How do I organise my Fabric Stash?

I have an obsession... ok ok OBSESSION... I love fabric.... I mean LOVE fabric...

I own a large amount of fabric. Its come from all sorts of places, I have fabric from lovely friends who have sent me it as gifts, I have fabric from Hawaii, fabric from the USA and of course from the uk. I buy fabric online and in stores... I buy from facebook destash groups, I buy from charity shops and bootsales... 

My main favorites are novelty fabrics. Im a sucker for fabrics I know are no longer in print, or for things that I know are hard to get hold of. The best thing about fabric is that it pretty much holds its value, so I know that my stash is an investment and Im always mega careful about only buying things I can afford and at the best price I can possibly find.

The issue with having a large stash is that it takes up quite a bit of space and when you own a lot of fabric sometimes you forget exactly what you own and where it is....At the start of 2013 I set myself a challenge to be organised in my stashing and Im proud to say that Ive pretty much stayed on top of that! 

So how did I organise my stash 

1. I scanned every piece of fabric I owned above a4 size like this....

The benefit of this is that I know exactly what fabric I have in stock. I can see the size of the print on the fabric and also I can see what goes with what. I then upload all the pictures onto my facebook page into this album Fabric Stash Album. 

2. I reorganised my storage solutions... I have a small craft space and now that I am paper peicing a lot I need a cutting space next to my desk so the top of my chest of drawers needed to be clear. 

This is what my drawers did look like... semi organised yes but not perfect.

My top drawer was like this again semi organised but not perfect....

I found these awesome plastic storage trays 

They were from Home Bargains in the uk 3 in a pack for 99p BARGAIN! So I set about organising my fabric, I made a card template to fold the fabric uniformly and I categorised as I went. It took time but it was well worth it.

 Now my smaller pieces are a lot more portable :) They are categorised so I know where things are :)

Its sooo pretty too almost like having my own fabric shop and the plastic boxes fit into my draws perfectly! Being able to pull out a whole category is sooo useful! Bonus!

 And here it is in my drawer looks soooo much better right!!!

3. I made my own bolts for my larger pieces of fabric....

Approx 4inch x 9inch and 6inch x 9inch

  Not the sexiest pic ever hey LOL.. cardboard :) I was really lucky and picked up a load of precuts from my local scrapstore :) I totally love my scrapstore!!! You can make your own bolts to any size you like... these fit beautifully into my deep bottom drawer :)

 I started making bolts with these yummy Riley Blake halloween fabrics :) I loved how well they worked :)

 How awesome is this monkey fabric :) I have the most amazing and awesomely lovely friends :) These monkeys were a gift from a friend!!! Love you Lacey!!!!!

Its really lovely to have such an organised stash :) I can get my hands on the things I need when I need them and of course every now and then I just open the drawers and have a droooooooool..






























So here are some more bolts in my bottom drawer :) Theres some space left which is great as Im not quite done organising yet!!!

4. Scraps....
One of the things I love most about scraps is that they have already been cut... so your not taking a fresh fq and cutting out a teeny bit making it not new anymore LOL. Scraps are just that they are leftovers. I have bought some INCREDIBLE scrap bags from the fabric destash group I help to admin on Facebook.
This is what my scrap stash looked like... and it was in that deep bottom drawer

 So one day I got all of it out and organised it, these little bags are sandwich bags with a zip closure or a press closure... Handy! I sorted it all into categories so that when I need a bit of skull or VHC I can grab the bag and off I go :)

 And then I had these little pots again from the scrapstore :) So the bags go into the pots and straight onto my new shelves :) Much better!
I guess im a bit over organised... and possibly slightly anal but honestly it sooo much nicer to have an organised stash :)

I do hope you enjoyed diving into my stash with me :) 
Do pop by and say hello to me on twitter :) https://twitter.com/BeekneeHoonies

Where it all began.....

Some of you may know and some of you may not, but in Nov 2010 I was diagnosed with Papilliary Thyroid Cancer thats a whole other story that you can read about here makeformacmillan.blogspot.com....

So whats that got to do with the price of fish? Well when I got my diagnosis I decided that I wanted to cling to a positive, to not wallow in my diagnosis bcos to be fair that wasnt going to take away my cancer, all Id acheive by being miserable about it as exactly that - Id acheive being miserable... So I decided to face it head on with a smile on my face, I took the saying 'Keep Calm and Carry On' and I ran with it. It became a talisman, a sort of good luck charm and I tryed to live life by it.

2 days after Id been told I had the Big C I decided that I NEEDED a really cool hospital bag, so I asked a lady to make me one. At this point very few people new about my cancer so I asked her to pm me so I could explain about my custom order. Shelley of Thats Sew Shelby turned out to be lovely, she agreed to make me a Union Jack Bag with 'Keep Calm and Carry On' on the side, but not only that she offered her support which turned out to be invaluable and Im very lucky to say that she is one of my best friends now!

 And with that Shelley had given me the bug...... it was a cheeky bug, and a crafty bug! Shelleys kindness and fabulous makeyness had inspired me to think of ways I could make a difference, to try and put a smile on the faces of other people facing cancer. So the cogs started to whir....

Id always like the look of the Sock Monkeys that were popping up all over facebook and so when my partners Nan gave me some socks that Grampy didnt like I thought hmmmm I wonder how hard it would be to make a monkey... At this point I had no sewing machine so I started making one by hand, it took FOREVER to make but when I was finished I was pleased with him and the crafty bug had taken a strong hold of me.

And so Mac was born.... with the birth of Mac came Make For Macmillan, a charity page on facebook set up to raise money by auctioning things we had made with all the money going to Macmillan. We were astounded by the support - people donated items for us to auction and by the time we had been going 5 months we had raised over £2500 pounds. Unfortunately as I type M4M isnt running as it became sooo big that I struggled to manage to run it as well as deal with treatments and homelife. I hope that in the future we can get it all going again.

V luckily I was given help to purchase a sewing machine and so the monkeys just kept on coming, every single one made for macmillan :)

I fancied a change, and so one day I thought id try making a plush toy with fabric, I made a paper template (which I still use to this day!) and set about making Splodge.....

Splodge was created on one of my many craft days in Shelleys kitchen :) His decoration all handsewn he became quite the little character!

Sooo why Beeknee Hoonies? Well my 4 yr old used to call us beeknee hoonies as a sort of cheeky name - almost a sort of toddler swear word :) I loved it, it made me giggle and so the Hoonies were born :) I love that when he is older he will look back at  Splodge and know that he was part of it all :)

I am soo very glad that the big old beardy man in the sky decided to chuck lemons my way bcos I made some awesome lemonade, and some excellent friends in the process!