Storage Solutions for Candle Making Supplies

My son-in-law was kind enough to drop this massive shelf off yesterday. Now, I can store some of my candle making supplies away so they’re not bulging out of the coat closet and/or taking over the kitchen table.

I have more candle making supplies coming, so it looks like I’ll need more plastic storage containers. It still needs organizing, but I never claimed to be Martha Stewart.

Ideas for Storing Finished Candles

At Village Craft and Candle they sell similar shelves, but they’re on wheels and they use cookie sheets for the finished candles. At least that gets them rolled out of the way so you can move onto another project.

Craft Organizers for Small Items

I found several places that sell craft organizers, but honestly they don’t look much different than tackle boxes. If you don’t care that it’s not pink or festive looking, a tackle box will do the job for storing small items.

Other Craft Storage Ideas

If you want to get really organized and sophisticated looking, check out HGTV’s Organized Craft Room Ideas. I’m partial to the shelves with brightly colored bins idea. I really prefer see through containers though because even if I label them, I sneak weird stuff in that I may never see again. For this reason, I love zip lock bags.

If you’re frugal and are looking for creative storage ideas, see Frugal Storage Ideas. There are some crazy but clever practical ideas many thrifty people have contributed. Last but not least, there are some good craft storage ideas at Home Organize It.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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