I love my Marathon Threads Canada Embroidery thread sets and as much as I like the sturdy cardboard boxes they were shipped in, they aren't the best for my long-term storage needs. I am unable to stand the boxes up on their ends as a sort of display case because the spools tip forward and fall out. Keeping the lids on doesn't work either because they only have a piece of plastic as a window (which isn't glued on very well) and it also would be a pain to remove the lids every time I want to select the thread. Therefore, I have to keep them flat on the counter and the shipping boxes are super big and take up a ton of room. This has bugged me since I first received my sets but until now I hadn't found the right way to store my beautiful threads.
I happened to be looking through my discount-discount store (it's kind of a liquidation type place full of all kinds of strange and wonderful things that have made their way down the chain of retailers and ended up in the 'island of misfit toys' surplus warehouse) and saw that they had a couple of my
favourite storage containers, the Snapware Snap 'N Stack. I've already shared my various Snapware collections but the Activity Organizers I found were larger than any I have so far. They are 12.25" x 12.25" and there are two stackable trays. Like their smaller cousins, they snap together with latches on the sides and you can use one lid to cover as many trays as you want to join. The only problem is that the carry handle can't really support a lot of weight so you really need to support the bottom if carrying anything much heavier than fluff!
Anyway, these square, deep (4.25"), trays are ideal for holding my thread sets. I got both sets of 50 mini-king spools nicely organized by colour and still have room to spare. There are two removable dividers included which slide into slots and can be crossed to sub-divide the trays. (I wish a couple more of those were provided because it would be awesome to have each large tray separated into 4 quadrants!).
When I stack them they take much less room on my counter and the threads are more protected from dust and light. I can easily see what colour threads I have and choose (and replace) the spools I need quickly.
I was able to resist going back to the store for the 2nd blue-lid container they had...for about as long as it took me to get home and organize my thread! Once I knew they were the perfect size for my collection, and after a quick on-line search to confirm that the $10 price was a pretty good deal as I suspected, I zoomed back to pick up the last one. Knowing myself well I am pretty sure that I can fill that second organizer with something very soon! Until then, I prefer to stash it at home because once the discount-discount store sells what they have, you usually don't get a second chance! (And I guess I'll use those other 2 dividers until I need them elsewhere!)
Comments