Cricut Cartridge Storage

I love my Cricut Expression. I don't use it as much as I'd like to, and I definitely don't use it to its extensive abilities, but I love it, nonetheless.

My pretty baby!

Now, I have a lot of cartridges for it- at 46, and counting. The problem I had with all those cartridges was organizing and storing them so I would know what I already had and where it was. (And those boxes they come in take up a lot of space!) So, I scoured the internet for the best solution that would work for me, and this is what I came up with.

My tower o' Cricut!

These containers are Snapware ribbon storage and craft storage. There's three sets there. They all snap together down the sides, so you can take each individual layer apart and move them around, or just pick up the whole tower by the handle and go. I got mine at JoAnn's and Michael's when they were on sale, or with 50% off coupons. (I can't remember exactly how much I ended up paying for each. Less than $5.)

Convenient side-snaps.

I keep my Cricut Gypsy, manuals, and spare blades, etc., in the top containers. In the 2 1/4 inch deep ones, I made separators for the cartridges with plastic canvas. There are seven dividers across the length, and four across the width. They are all 10 holes tall. I've attached pictures of each of them, so you can see exactly where each is cut to fit in the containers perfectly.

For you to count the holes!

Each container will then hold 40 cartridges.

So organized...

The containers that are 4 1/4 inch deep will each hold 15 of the books and keypads perfectly. (I put the corresponding keypad in each book between the cover and first page. They kind of cling to the slick paper and don't fall out.) If you have sample cartridges, or those that come without books, you can fit more than 15 in one box. If you don't have that many cartridges, no worries. There is a removable bar that goes across the middle of the container that is meant to hold spools of ribbon which will keep the books standing upright. I attached a tag with the name of each cartridge on the second to the last loop of the spine with colorful hair elastics, and numbered the back of each tag with a number corresponding to a number I put on each cartridge. This way, I can find them easily and put them back exactly where I got them from. Lastly, I made a sort of "catalog" listing all of my cartridges. If I'm looking for one in particular, I know exactly where to find the cartridge and corresponding book.

See the ribbon bar down the middle? Convenience!

I've seen people selling these things on eBay and Pinterest for about $30 a set. (Remember, mine is THREE sets!) You get away spending a LOT less on making these yourself, at about $6 a set and a little bit of time! Enjoy!