Stickles Storage

I *love* my stickles. But one thing that bugs me is having an air bubble blow out in the middle of following a delicate line... you know what I mean!  :)  
So I determined that the best way to store my stickles would be upside down. I looked for something to store them in... those pricey (discontinued) Tim Holtz metal cases were out... seriously I wanted something inexpensive and well... what if I need another down the road? so I found nothing pre-made that would fit the bill. Then I started looking for something that the bottles would fit standing in.

I found this Iris storage box, it's called an "8x8 Project Storage Box". I bought it at JoAnn's with a coupon... I think I paid less than $4 for it.

The stickles bottles fit perfectly.

So I measured the inside, 10.5 x 9.25 inches, and took out my Gypsy and put a square on the mat that size. Then I filled the square with circles that were just over 3/4 inch, probably 7/8 inch. I had a circle punch that is 3/4 in and it *just* fits over the bottle lid, so I realized the hole needed to be a tiny bit bigger. I took some not too thick chipboard and cut the circles.

I tested it to make sure the bottles fit because for some reason the circles were not true circles even though I used George. Perhaps it's because it's chipboard... Anyway, the bottles fit.

 

 Then I trimmed the chipboard down to the measurements of the storage box and cut strips to make a support grid for it, then put the grid together.

I had to trim the circle piece down a little as the inside of this box is not perfectly square, there are some indentations and my measurements weren't precise enough, but the trimming was very slight and then the support grid went in before the circle piece, and the stickles top down in that. I also wrote the name of the stickles color on the bottoms of the bottles for easy identification.

Here's a view with the lid closed. Very happy with how this turned out! There are 90 holes but because of the handle on the box, at least 4 of those are unusable.

 The box is intended for carrying, since there's a handle, so I stood the box up to see what would happen. The chipboard is supporting it perfectly! Nothing moved inside.

If you would like the cut file for the circle piece, I've saved and uploaded it to my box.net site. You can download it here.

Hope this helps anyone out there like me, who likes blow-out free stickles! LOL