Functional and Decorative Storage Ideas

My new storage shelf! I'm loving it :)

Cloth baskets that you can purchase for the cubes.

For a while, I had been wanting some kind of storage furniture to house all of my craft supplies. Most of my craft stuff had been in boxes, stacked on shelves in a closet but you know how that goes.... OUT of sight, OUT of mind!  Even though the boxes were labeled, it was still hard to locate things and honestly, it was such a hassle having to go and dig in the boxes so most the time I didn't even bother.

I knew I had space on a wall in the dining room and since I use my kitchen table for most of my crafting, it made perfect sense to get some kind of storage unit for that wall.  So, I looked into different storage type shelving units and these cube shelves with the cloth baskets seemed the most practical choice.

So off I went to Target... it was the least inexpensive of everything I found online. One shelf has 12 cubes and the other has 8. I put one next to the other and that gives me 20 cubes of storage, YAY!!  Both shelves cost a little over 100 bucks which I was OK with but I'm ashamed to say how much the cloth baskets cost. OK, geez, for TWELVE of those baskets, it cost just as much as the two shelves put together. Insane? Yes, and I'm more insane for paying that but I was desperate.  I told myself I won't beat myself up because I rarely EVER splurge but I still feel guilty and to help make it a little better, I want to share with you what I could have done, had I not been so impatient, to save more money and still have great storage shelving.

• I could have purchased the shelves alone and found cheaper baskets for the cubes. Again, it was all about convenience- they happened to have the matching baskets for these shelves in the perfect size in all of the pretty colors that match my kitchen right next to the shelving. 

• I could have made my own fabulous cloth storage baskets using this tutorial over at Make it & Love It. I still may do that actually, I still have a bunch of basket-less cubes.

• I could have just bought a used bookshelf or two and lined some decorative storage boxes or baskets on it. You can even get the pretty wicker storage baskets now and I bet they look fab on any shelf.   A good thing about that is you can get different sizes. 

Here is a few more container ideas for storage on a shelf:

• shoe sized plastic boxes with lids
• small clothes baskets
• coffee cans
• food storage containers with lids 

Don't forget about garage sales, thrift shops and places like that. You can usually find fairly cheap furniture.. such as shelves and you can definitely find tons of baskets, super cheap.  If you find a nice shelf that you like but don't like the color, don't forget about SPRAY PAINT! You can even spray all of your baskets to match if you wanted :)

I hope you found this post helpful for you. Although, I'm loving these new shelves, you don't have to buy brand new to have fabulous storage but just in case you are interested in having a closer look at these, here is a link to the exact shelves that I purchased at Target. BTW, I put these together myself so they are super easy to assemble too.

12 cube shelf in espresso
 8 cube shelf in espresso

Thanks so much for reading and have lots of fun getting your stuff all organized!

Jamie