Tips for Organizing your Trim/Scrap Stash

Craft & Design

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I moved into a new house last month and I’ve been working on getting my craft room up to speed. Things are in place, art pieces are up, and projects are underway. With that, I’ve been working on making sure my fabric stash and notions bin are organized and up to snuff. My Sunday morning project was to tackle the mess that was my trim-scrap and ribbon pile – as you can see, it needed some help!


I keep the scraps in this vintage ice bucket I found at a thrift store years ago. I love the color and the fact that it’s got a lid, so it’s great for odds and ends. Taking stock in what I had, I grabbed a rubber band ball and got to work.
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I started out with the longer pieces. Using my fingers, I wound the ribbon around them for a small coil.
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Once the ribbon is coiled, I used one rubber band to secure the ribbon. These are thin rubber bands, so I wrapped them 2-3 times. I didn’t want to crease the ribbon!
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Next, the ric rac scraps. I can’t bare to part with some of the great ric rac I’ve collected from various projects, so I simply bunched them all together, folded them in half, and used a clothes pin to close them all together. Done!
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Once I had all the ribbon and scraps wrapped up, I started stacking them in the ice bucket. I had a lot, so I went with layers. This is the first one.

I kept stacking the ribbon bunches. Layer two.
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All done! The bucket can close and is ready to live next to my sewing machine. I’ve found pieces of trim I forgot about and am already brainstorming ways to use them.
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Along similar lines, I also decided to tackle the scraps I’ve saved from my quilting projects.
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I paired like sizes together and bundled them up, once again, with rubber bands. I have a small plastic carry tote I set aside for quilting scraps, so in they go!
When you’ve got your crafting supplies in the right place and easy to find, the project options are endless!

4 thoughts on “Tips for Organizing your Trim/Scrap Stash

  1. Lisa says:

    I also separate scraps by size but since I love to crazy quilt and struggle to randomize the pieces, I throw all my scraps into a small 3-drawer plastic drawer system. When I need a piece, I reach in without looking but still know the pices will be the right size.

  2. LisaMarie says:

    I like the idea of wrapping ribbon up into tidy little bundles. But I’ve had trouble in the past with aging rubber bands either getting hard and brittle and falling apart or, worse than that, getting soft and sticky, leaving behind a nasty residue. My solution is to use a bigger container so there is room to rummage when I need to find something.

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