Orange Crate Organizing: Turn These Wooden Boxes into Handy Storage Pieces

It's not unusual for citrus fruit - especially the little, easy-to-peel kind - to be packed in small wooden crates. The fruit is delicious and nutritious, but what do you do with the crates when they're empty?

When dismantled, they make great kindling. But that means nothing if you don't have a fireplace, woodstove, backyard bonfire pit or back alley steel drum. Well, with a little dressing up, they also make great storage baskets. But every household only needs so many baskets.

I've always had a stockpile of these little crates, knowing that there must be some other good uses for them. A couple years ago, I made myself some earring displays/jewelry boxes out them. You can see a video about how to make these orange create jewelry displays by visiting my YouTube channel. In recent months, I came up with another use for them: bead organization in my studio. With their compact size, they're great shelves for small things, like beads.

You could easily mount a crate sideways as-is on your wall and use it as a shelf for lightweight items (they usually have holes on the bottom, which make them easy to hang). In my case, I modified a few to suit my purposes. I took some apart, and used the pieces to reinforce the crates I wanted to hang on the wall.

(I saved the thick wire staples for another project.) I also used the dismantled crate pieces to add extra shelving to some of the crates. Hopefully the photo gives you an idea of some of the things I did. As you can see, my little orange crate shelving system has allowed me to store a lot of beads! And I get a kick out of the fact that my studio has some upcycled storage.

I have used orange crates in other ways for studio organization, but I'll save that for another day. I don't want you to get over-excited!