If your washi tape collection has outgrown a drawer and started migrating across your craft room in ways you'd rather not think about, this video is exactly what you need. It's episode three of my Organizing Your Supplies series, and I'm sharing the storage system I've been using for years — simple, low-cost, and easy to maintain even when the collection (inevitably) grows.
What we cover
The whole video is about organizing a sizable washi tape collection into flat, shallow boxes, sorted by category — standard, wide, large, and sticker washi tapes — and labeled so you can grab exactly what you need without opening every box and disrupting your flow.
What you'll learn
Why shallow, flat boxes are the right container for washi tape — when rolls lie flat in a box with just enough clearance above them, you can see everything at a glance the moment you lift the lid. Deep boxes hide rolls at the bottom and invite chaos.
How to categorize your collection so you're not hunting blind, including:
- Sorting by size (standard, medium, large) when you have enough of each type
- Sorting by theme (script and text-print tapes together, sticker-style washi tapes together) when size alone doesn't tell you enough
- Letting the categories be yours — they don't have to make sense to anyone but you
How to keep rolls from unraveling inside the box, including:
- Wrapping a small loom band or rubber band around the roll to hold it closed
- Using a small piece of washi tape itself to keep the roll tidy when you don't have rubber bands on hand
Why a placeholder box solves the tipping problem — when a storage box isn't full, rolls shift and tip every time you lift it. Dropping in a small filler box to take up empty space keeps everything upright and stable without buying anything new.
How to label storage boxes so your shelf actually works — everything gets a simple label written on a sticker with a Sharpie. No label maker required. Once the boxes are labeled and on the shelf, you can walk up, read the label, and grab the right box in seconds instead of opening three to find the one roll you need.
How to decide what lives on your desk versus what lives on the shelf — I had a few washi tapes hanging right behind my desk for quick access, but I realized I almost never reached for them. Consolidating them back into the labeled boxes freed up that space for supplies I actually do grab constantly.
Tips & gotchas
Rubber bands work brilliantly for keeping rolls closed, but they do lose elasticity over time — just swap them out when they get slack and loose. If you don't want to raid your kid's loom band collection (fair), a small folded piece of washi tape pressed against the loose end of the roll does the same job perfectly well.
Empty space in a storage box is the enemy of a calm craft session. When a box is half-full, rolls tip over the moment you pick it up, and before long everything has migrated into a tangle. A small filler box — any spare packaging box that fits — solves this completely. It's a placeholder, nothing more, and it means you don't have to achieve a perfectly full collection just to have a functional system.
Label the boxes before they go on the shelf. This sounds obvious, but it's the step that makes the whole system actually hold up over time. If the boxes aren't labeled, you'll start opening all three every time you need something, and within a week the sorting feels pointless. Once each box has a name — even a simple one like "large and sticker" or "standard and script" — your brain knows where to go without having to think.
Don't force yourself into a single organizing logic. Size-based sorting works beautifully for some tapes and by theme for others. A box labeled "large and sticker" mixes two categories, but it made sense for my collection because those tapes naturally live together when I'm working. The best system is the one you'll actually stick with, not the tidiest one on paper.
Shallow boxes, clear labels, a sensible category per box. It's the same approach I've been working through for stickers and paper scraps in the earlier episodes, and it's where I'm headed with ribbon next (which, frankly, is in considerably more chaos than the washi tape ever was). If you've been putting off sorting out a supply that's been quietly sprawling, this is a good moment to start small — just one box, one category, one label.
