Like all crafts (I’ll even go so far as to say: all hobbies as I have wood working and fine art friends with identical issues) organization and storage are HUGE issues in my clay life. Since I’ve been doing this for a while I’ve worked out systems that work for me. The process is always being refined but I use these Plano tackle boxes for my cane and blend storage. There’s a few more in the game since I took this picture (I’m up to 5 now) but the premise is the same: one box for each pair or so of colours and one for blends and cane segments.

I use the thinner but identical size Plano boxes for non clay bead storage – since I make jewellery with the clay beads I make – and I use big, thin plastic containers as trays for my canes in use(also using more of these now – so blue is no longer with the purple and pink!). Again, all of these are organized by colour segments. It’s what works for me. I’m not too strict either since it became more important to get SOME organization and neatness rather than perfection and procrastination.

The biggest change, when I got this little slice of studio heaven, was adding labels to pretty much every stationary object in the room. These are examples of the labels I made up but really… anything goes. I’ve since had to move the labels to bigger containers but the idea is the same.

I’m always interested in what people do to get THEIR clay organized! I have a few other strategies I’ve used and I’ve found some pretty clever solutions to share with you all from other clayers.