Are you looking for some good and practical ways to store your acrylic paints? Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve accumulated a great deal of bottles and /or tubes I have some excellent suggestions for you. We all know that when you’re getting ready to work on a project and you’re reaching for a particular color or colors it is no fun when you’ve got a huge mass of paint tubes to dig through, am I right?
Plus , you might have paint jars as well as tubes to go through as well and you may want to keep them separated so when you’re looking for the lower viscosity paints or the higher ones, you know where to look. So let’s get a system of organization going!
Pin for Later?
Here’s a first-hand look at my “supply corner”…As you can see I have quite a variety of options I use. All my paints are on the third and fourth shelves.
They will hold about 20 – 30 bottles and keep dust out of them well, in addition to being transparent so you can see the contents on the inside .
So you have several options for storing your paints.depending on whether you have bottles and jars, or tubes, I will show and tell how I keep mine together!
As far as the environment goes, like all supplies such as clay, keep your paints in a cool, dry place, in the 68 F degree range.
I love these Sterilite containers here that come with a snap lid and secure carrying handle. This one holds about 26 bottles of the 2 oz all-purpose craft paints. If you can find some plastic bins in a similar size that’s also a good idea, but I like these kinds with a lid the best as they keep them free of stray dust.
I have several that I use, one I keep all of my metallic colors in, another I use for enamel acrylic paints, and another for more “conservative” colors…you could take it one step further like that too, depending on how many you’ve amassed.
Now if you’ve got tubes of paint, what’s the best way to go about keeping them organized and clean? I personally love slotted compartment carriers for these, like this one I own. Notice how it has a slide-out tray that holds multiple paint tubes of varying sizes – as you can see I have everything in here from small 0.4 oz all the way to 1.25. There are 18 compartments in all and I can easily fit 2 of the 0.4 oz tubes in each compartment.
The larger sized Liquitex Basics – which are 4 oz – however, don’t fit, I keep them (along with my other tools) in the bottom compartment.
DIY Your Own Paint Organizer
Another thing you could do is to create an organizer of your own, Have you ever seen those Christmas ornament organizer boxes, something like that concept? If you had some heavy cardboard you could easily create dividers, using a tool like an x-acto knife to “score” slot marks, then insert them together so they form a grid. You then assemble the grid into another box, and ta-da, you can then put each tube or bottle in its own slot.
Here are a few examples of storage units that were the product of DIY thinking…I like how he’s got all the colors grouped together (reds, pinks, greens, etc.)
Image credit: Image by sosclosetsandfurniture
And another one that involves a pegboard approach….both of these were made from wood. This design is made to be hung on the wall. Again, same concept, all the bottles’ respective colors are easily noticeable:
Image credit: Image by 2nup350
You can then store them horizontally or vertically, depending on what your spacial needs are, or limitations, so even if you don’t have a lot of room you can arrange them as you see fit.
Hope these tips help you get your paints organized today! Good luck, and enjoy getting started working.
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