Creative Containers For Your Crafts

Have your craft materials run amok? Flea markets are loaded with clever (and cheap) storage solutions. Here are more of our favorites!

Put Your Junk in a Trunk
Steamer trunks are abundant at the flea market and can cost as little as $50. Pack one with bulky items like polyfill batting and pillow inserts, then use the lid as an extra work surface. Or display a handsome one open to show off the handcrafted drawers and cabinets. You can fill it with oceans of notions!

Get a Great Crate
If you only buy one item at the swap meet, make it a five-dollar wooden crate. You can hang it on the wall to hold small bottles of glitter, sequins, and rhinestones. Or stack three crates to create a virtual set of drawers. The compartments of a Fanta crate will keep your pom pom trim from mingling with your rick rack.

Galvanize Your Projects
If you have multiple knitting projects going at once, you know how hard it is to keep them all separate. So snatch up a few galvanized buckets the next time you’re at the flea market. These handy containers keep yarns from getting tangled. Plus they’re portable and easy to put away. Keep Dad’s half-done socks in one bucket and Fido’s sweater in another. You’ll never be a knitwit again!

Be a Cubby Scout
An old post office box is a born organizer with all those cubbies! For $100 to $150, you can have the ultimate cabinet for your craft tools. Store your glue gun in one slot and your soldering iron in another. And if you can’t remember that PO Box 257 is the home of your pinking shears, make a label. (Your metal-edged hangtags are in 273!)

Stop The Presses!
If you’ve yearned for the perfect bead organizer—one with a hundred small compartments—let us introduce you to the vintage printer’s tray. These large, wooden trays were designed to hold printing press letters so they are divided into dozens of nooks and crannies. Ideal for finding your findings!