top drawer vs. the bottom two. That way I don’t mix incompatible brands. But if you have LOTS of clay, you could organize your drawers by color groups or whatever other way works best for your needs.

How do YOU organize YOUR clay?

3 Smooshing Thoughts:

Corvus said...

I use one of these sorts of things: http://www.amazon.com/HOMAK-HA01039001-39-Drawer-Plastic-Organizer/dp/B000XJOHCA

They're made to organize nails and screws and the like and mine (much smaller than the link above) was cheap from my local hardware store- less than $10. Each little drawer of my organizer perfectly holds two blocks of clay. I can pull out and move around drawers if I decide I want to change overall organization too.

Betty said...

I use the "tupperware drawer system" too! I love it but I am running out of space already -_-

coltpixy said...

I have several sets of the clear drawers too. I use them for clay, wool and rubber stamps. I also have a few tackle boxes filled with clay.