Ribbons and Trims - Conquered!

Since I went on the whole fabric folding kick a few weeks ago, I've been on a mission to really clean out and corral all of my sewing stuffs so that my sewing room really works FOR me and not AGAINST me.  At first glance and for awhile now, it has appeared really "together".  But what the discerning eye couldn't discern from looking at it was how many times I went to find something . . . couldn't . . . and then bought a new one. 

I HATE doing that.

So with fresh determination to get all of these lovely supplies under control I took my fabric rolling a bit further and dug into my trim stash.  I am terrible with before shots, but I'll explain what I was doing before so you get an idea of the improvement.  

I had gotten a package of little plastic treat bags from the Hob-Lob for maybe a dollar or 2 a LONG time ago when I was on a quest to find a way to make a crinkly page for my niece's quiet book.

These guys, actually:

I had no real use for the rest of the bags and they were just kind of sitting there purposeless.  I put 2 and 2 together and proceeded to take all my odd lengths of ribbon and trim and portion them out one per bag.  It was kinda fun for awhile . . . digging through the bags of trim was kind of like diving for candies.  And it was cheap and didn't take very long to accomplish.

Realize though, that I don't have a lot of ribbon on rolls . . . so if you do, this may not make sense to you that someone would do this.  Most of my stuff was 2 yards or less, and I acquired most of my stash from a friend of mine.  Back in the day Hob-Lob used to bag up the ribbon and trim odds and ends old school and sell a gallon sized ziplock bag of random bits and pieces for $2 or $3.  I'm not talking about the contrived bags they sell now.  I'm talking about the good stuff that they cut right there for you on the floor.  When there were odd pieces left on the roll they'd shove a ton of randoms in a bag and sell it.

And the people rejoiced.  (Seriously . . . it was like a mad dash to that back clearance endcap in the fabric department at the end of the month).

Anyway, that's where I started.  I had them divided up into categories: Bold colors in one drawer, Pastel colors in another, and Blacks Browns and Neutrals in the last one.  It helped me save a bit of time when I was looking for a particular color, but it was eating up 3 DRAWERS in my storage dresser which always struck me as a tad LOT inefficient (especially as I looked around at all the stuff that was just taking up room out on my work spaces).

Anyway.  I had an A-Ha Moment (as they say) when I started rolling my fabric on the comic book boards and nearly simultaneously ran across this post on ribbon organization:

Simple but Genius idea via Just a Girl

She wrapped her ribbons up and put them in a dollar store basket.

Simple + Cute = Sure, I Can Do That Too

So I cut down a few of my comic book backer boards to fit in some dollar store baskets I had sitting around my house already (would have loved that cute turquoise, but I was determined not to spend any money on this) and I got this:

I had ALOT of trims, but I was able to consolidate them all down into just 2 little baskets!

They're now sitting on my shelf with all of my fat quarters (the toy sewing machines got the boot unfortunately, but I'll find a good spot for them eventually):

I am crazy happy with how my stash is coming together in a concise I-Can-Really-Find-That-One-Thing-I-Know-I-Have kind of way.

Next on the Agenda: Supplies!