May 16, 2018

5 Days to an Organized Crafty Stash | Inks and Coloring Mediums


Hello and welcome to a week-long organization event! I'm joining the My Favorite Things design team all this week to share our organization and storage ideas for all of our fun crafty supplies.


Each day we'll cover a different topic, and today we're starting with inks and coloring mediums. I love to add color to my projects, so I have a lot of things to share today! :)


First up is my acrylic paints... I do have more than this stored in a bin but these are my most used, newest and most colourful. I bought this 2 tier cake stand at Ikea (I'll be saying Ikea a lot LOL!) and love it for storage as well as a pretty display in my craft room. I keep Nuvo drops in the top and I keep my Distress Paints and Vicki Boutin paints on the bottom. 

Next is my small ink cubes. I don't have a ton of these because I prefer the larger pads but the ones I do have fit in these acrylic drawers from Muji perfectly! I have my MFT ones at the top and my Distress inks in the drawers below.

I use my pencil crayons quite often so I like having them in an open container so I can see the colours and reach for them easily. I couldn't find one that I liked so I ended up making this storage unit from an idea I found online. 

I bought a lazy susan spinner stand and a bunch of couplings (used in construction) and turned it into a pencil holder. I first glued patterned paper onto all of the white couplings and then I glued them into the spinner all around the edge. In the center, I have a larger coupling, and it holds erasers, pencil extenders, etc...  I love that it spins and fits my full collection of Prismacolor pencils.

My Copic markers are in a wooden tray from an Etsy store called TJandThings. These are custom made to hold Copic markers and fit all 358 with 2 extra slots. I keep 2 extra colourless blenders in mine because the empty holes drive me crazy LOL!

The wooden holder is designed to fit in the top of my Ikea Raskog cart, and I used the rest of the cart to hold Copic supplies, paper, ink pads, etc... Pretty much everything I need to colour so I can just push the cart around the house with me.

I have all of my Copic refills in 2 Tjena boxes from Ikea. These are just cardboard boxes, so I did reinforce the bottom of them, but I love them because the sides of them are completely straight and not angled at all. This allows the refills to stand up perfectly straight and lets me equal rows across.

All of the refills fit into 2 of these boxes with a bit of extra room on one of the boxes. I keep a small container in the open space that holds extra nibs, alcohol wipes, my scale, etc... everything I need to do Copic maintenance.

I have all of my MFT ink pads stored in my Alex drawer unit (from Ikea) in one drawer. I label them all on their sides so I can easily see what colour they are when I open the drawers and I stack them on their side. They fit really nicely in the drawer, and I have stored them this way for quite a while and really love this system, It doesn't take up a lot of space, but they are in easy reach.

I have all of the colours swatched on 2" x 2" printed squares (from Jennifer McGuire), and I keep them in page protectors from Simple Stories. They are all held together with a binder ring, and I hang this on the side of my island so I can quickly grab it whenever I need to refer to it.

I do have one ink storage container from Organzine More on the wall that hols my most used Distress ink, Distress Oxide ink and Catherine Pooler inks. I also have some storage cups on it (from Ikea LOL!) and a Christmas tree, so there's a bit of Christmas in here all year. :)

Most of my watercolour paints and pencils are in a few drawers in one of my Alex units. I don't really have a system for these. I just stack them inside until the drawer is full and then move onto the next one lol!

I did recently re-organize my Prima paints. I bought 2 48-pan Meeden palettes and moved 8 of my confection sets into these. I love that I have 2 larger palettes instead of 8 small ones. Makes it so much easier to move around with them. I also have my Daniel Smith dot cards ina vinyl pocket - these are definitely one of my newest obsessions haha!

And lastly, I have my alcohol inks. I keep these in a large Sistema container that has a snap on lid. They all fit standing upright, and I keep some blending tools, felt and my alcohol ink tools right in the container with them.

Whew! I think that about covers it for inks and coloring mediums. I hope you enjoyed these crafty storage ideas and I'll see you tomorrow for more organization fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

8 comments:

Michelle Short said...

I love all your crafty storage, Stephanie! Thank you so much for sharing!

Rachel A. said...

Thanks for sharing all of this, Stephanie! I really like your Copic Marker storage and may have to copy you☺️

Purple Princess said...

Wonderful ideas for storing products!!

Toni C said...

Love it all but especially the cake stand!

Barb Ghig said...

You have so many great ideas, Stephanie! I really love how you store your pencils in the white couplings...so clever :)

Lindsey said...

I was so surprised when the MOST ORGANIZED crafty person I know wasn't on the MFT post, so I had to come over here to see your version! :D

ClaudiaBliss said...

Empty holes are a nightmare!

emo812 said...

Can you send me a link or more info about the acrylic drawers you put your mini ink pads in? I'm looking for something for my catherine pooler minis that will fit in my ikea kallax and I think that might be perfect!! Thank you!