I used the past two days to sort and organize my stock of little flowers. I had previously sorted them by color. There were eight sections. I found that it was good to have them sorted, but the individual colors were too jumbled to use efficiently.
After I started the project, I thought to take a picture. The right half of the drawer shows what it looked like when I just sorted by colors. I had divided the flowers into eight colors, dividing the sections with foam core I cut to fit the drawer. I found, as I worked with them on projects, that I wasted time sorting through a particular color because it was so jumbled. Lots of stuff in plastic bags. Some in little plastic containers, some loose in the section. I decided to make small boxes to sort the flowers into smaller sections.
I made the little boxes from white poster board. I decided to make them 3″ square. I measured the depth of the drawer to see how high the sides of the boxes should be. The drawer is 2.5″ deep. I cut the boxes so they would be 2 1/4″ deep to make sure they would clear the opening.
Once I had all the sections sorted into smaller bits, I sorted them by ROYGBIV. I started at the bottom of the left side with red, moved into pink, then coral, orange, yellow, green (only one box of green!), blue, turquoise, dark blue, then, multi-colored mixes.
I had four boxes of white embellishments and no room in the flower drawer. I have two small drawers above the flower drawer that hold pip stems and larger flowers that I don’t need often. I put the white boxes in the left hand drawer.
I divided the pip stem drawers with boxes I made from foam core with a poster board bottom. I cut them to fit the width snugly so they wouldn’t slide up and down the drawer. I put them together with hot glue. Because I didn’t make enough boxes to fill the drawer, I can move the boxes so I have various size spaces between them.
In this drawer you can see the two sizes of pips I like to use. The top and bottom sections have mini pip stems. Those are my favorite. They are harder to find than the usual size.
I use pip stems to create budding spring trees.
I use these mini pink pips on green stems a lot.
The pip stems also work as spring vines. This one twines over the roof of a spring barn.
They also work well to vine over an Irish cottage.
It took some time to organize, but the effort will be well worth it when I make spring and summer Putz houses. Besides, organizing things is my favorite. Can you tell!?
You can see my Putz houses and Christmas ornaments in my Etsy shop.
If you are interested in crafting Putz houses of your own, check out my Putz tutorials for more information. Putz House Tutorials
I am always happy to answer questions about the process. Please ask, if you are wondering about the details of putzing!
All proceeds from my Etsy shop benefit Kenya Mercy Ministries. They work with the urban poor of Nairobi, Kenya, particularly the children and their families who live in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. Thank you for your part in helping these children when you purchase items from my shop!
~~Rhonda 🙂