Needle Case/Storage Tutorial

Organization is one of the keys to a great sewing experience.  If you can't find what you need, you get frustrated.  I was organizing my sewing room the other day and found my needles in a big mess, both machine and hand needles.  I had bought duplicates of numerous needles, because I didn't know what I had or didn't have.  My drawers are shallow and small, but still it was a tangled mess.  I was looking for something to organize these in the needle drawer when I thought of using something unexpected.

This helped solve another storage problem at the same time.  I don't know about you, but our family loves music and movies.  Therefore, we have lots of CDs and DVDs.  They take up alot of space, so we take them out of their cases and store them in CD/DVD wallets.  This is much more compact and neater in our TV/music area.  Consequently, we have a big box full of CD/DVD cases in a storage closet.  We keep these in case we want to donate, sell or trade movies or music when we get tired of them.

Here is my needle drawer after organization.

You guessed it.  I used the empty CD/DVD cases to organize my needles.  Below you will see them all laid out.

There were actually a few more cases that I couldn't fit on the picture, but I think you can see how easy it is to find what I need now.  It is pretty easy to disassemble the cases for use, so I will give you a picture tutorial on the process.  Here goes:

1.  Open the case up.

2.  Pull out the insert on the left hand side.  This slides out very easily.

3.  Next watch where my finger is pointing to on the next picture.  This is the place you need to pry off the compartment that holds the CD/DVD.

4.  Pop that off.

5.  Pull out the last piece of paper that is left in the bottom of the case, and this is what you will have left, the case and parts.

 

Here it is, my whole needle collection, neat, petite and easy to find what I need. 

 Have a wonderful day.