I need a better storage system. Ephemera.

These are iDesign and really hard to find now. I also have some on shelves in my Kallax.

Embellishment color storage by Nancy Tim, on Flickr

I use Iris cases for embellishment storage, sorted by theme. Non-themed items are tougher! I have smaller boxes sorted by color, plus flowers in another box.

Oh this is timely. I just changed mine out right before Christmas. I will go upstairs and take a photo.

How about clear stamp pockets like the Avery Elle ones?

I do open divider trays from ikea. I can't remember what the name is but I do know they fit in the raskog cart and also my Alex drawer. I organize by color (because I tend to think along those lines) and I like that I can take the trays out to find what I need. The only exception is that I keep all my acrylic or acetate words separate and my AE chipboard separate. Those are in upright storage if there are enough pieces left. If there is only one or 2, they get sorted into my ephemera trays.

Ok I remembered finally to snap a quick photo of what I am doing now for my ephemera. These are clear acrylic containers from TJMaxx that have removable lids. I sort everything by color family. These boxes are about 5.5 in square so they stack nicely and are big enough for me dig through without being too big. They’re also big enough for larger ephemera like frames and big die cuts.

I can easily grab a box of whatever color and take it to my desk and work. I like that they’re clear so I can see things that I would have forgotten about otherwise.

They’re sold in sets of 3 for about $7, so they’re pretty affordable and TJMaxx, Homegoods, Tuesday Mornings etc all sell them so easy to find more of need be.

i find ephemera hard to organize and store. should it be by manufacturer or theme?  color or type? 

i have most of my ephemera in a 60-drawer card catalog.  the xmas, halloween, and travel related stuff are in rubbermaid stacking snapware containers.  

I think it depends on how you scrap. I 100% scrap by manufacturer. I keep my embellishments together (twist ties) by line, stored in Iris containers by manufacturer. When I pull the paper for a layout I grab the embellishments. When I’m tired of a collection or used most of it, I tend to donate to friends or charity. If I do keep some embellishments the are stored in one Iris case sorted generally by color.

They have drawers that pull out that are good too.  I just don't love the white plastic-y stuff that much.  I guess they do have clear drawers at Michaels, and they hold 2 x 12 paper.  

I have tons of these and love them.  They are $6 and store quite a bit.  They don't quite store anything that is 12 inches though.
Here is a set of them that store extras and then one of them that has been broken into 6 categories of ephemera.  

I am starting to consider something like that jennoconnell. I am mostly a cardmaker and the ephemera packs SB.com gives as freebies seem more geared toward scrapbooking (duh, right?). I have a colleague who scrapbooks, so I may offer her dibs. Or maybe see if anyone's interested here. Mostly I think it's time to stop saying to myself, "Well, since it's free...."

I also blended contents of old cardmaking kits from years ago with the things I'm deliberately obtaining and using now, after watching a bunch of Totally Tiffany videos. I've started to undo that and reassemble the old kits. They are not my style/not where my crafty joy is (per JM's recent video), but I've been using them to make cards to donate. But I have some regret about the time I spent organizing that stuff!

I did use a binder for embellishments, a la Totally Tiffany, but not one of her giant 12 x 12 "scrap racks". I used a regular 8 1/2 x 11 binder and filled it with page protectors, photo pocket pages (2-, 3- & 4-pockets), collectible card pages (9 pockets), and coin pages. I think that if I weren't flipping past all the stuff I'm unlikely to use, I would like the system. You can clearly see all the things and I think it is true that if you have all types of embellishments together, rather than separately storing die cuts from brads from dots from flowers, etc, it definitely sparks different ideas.

Ribbon is the only thing I have stored separately, as spools don't really fit in a binder and I'm concerned that "remnants" would get creased if stored in a pocket.