Organize Your Fabric By Repurposing A Common Office Staple

Sewing is a great hobby that can keep you occupied, provide stress relief, and engage the senses. It also gives you a way to reuse materials to prevent waste and clutter. For instance, you can repurpose fabric scraps into one-of-a-kind DIY artwork and use it to decorate your home. The more you sew, however, the more scraps and leftover fabric pieces you probably have. You likely need a way to keep them organized and handy for the next time you need them. Well, in that case, a filing cabinet can be just what you need to neatly store them all.

Unused filing cabinets don't have to be thrown outside in hopes that someone will magically want to take them home. There are actually some genius ways to repurpose old filing cabinets to get some more use out of them, like being turned into side tables, desks, organizers, or even planters. Some paint and Weldbond glue can be all you need to give them a stylish makeover so they lose their worn, cold metal look and become better incorporated into your craft room's design. As you turn yours into a fabric organizer, consider updating the exterior first so the outside looks as fun as the inside will appear with all the colorful materials.

For this project, you'll only need this office staple, your fabrics, and hanging file folders. We like this Amazon Basics set of folders in either dark green or a mix of colors. It includes 25 folders and costs $11 to $13. You'll lay out your fabric pieces folded into long rectangles, place the flat file folder on top, fold the fabric sides over it, and then flip the file folder over. Then, you can hang it in your cabinet so the fabric is showing. With this hack, you'll be able to browse through your options and see the fabrics clearly, just like you would with paper files. You could also use any extra space inside (or on top of) the cabinet to store other supplies like measuring tapes, scissors, thread, needles, and buttons.

Having an organizational system is key with this hack. Depending on how much space you have, you can divide your fabric types into drawers or sections. You can separate by color or pattern, or divide them up based on factors like the size of the prints and the dominant shades. There might even be themes in the types of patterns you have, like stripes, florals, or animal prints, so you can divide those into sections as well. You don't need file folders with tabs at the top for this, but you might consider using them to write down some details that will be helpful later on, like the measurements of each fabric scrap. In this case, you would need to fold your fabrics neatly inside the folders instead of laying them over the sides.