Nobody runs out of craft supplies. People run out of places to put them, and then buy a second set because the first one is somewhere under the desk. These craft room storage ideas are the fix, and they are all containers and builds rather than whole room makeovers, so you can do one this weekend without emptying the room first. There is a wine crate turned into a rainbow of paint cubbies, a wine rack holding a hundred skeins of yarn, a vintage soda crate mounted on pegboard for washi tape, dollar store bag holders wall mounted for vinyl rolls, and a stained board studded with nails that keeps every spool of thread visible at once. Start with whatever supply you own too much of. Every tutorial links back to the maker who worked it out.
DIY Craft Room Storage Ideas
1. DIY Hanging Paint Storage
Two of the cheap wire shelves sold for college dorm rooms, joined with lengths of PVC, make a hanging rack that holds craft paint bottles in a grid. The reason it works is a coincidence of dimensions: the openings in that particular wire shelving are exactly the right size to take a standard two ounce craft paint bottle without it rattling or falling through. The shelves turn up in thrift stores and garage sales constantly, and the rest of the materials are hardware store cheap. Hung on the diagonal, the whole collection becomes a color chart you can read from the doorway.
Get the full tutorial at Mad in Crafts.
2. DIY Thread Holder
A single board studded with nails in a grid, every spool of thread facing out and visible at once. The maker bought a plain piece of wood from a home store for about eight dollars, roughly a foot and a half by two and a half feet, stained it dark walnut, taped off an inch and a half border, painted a chevron and sanded it back. The grid maths is the useful part: nine spools fit across thirteen inches of working width, which gives about one point four inches of spacing, and she laid it out on freezer paper over the board so she could draw directly without marking it.
Get the full tutorial at Craptastic.
3. Vintage Soda Crate Storage
A wooden soda bottle crate hung on pegboard, each divided compartment stacked with washi tape rolls sorted by color family. The crate was designed to hold glass bottles upright without them knocking together, which is almost exactly the problem a washi collection presents, so no modification is needed beyond hanging it. Old crates turn up at flea markets and barn sales for a few dollars. Sorting by color rather than by pattern is what makes the finished wall look styled instead of stuffed, and it also means you can find the roll you want without pulling six out.
Get the full tutorial at Happiness is Homemade.
4. Dowel Ribbon Organizer
Wooden dowels run through a shallow drawer, each carrying a run of tape rolls in rainbow order, with a length of duct tape, washi and masking tape all sharing one rod. The point of running a dowel rather than tipping rolls into a bin is that you pull tape from the roll without lifting it out, which is the step that turns a five second job into a two minute one. A drawer keeps dust off adhesive edges. Elastic bands and small tools fill the space behind, so nothing is wasted.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
5. Extra Large Peg Board Organization
One enormous framed pegboard doing the job of an entire wall of shelving: a thread rack across the top, wine crates screwed on to hold paint and glitter, dowels for wrapping paper and vinyl rolls, hanging buckets along the bottom rail for pens and rulers, and every pair of scissors on its own hook. The framing is what lifts it out of garage territory, and the maker is clear the frame needed its own separate tutorial. Before this, her scissors lived in a toolbox and finding one meant emptying the lot onto the desk.
Get the full tutorial at Honeybear Lane.
6. Craft Cubby Organizer
A shallow wooden crate with a plywood grid dropped inside it, each square holding two craft paint bottles laid on their sides so the color on the lid faces out. Storing paint lid out rather than upright is what makes this better than a shelf: you read the whole collection in one look and never pick up three bottles to find a shade. Thirty six squares hold seventy two bottles in a footprint smaller than a laptop. The grid is cut half depth and slotted together, so it needs no fixings and lifts out for cleaning.
Get the full tutorial at A Pumpkin and a Princess.
7. Ribbon Holder
A shallow white bookcase with a thin rod running across each shelf, every spool of ribbon threaded onto it and grouped by color, five shelves deep. The room around it was reorganized with a Container Store Elfa system bought during that store’s annual sale, which the maker is upfront about waiting for rather than paying full price. The whole reset took the better part of a day. Grouping the ribbon by color rather than by width is the call that makes the wall look like a shop display, and it is also faster when you are matching to a gift.
Get the full tutorial at Crafty Texas Girls.
8. Gift Wrap Organization Station
A bookcase bay turned into a wrapping station: rolls of paper laid horizontally on gold rods across the middle shelf, a lower rod carrying ribbon spools, labeled magazine files and boxes above for tags and card, and bins below for bags. Storing paper horizontally on a rod is the whole trick, because standing rolls up in a basket is what shreds the ends and lets them unroll. The maker’s own before was a wire basket holding a quarter of her collection with every edge ragged. Label everything, because a wrapping station only stays a station if things go back.
Get the full tutorial at IHeart Organizing.
9. Wine Crate Craft Paint Storage Box
A shallow wine crate turned on its side and fitted with three columns of small shelves so paint bottles stack lid out, sorted into a rainbow. The shelves are cut from one by four offcuts, and rather than screwing or nailing them the maker routed dado cuts into the sides so each shelf slots into a groove. That is why it looks like joinery rather than a box with slats glued in. Wine crates come free or nearly free from wine shops and friends who order by the case, and the branding on the end is half the charm.
Get the full tutorial at Remodelando la Casa.
10. Repurpose IKEA Cart As Craft Storage
A three tier rolling cart fitted out for paper crafting, with the top tray holding upright card stock, die cuts and embellishment packs standing on their edges, the middle tray taking journaling cards filed front to back, and the bottom carrying small boxed bits. The maker’s own contribution is what goes inside the trays: drawer dividers built from empty toilet paper rolls, a soup can, a product clamshell and a cardboard box covered like a present. Filing paper upright rather than stacking it flat is what stops the whole tray becoming one pile you have to lift.
Get the full tutorial at Inspiration Found.
11. Rail Hooks Scissor Storage
A wall rail with S hooks carrying thirteen pairs of scissors and paper edgers, every pair hanging by its own handle. Decorative edgers are the worst thing to store in a drawer because the patterned blade is invisible until you pull it out, and hanging them side by side means you pick the right edge first time. The same room reveal sorts craft paint into three labeled bins by tone, neutrals and metallics in one, bright colors in another, saturated shades in the third, with a strong tip: paint the top of any white lid so the color shows from above.
Get the full tutorial at Polished Habitat.
12. Wrapping Paper Storage
A frame fixed flat to the wall with six dowels running across it, each holding a roll of wrapping paper horizontally, mounted above a window seat. The maker built the frame from old trim left over from the same room, so the piece cost almost nothing, and she notes you can fit the dowels straight to the wall without a frame if you would rather skip that step. Rolls stored horizontally keep their ends square. Sitting them above a bench rather than in a closet means the paper is also doing the work of wall art the rest of the year.
Get the full tutorial at Thrifty Decor Chick.
13. Printer Cart Craft Room Storage
A small turquoise rolling cart carrying the two machines that never have a home: printer on the top shelf, cutting machine on the middle, and a clear bin of craft paint plus a tub of vinyl rolls on the bottom. Before this, the maker and her husband were shuffling the printer around the house and working off the floor. The cart she used is discontinued, which matters less than the principle: machines want a wheeled surface at desk height rather than a shelf, because both of them need to be pulled out and plugged in rather than reached into.
Get the full tutorial at White House Black Shutters.
14. Yarn Storage System
A twelve cubby wine rack mounted on the wall, each diamond opening packed with skeins sorted into a rainbow, holding well over a hundred at once. The maker tried shelving, baskets by the bed, laundry baskets and plastic bins before this, and every one of them ended in tangles. The rack she used measures roughly thirty six by thirty five by ten inches, weighs about forty pounds and needs three brackets to hold it safely, two under the top cubbies and one at the bottom. The diamond shape is what keeps skeins from rolling forward.
Get the full tutorial at Repeat Crafter Me.
15. Paper Bookcase
An IKEA Expedit unit fitted with thin horizontal shelves inside each square, so twelve by twelve scrapbook paper files flat by color instead of sitting in a stack you have to lift. Each cube holds dozens of sheets and every one has its own slot, which means pulling a single sheet of teal does not disturb the forty above it. The maker had so many questions about it that she wrote a PDF tutorial, which is built around the two by four Expedit but adapts to any size and, she believes, to the Kallax that replaced it.
Get the full tutorial at mebemaria.
16. Fabric Storage
Fabric wrapped around comb binding spines and filed upright on a shelf like books, with glass jars of trims and lace standing between the sections as bookends. Wrapping each cut around a stiff former is what makes this work, because folded fabric slumps and unfolds while wrapped fabric holds a flat spine and stands on its own. You read the whole shelf by print from the front, pull one out without toppling the rest, and unwind only what you need. Comb spines cost almost nothing and come in every width, so short cuts and yardage both file the same way.
Get the full tutorial at The Girl Inspired.
17. Vinyl Storage System
Plastic bag holders, the tall cylindrical kind sold for stuffing carrier bags into, wall mounted and filled with rolls of craft vinyl instead. They cost under two dollars each, ship flat and snap together, and each one takes fourteen rolls. The maker went through a bucket and then an over the door shoe organizer first, and the shoe organizer lasted more than a year before the pockets stretched out under the weight and started dropping rolls every time the door moved. Mount four on a wall in a block and you have space for fifty six rolls in almost no depth.
Get the full tutorial at Silhouette School.
18. Easy DIY Fabric Stash Organization
A custom wall cubby measuring thirty two by fifty five by seven inches, divided into seven inch squares sized deliberately so a fat quarter bundle sits in one without slumping. The maker built it after a basement renovation when her mother decided she needed more storage, and she is honest that the design is a hack of a shoe cubby tutorial which was itself a hack. The back is left open, which she prefers visually, but she notes a single sheet of quarter inch plywood cut to size closes it if you would rather not see the wall behind.
Get the full tutorial at Sew at Home Mummy.
19. Mason Jar Twine Holder
Six small spools of baker’s twine stacked on a hex bolt inside a quart mason jar, with a daisy cut out lid on top so each color pulls through its own hole. The maker had seen a single spool in a jar and found it looked ridiculous, and putting several in loose was worse, so the bolt was the fix. Thread a quarter inch by six inch hex bolt through the centre of the lid, then alternate a quarter inch cut washer and a spool all the way down, and finish with a hex nut underneath so nothing slides off.
Get the full tutorial at 'A Casarella.
20. DIY Colored Paper Pen Holder
Rolled paper tubes in pastel colors, stacked log cabin style around a cardboard base, make a pen holder with open sides so you can see everything inside it. It costs the price of a pack of colored paper and some hot glue, and the height and footprint are entirely up to you: build it taller for scissors and rulers, wider and shallower for markers laid in rows. Because the walls are woven rather than solid, nothing gets lost at the bottom the way it does in a tin. It is a good use for the offcut paper pile.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
