organize all your supplies? What do you use to keep everything in one place? I have stuff all over the place and woould like to start the new year out more organized.....what great ideas do you all have?

I was thinking along the lines of a cupboard on wheels? hahahaha...my hubby will love that

I have tons and tons and tons of stuff!!! I didnt realize how much I have until I recently moved either UGH, what to do with all of it is a fantastic question.

I have started..... baby steps only so far, but I purchased some clear containers and labeled the outside as well. I am trying very hard to put everything in catagories so I can keep track of things in a much more efficent way.

I'd love to hear what other people do for storage, any ideas are greatly apprecited!!

Happy new year to all

Jess

Yes, I have plastic shoe box like containers, I have a giant tool box, I have a side board stand full in the cupboard underneath, and one half of my shelf in kitchen cupboard, one other entire cupboard hahaha, so you see I need some real good ideas to consolidate somehow. argh

I have a separate kitchen full of cake supplies. I also use plastic containers in the cupboards to organize. They add up fast!

Right, I want my cupboards back, and all my cake decorating supplies in one place........just what to use is the question for me....maybe we will get some ideas

I actually went to Home Depot and bought a tall white cabinet for my stuff. the top shelf was for molds and the rest was for pans, pillars and separater plates. Unfortunately, now it is entirely pans and the rest are religated to the cabinet over the fridge and the top shelves of the rest.

The tips, colors, dusts, little tools are in 2 wilton tool caddies, the other cutters, rollers, presses, etc are in 2 boxes that are all under the counter that you are supposed to be able to use to sit at with stools.

When I've had to move to a new apartment, the most important details are kitchen countertop and cabinet space, and dishwasher and oven size. When it comes to kitchen space, size does matter.


sandy

lol gscout.....

My main problem is I can't find anything, it is all over the place.........makes me crazy

Madge... I don't have any ideas, but I'm glad you posted this, I need help, too! So far, almost all my stuff (minus 2 8" magic line pans... oh, and the cookie cutters) are trying... and failing... to fit in a couple of 15 qt clear plastic bins with latch on lids. Not really very efficient, and it's not like the bins actually have a place to live... they're on the floor in my family room covered by whatever other clutter I don't know what to do with right now. YIKES!

Oh, and I hardly feel like I have enough stuff to work with. I need much more than I already have!

- Leisel

Madgeowens...I am new at this cakeing stuff...but a neat freak to boot! I scrapbook as well so I found the storage ideas I use for that hobby works great for this new hobby as well! I purchased at Target a few years back a rolling drawer that has two large drawers on the bottom-great for cake pans- a medium-great for molds and then the top drawer is small-great for cases of tips or colors/luster dust ect....also my fabulous cake teacher had this great storage container sold also at Target....I use for commonly used colors, tips and fondant cutters...three compartments that snap together one on top of the other...they make these in a few different sizes! All clearly marked with what goes where with a great P-touch labels ....I know I know a little wacky...but it has to be neat and clean or it drives me crazy!
Hope it helps!

Here's where I keep my cake supplies:

-In the kitchen cabinet designated for snacks
-In the pantry closet
-In the office closet
-Under the bed in the spare room
-In the garage
-Various mystery places throughout the house (for the stuff I REALLY need)

I hope that helps.

Right now, half my kitchen is cake supplies. Above the sink, all the cupboards hold ingredients. The large round corner cupboard is flour/sugar/oils, and the pans that will fit are on the bottom. Then, the 7' wall is all cake supplies. I have a silverware tray on top of the microwave with dusts, colors, glitters, etc. Below the microwave are my large pans. I have a *CLEAN* garbage can with rolls of wax, parchment, foils, and rolling pins. I have one small, thin three drawer tower with various stuff; one small, wide three drawer tower with cookie cutters, measuring supplies, and boards; one 7 drawer tall tower that seriously needs organizing; one small short 3 drawer tower with tips, and three grocery bags with more stuff. Oh, and in my spare bedroom are all of my boxes and plastic cake carriers.

One more cake to sell, and I'm going to Lowe's and picking up a large stainless steel wall unit - they have one for $60. Then, everything is going in the spare bedroom, and is getting organized. And I'll have my kitchen back!!!!

My hubby recently installed cabinets in the laundry room to store my caking supplies. He now wants to get me a tall cabinet (or two) to put in the garage (sounds like what gscout73 has) to store what won't fit in the laundry room. Who would have thought I have that much caking stuff!

I don't think this helps madgeowens because mine is not all in one place, but maybe it will help someone else. I'm hoping to get some ideas from this thread too.

I'm going to watch this topic - my stuff is all over the house, and some of my pans are in the garage. I don't have decent space downstairs to store anything, but I need to get something to put upstairs.
Yellowtonka: are the drawers removable in your rolling cart? If they are, I could use something like that, and then just bring down the appropriate drawer when I'm caking.

I use a ton of these rubbermaid carts and they hold all my cookie bags/sticks, cookie cutters, pattern presses, ribbons, stuff like that. We have a small room off the dining room (it's my stepdaughters bedroom when she visits for the summer) with a bed shoved all the way to the back of the room .

There is no mattress on the bed when she's not here, just the frame...so I put a sheet of plywood over the frame and use that as a huge shelf of sorts and keep cupcake stands, foam core in the box it came in, stuff like that.

This room is little but was meant to be an office so it's lined with cupboards and shelves everywhere so little by little I started keeping cake stuff in there LOL I've got one side of the room lined with about 6 of these rubbermaid carts.

Each one has anywhere from 4-6 drawers that vary in size and depth, they're nice though if you arrange alike things in them...you can grab a drawer out and take it with you, or wheel the whole thing to the kitchen if necessary and it's easy to take out and put back.

Then I have a freestanding cupboard that has 2 doors that open up (8 ft. tall and lined inside with shelves) for random cake pans. Keep my most used sheet pans, rounds, and squares on a shelf near the door to the room.

I turned a small closet in my kitchen into a pantry. Just nailed some slats of wood along the walls and put in shelves easy peasy...and that's where I keep all my pow. sugar, and cake mixes and such.

I have a HUGE countertop (well huge to me....I think it's about 7ft long) where I work with the cakes that is separate from the rest of the countertops and in the corner is a corner china cabinet with 3 shelves..
which houses all my cookbooks on top, airbrush colors, gel colors on the middle shelf and the bottom shelf is all extracts and cake glitters and decorating tips and such.

Then I have about 8 drawers under that countertop...one has silverware ALL the rest are filled with cake stuff!!! LOL

No wonder my DH hates this cake hobby! LOL

Oh and not to mention along with those 8 drawers there are 8 cupboards too! All of which house my mixer, turntable, mixing bowls, etc. I think 1 cupboard actually has lasagna pans and bowls that we use for household stuff.

Honestly if I didn't have cake stuff we'd have a lot of empty cupboards and drawers for sure......not to mention my stepdaughter woudn't have to deal with me coming in every 5 min. while I'm making cakes needing supplies lol

(she has a choice to sleep upstairs in my DD room, there are 2 beds and it's a girlie room...she just chooses to be alone downstairs...she's almost 15, need I say more? lol)

edited so it makes SOME sense!

You can also get those rolling drawer carts at Walmart, some are even stackable I try to organize mine by what they are used for. I have all my leaf cutters and impressions molds in two drawers and the drawers are clear so you can see into them Any cutters that are specific for one project in another, the ones I use the most I put with in easy reach others go under. For my icing tubes I use a thread spool rack, and since my eyes aren't as good as they use to be I use a permanent marker and write the tip # on them so it really visible. Even with all that I still have to go thru and clear out stuff that I no longer use. Good Luck to all ... root out clutter.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/ribbon%20rack/tazzb4/groups/03.jpg


I also want to take a stab at making something like this (on a smaller scale) so all my ribbon is visible and easy to use!


Oh and I LOVE the idea of the spool rack!

cool spool rack

I have cheap beach bags on hooks in spare room and keep my pans in them.

great thread

I have one large tote that my wk donated! LOl Ok so the big guy doesnt know but my boss does and he said I could have it! I keep my cake books in that, wilton class books, recipes, tutorials, bags, cookie bags, and anything else that I use to decorate the packages that I put cookies or cupcakes in. Oh I also have my cupcake boxes in there. I also have another clear box that my boss gave me. I keep my sanding sugar's, tips, decorating bags, tylose powder, glazes, luster dusts in that one. Then I have another tote (yes my wk donated to me!) that I keep all of my cookie cutter's in. I have a corner in my dining room with all of my "stuff".

I wish I had more room in my kitchen so I could keep all my pans in, but sadly those are every where!!! I have my 16 yr old helping me find where I put stuff so I dont "forget" where I have left it!!

Here is a great blog with craft organization ideas.
http://craftystorage.blogspot.com/

Here are some other ribbon storage ideas. I do paper crafting, so I have a TON of ribbon. I recently switched to the first one in this blog, except I used foamcore to wrap the ribbon around and store the boards in a drawer.
http://www.blisstree.com/articles/ribbon-storage-101-by-candice-palmer-29/

You can also store the ribbon rolls in gutters that you mount to the wall.
http://hedgehog-ink.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-ribbon-storage-solutions.html


For my cake supplies, I have an open-backed bookshelf that I have put boxes on (without tops) to keep cake supplies. One the bottom shelf boxes are the cake pans and chocolate making supplies. The middle shelf I have baking books, flat turntables & cake boards (I slide them both on the shelf like a book), and the top shelf has boxes with candy molds, cookie cutters, sprinkles, pastry bags/parchment triangles, and other stuff.

I also have a plastic rolling drawer unit that has more cake pans, tips, colors & dusts, etc.

Eventually, I'll get it all neat looking and take a pic. I just acquired more stuff and have to rearrange everything so it fits better. (I want to have all like items in the same spot; right now cake pans are in two places for example.)

This topic recently came up and a fellow caker posted a photo of a huge rolling tool box like you get at Sears for your garage. I had never thought of that before but I am sure it is very useful and practical.

love the gutter idea for the ribbon, gonna have to look into that. I was thinking of just drilling some holes into some wooden panels and putting dowels across and threading the spools of ribbon onto them...but the gutter idea is cool because it would be so easy to just grab the ribbon and take it wherever you needed to and then easy to put right back too.

Would be cool to just attach those to the back of a closet door or something too.

Hey I wonder if I could use gutters to line the wall in my pantry and put canned goods in them (like on their sides?)...I love people who think outside the box at the HOme Depot! lol

Well, this is minor compared to everyone else's suggestions and ideas but if you have a lot of cookie cutters like I do, it might help.

I found I could never find the cookie cutter I was looking for so I separated them into specific categories (Letters, numbers, Christmas, Halloween, etc) and put each category into a zip lock back on which I had written the name of the category and on most, what cutters were stored in there. Then I put the bags into the same kind of rubbermaid cart that KHalstead posted, with the ones I use most in the top drawer and so on with the least used going in the bottom drawer.

that's a great idea!

I currently have all plastic ones in these 3 drawers, all metal ones in these 3 drawers LOL

Hey, I try to be organized!!! Before I had kids I was completely OCD about organization and everything being perfect all the time..............once my 3rd child was born and I had 3 kids under the age of 5 I let go of that pretty quickly! It was either that or have a heart attack or a mental break down!

So, I'm kind of an expert on this - and I say expert because I spent and obsene amount of money paying a real expert to organize my cake closet! ha!! I hired a personal organized to take on my crazy house - she started in the attic and then we moved onto the craft room upstairs and then my cake closet and kitchen pantry downstairs.

I will try to post some pics, but basically - we cleaned out and purged stuff that I don't need/use and then we seperated by category or use and then put them all in the clear totes (ptouch labeled!) and installed shelved in the closet. I LOVE IT!

It seriously has made my caking go so much faster! I know where everything is and clean up takes NO TIME AT ALL because I know where everything goes.

Ok - i can't get the pics to attach - anyone?!?! help??!?!?!?!

I use the same storage containers, on wheels that KHalstead posted but I have seen some more neat ideas on here, I will keep following this thread.

There's actually a couple of threads(unless they got ate up through "the crash" that includes photos of how others creatively organized their shtuff.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=248871&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=organizing&&start=0

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-49039-organizing.html

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-613267-organizing.html

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-613268-organizing.html