I’ve finally begun getting my studio organized, and I started with organizing the supplies for my current favorite pastime — making jewelry. I didn’t realize how many supplies and beads I had accumulated until I started planning out how I was going to organize them. But I came up with a way to organize all of it that I’m really excited about. For someone who doesn’t love the process of getting organized, I sure do love the results after an organization project is finished. 😀 I’ve gone back just to look at and admire my newly organized storage closet many times over the last few days, and I’ve done the same thing with my jewelry-making supply drawers over the last 24 hours.
So let me show you what I did. Since jewelry-making supplies are all pretty small, I decided to use three of the very shallow drawers in this middle six-drawer cabinet.
And since I work on my jewelry projects at my desk, I needed a way to easily transport all of my supplies and tools to my desk, and then to easily bring them back to the drawers to store them when they’re not in use.
My solution? Two very easy-to-make custom sized trays that fit the drawers perfectly! Here’s the drawer with the tray for all of my tools and supplies except for the beads. Here’s a view of it before I added all of the items to the tray so you can see how perfectly it fits the drawer. The sides of IKEA Sektion cabinet drawers are curved, which works out perfectly because it leaves room for my fingers to wrap around the handles.
And here’s what it looks like with the supplies and tools on it…
So when I want to work on some jewelry projects, I can just grab the whole tray and take it over to my desk…
To store my beads, I bought two 40-pack boxes of these 2-ounce clear jars (affiliate link). And then I stored them upside down on the tray that I made for this drawer. For this drawer, I sized the tray to the jars rather than making it to the exact size of the drawer so that the jars wouldn’t slide around. The beads at the back are ones that I haven’t used yet, so they’re still intact from the store.
This tray also makes it very easy to bring all of my beads over to the desk, and since my desk is pretty big, both trays fit on the desk very easily, with plenty of room left in the middle for actual work space.
These trays were so easy to make, and they cost me nothing because I used scrap plywood and lumber leftover from past projects, and I already had everything else on hand. I started by cutting a piece of 1/2-inch plywood to the dimensions of the bottom of the drawer, minus 1.5 inches for each measurement (length minus 1.5 inches, and width minus 1.5 inches). Then I cut come scrap 1″ x 2″ lumber that I had already ripped on the table saw (again, from a previous project) so that the actual measurements were 3/4 inch by 1 inch. I used my miter saw to cut it to length so that it fit the exact dimension on the sides of the plywood, and then nailed it into place using 16-gauge 1.5-inch nails. I repeated that on the other side.
And then I cut pieces for the front and back to cover not only the edge of the plywood, but also the ends of the side frame pieces. In other words, I didn’t bother to miter the corners. I just cut all four pieces straight and nailed them on the edge of the plywood.
Then I used wood filler on all four corners and all of the nail holes, and then sanded everything smooth with my sander and 150-grit sanding discs. I went back over everything by hand and very quickly with 220-grit sandpaper before priming and painting the trays.
I used Rust-Oleum spray primer, and then sanded again by hand with 220-grit sandpaper before painting the trays with a brush in Behr Polar Bear (my go-to white paint for trim). When that was dry, I brushed on two coats of General Finishes High Performance Topcoat in a matte finish (affiliate link). It’s my absolute favorite water-based topcoat, and even though it’s not recommended for use on white paint (for some reason, it can yellow on white paint), I decided to chance it. That smooth finish is more important to me than the color.
I had some leftover cabinet handles, so I used those as tray handles. And here’s how the tray looked when it was finished.
I still want to get some felt pads to put on the bottoms of the trays so that I won’t have the hard wood bottoms of the trays sliding on my desk. But other than that, these drawers are efficiently organized and very useful.
I mentioned that I used three of the drawers for my jewelry-making supplies, but the third drawer didn’t require a custom sized tray. Here’s what it looks like for now…
I’m sure this drawer will end holding more items in the future. But for now, it’s being used to hold three things. (1) I have a tray that holds my necklaces and earrings that are in process but haven’t been finished yet. (2) I have a container that holds leftover beads from necklaces and earrings that I’ve already made. These don’t get their own jars because these aren’t seed beads or other filler beads that can be used over and over on multiple necklaces. These are more specialty beads that I don’t really want to reuse because I already have a necklace made with them, and I don’t need another. I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing with them. And (3) necklaces that are finished, but they need adjustments.
I have room to grow in that drawer. In fact, there are things on the main supply and tool tray that I don’t use often, so I could actually move them to this drawer and give my main tray a little more breathing room. But for now, these drawers are finished and efficiently organized with custom trays that make carrying all of my supplies to my desk a breeze. I’m pretty excited about how this organization project turned out!
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
