29 October 2013

New sewing space - organising bits and bobs

A quick one. I have a new sewing space. Well, I have half a new sewing space. My previous sewing space needed to pack away to become a guest bedroom. I found keeping everything in zip lock bags inside big gift boxes worked well. Each box was labelled - sewing, art, stamping, etc. In my new space I don't have to pack everything away all the time, so I'm taking some time to think about how to organise everything. A lot of the ideas I've got are either stolen from online or based purely on what's on hand that works. This one was stolen.

Hot glue a magnet to the base of small container with a lid - these are 35ml (1.2 oz)

Screw an IKEA strip to the wall, or use a magnetic whiteboard, or a metal sheet, possibly even magnetic paint (but I'm not sure how strong that is).

Fill containers will all those little bits and bobs that lie around the sewing room - press studs, hooks & eyes, thimbles.
If you used a larger sheet, perhaps slightly larger containers, this would work for buttons, beads, and notions that are small and annoying to store. I'm thinking I may eventually move all my beading notions to this system. At the moment they are in trays, but the straight sides make it difficult to get them out.

15 January 2014: Update
Although great in principle, this idea is simply not working. Originally, I used a hot glue gun to attach my magnets to the bottom of my containers. A number of them fell off. In researching, I've found that the heat of the hot glue can also demagnetise the magnet.

I tried double sided tape, a good strong one, but it doesn't stick to the plastic containers reliably. I'm forever giving containers a 'push' to reattach the tape.

I tried PVC glue - again, it doesn't stick to the plastic.

I'm thinking of ditching the magnet idea and using sticky velcro dots. If the velcro stays stuck to the plastic containers, this would have the added advantage of being able to stick a matching dot anywhere on the walls in the sewing room.

This is a good site for info about sticking magnets to various materials: http://aussiemagnets.com.au/knowledgemanager/questions.php?questionid=17

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