I've tried a few ways of organizing over the years & feel like the setup I have now works pretty well for me. When I lived in SC, I had a house with an extra bedroom - which of course meant my stash expanded to fill the space! Living in the Chicago area is pretty expensive - we pay 40% more for half the space - so I've reigned in my stash sprawl. Now it's consolidated to this wardrobe shelf, and a fabrics/finished projects box that sits on top.

On the left are a bunch of individual plastic shoe boxes that hold fabrics for finishing and different fibers. The drawers on the right hold supplies, knitting yarn, and framing supplies.

On top of the drawers are my bead containers. The bags on the far left hold my scroll rods and Q-snaps. Below that are some magazine holders. Below the shelf are my painting supplies and DMC thread box.

All my DMC threads go into a plastic box that's actually made for matchbox cars (I got mine in the toy section at Wal-Mart). It opens on both sides, and allows the bobbins to sit upright, so you can see the labels. I have another plastic shoe box full of extra skeins, organized into baggies by the hundreds (700's, 800's, etc).

My specialty fibers are in baggies with an index card & a label. Spools of Kreinik are in one of the smaller Plano boxes.

All my beads (both Mill Hill & for beading projects) are in watchmaker boxes. I love the how pretty they look in their little round containers. Each one can fit 2 packages of Mill Hill beads. (I ordered mine from Lee Valley - I like the large cases of 33mm) The containers themselves don't screw on, so they can pop open (you can pinch the sides of the bottom so the lid fits more snugly). After hearing horror stories of boxes falling down & beads going all over the place, I put elastic bands around each of the boxes & haven't had that problem! :)

I use an under bed storage box for my fabrics and finished pieces. All my charts fit into a plastic file box that goes under my desk. Having these things organized makes it much easier for me to find things and the wardrobe shelf keeps everything (relatively) compact. D. & I dream of a room that we can have our hobby space in. He really likes Lego, which takes up almost as much space in our apartment!

I had so much fun reading Jennifer's posts about stash organization, that I thought I'd show my method (and madness).

Today I'm just going to show my stash software and later some pics of my actual stuff. I started off with a paper journal to keep track of stuff, then downloaded a couple of the stash software freeware or trials that were online. I didn't really like any of them...I wanted both a "pretty" interface and some more powerful search options. So I built my own in Access. I've been working in Access for years & was learning Visual Basic at the time, so here's what I came up with:

The main screen (the upper left window) has the places I enter stuff on the left (Charts, Fibers, etc.) and the right side has some reports I've built. So when I buy a new chart, I click the "Chart" button and add info (the lower window shows the entry for Cirque) such as the stitch count. If it uses specialty threads, I'll also click the "add fibers" button & mark them as "needed".

When I click the "Search for Fabric" button, it will look at the stitch count, whether it's over 1 or 2, and the margin I entered, and see what fabric in my stash is large enough. So for "Cirque" I have 17 pieces in my stash that could work. I can scroll through the records to see what colors/counts they are. Cirque is medium sized, so it fits a few more fabrics; when I search on a bigger project, I may only have 1 or 2 choices.

When I'm ready to start a project, I hit the "Start Project" button on the Chart window & it pulls up and pre-populates the "Project" sheet you see here, including start date. I outfitted it with a super-dork option of tracking time, but I never really use it. I can attach progress pictures like this one for Marriage of the Minds.

Last picture, I promise!

I built a few reports, like one that will tell me which projects I have all the threads/fabric for, but the one I use most often is the shopping list. When I mark threads or beads that I need on the "Chart" sheet, it matches it against what I have. If it's missing, it goes to the shopping list.

One of the software pieces I tried just had "Need" list, but I couldn't tell whether it was for something I was dying to start, or something that was sitting in my stash for years. I like this one because it's organized by chart, so I can get what I need for one project.

So that's how I keep track of stuff. And I do admit that this thing is a little overboard - but I've been able to apply the things I learned while making this to other real-work projects. Since I like how it's laid out I do a better job of keeping up with it. I try to enter new purchases before putting them away, but not as good at removing things that I've used. I'd be happy to share, but I'd have to warn you that there are some quirky things since I'm not a professional programmer and it's a work in progress!