Scubl box review

Sometimes, I think that we knitters are a bit like magpies but instead of being attracted to shiny objects, we’re attracted to yarn, knitting needles, stitch markers, project bags … anything at all that relates to our hobby.  I don’t see this as a bad thing at all – until we suddenly realise that we have quite a lot of it and we need to store it somewhere … and that’s where the Scubl box comes in!

What on earth is a Scubl box?!  Well, if you’re anything like me then you definitely need one (or a few!) … let me tell you more! 🙂

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Iram, who designed and created the boxes, to ask if I would like her to send me one to review.  I had never heard of Scubl boxes so of course I went straight to the website to see what they were, and whether I thought it might be something that I would use.  I would never accept something to review that I wouldn’t use for myself – and I knew immediately that this was something that I NEEDED to have in our house!

We have a few IKEA Kallax units in the house in various rooms and they are such a versatile piece of furniture.  From storing the girls’ toys when they were younger to holding files and papers, and even a cat bed, we wouldn’t be without them now.  I’ve even got a one in my little yarn room …

It really is a little yarn room – just about wide enough to stretch your arms out and touch the wall and the window, with two doors and four bookcases (I know, but there were so many books in my parents’ house that I couldn’t part with, not to mention my own library of knitting and gardening books!) so this Kallax unit really has to earn its space.  It stores my Winwick Mum books for sale, some of my yarn stash, blog photo props (like Christmas lights and candles for the Winter Haven KAL), needles and accessories … it’s very full!

This is one of the boxes …

You’ll spot the KnitPro Zing needles I reviewed recently, there’s the KnitPro Mindful needle collection I reviewed a couple of years ago, project bags, sock yarn, a box of accessories – you can get quite a lot in these boxes!  Now, maybe you are tidier than me but for me, once my stuff is in that box and it’s put away in the unit, I am done.  Tidy.  Hands dusted and I’m onto the next thing … until I need to find something and I have no idea where it is.  I might have put it in that box but I can’t quite remember …

Iram has solved this problem with the Scubl box.

Scubl boxes are designed for IKEA Kallax units.  They are clear on four sides (the top and three sides) and have a solid coloured front to them so they look smart in the Kallax units.  They’ve also got upright bars at the corners so that they stand solid and don’t collapse in on themselves, so you don’t have to pack them to bursting just to get them to keep their shape.  Oh my goodness, what a brilliant idea!

They’re designed to fit into the Kallax unit just like the IKEA boxes do.

The Scubl box is 31cm x 31cm x 35cm which is a little bit shorter in height than the IKEA box but it’s a little bit longer so you’ve still got plenty of storage space – and you’re going to be amazed by what you can fit in it!

How do you get the Scubl box back out of the unit?  Like this!

And you don’t need to worry that you won’t know what’s in there either …

Ha!  Isn’t that a good idea?  You can change the label around whenever you like, which means that these boxes can grow with your family, your hobby, your yarn stash or whatever you like at any time.  The boxes come in seven different colours so there’s plenty of choice to fit in with your colour scheme (the six below plus black which isn’t pictured) …

So, the novelty of this new storage box dealt with, it was important to me to know that it was going to be something that would last.  We’re all much more conscious of what we consume these days and keeping on top of the stuff that we have and being able to store it properly is much more important nowadays.

The Scubl box is made from durable waterproof PVC; it’s surprisingly solid and the box stands up very well on its own as you’ve seen from the photo above.  Having two levels is truly a game changer and an inspired design by Iram.  No longer are you having to root around in one box to try to find things as you can see them so easily through the clear sides of the box.

I know that there are issues around buying and using plastic, but my personal view is that plastic that is going to be used again and again over time is not a bad thing and up until now, a lot of my yarn and other stuff around the house has been stored in Really Useful Boxes which I’ve had for years.  They’re solid plastic boxes that stack and they’re brilliant for the garage or the attic – but not always so much for my yarn.  As soon as I saw the Scubl box, I could see the potential not only for me, but also anybody else who has yarn to store – and store safely away from odours and moths.  Get ready for lots of photos because once I had started putting things in my box to photograph, I got a bit carried away! 🙂

First up, my Winwick Mum yarn – these are the very first balls that came off the machines at the mill and they are one of my proudest possessions.  I do worry about them out on a bookshelf, though, and I would hate to think of something eating its way through them.  I thought I’d start by seeing how many balls of the yarn I could get in the box.

Oh!  All of them!  There are sixteen balls of yarn there (two layers of eight balls), sitting neatly on top of each other and easy to see through the side of the box.

They’re not squished, they fit beautifully and they fill the bottom layer of the box.  There’s a double zip for each compartment (top and bottom) so that you don’t have to take everything out if you know something is at the top or the bottom of the box.

This is what I managed to pack into the top of the box – probably about half of what was in the IKEA storage box that I showed you!

I think what I really like about the Scubl box is that you can be a bit more organised that you might otherwise be within a small space.  It’s not always easy to store things in a way that you can find them in a bigger box, and I think that if these had been available when my girls were smaller to store the toys they had with small pieces – Sylvanians, Polly Pocket, Barbie – then it would have been brilliant.  It’s got a handle too, so you can carry it about if you need to.  The PVC really is very strong so I wouldn’t have been worried that the girls might have split it with their toys if they were carrying the box from one room to another.

We managed well enough at the time by re-using smaller boxes that had had tea bags or cereal bars in them, and we certainly wouldn’t have coped without plenty of shoe boxes, but the Scubl box makes it all just so much easier.  If you’ve dropped a small piece of Lego or a flower pot from a Sylvanian house into one of the layers, you are much less likely to tip all the contents out all over the floor to look for it.  Oh, I do not miss the days of toys being tipped out everywhere to look for one particular thing and I think this is what inspired Iram with her design as well!

My first thought when I saw the Scubl box was that I would use it for storing the socks that are in my mending pile.  It’s not a small pile.  I’ve got pokey toes so I tend to go through my socks after a while, but I’m not so good at going back to mend them – my brain thinks it’s far more logical to spend time knitting a new pair than going back to spend a few minutes mending an older pair for some reason! 🤣  Anyway, I’ve got a box in a different Kallax unit with lots of socks in it.  I started loading them into the Scubl box – and I was amazed that they just seemed to vanish into it!

I think there would have been more space if I had rolled the socks up neatly, but I was just so impressed to see them all disappear into the box!

I bet you can hear how my mind was ticking … how much yarn can I get in the box?  Game on! 🙂

I pulled out one of my Really Useful Boxes which holds some of my stash of West Yorkshire Spinners yarns.  I have a LOT of WYS yarns as you might imagine, and also lots of part-used balls which I go back to from time to time when I need something in particular.  My current storage box has a capacity of 24 litres and it holds the yarns that I use most often, but I have other yarn stored in another box too.  “Come on then, Scubl box,” I thought, “Let’s see what you can do!”

Oh my goodness!  It’s all in there with space to spare.  If I’d chosen to really pack it in (and I think those sturdy zips are up to the job) or perhaps mix and match the stash that I have then I could have put even more in there – but even if I just emptied that one plastic box into the new Scubl box, it would free up a really big space on a bookshelf that can’t be used for anything else.  Oh, I’ve got another storage box stacked on top – but with more Scubl boxes, I think I could quite easily get rid of a lot of the separate boxes I’ve got in my little yarn room that take up a lot of space.

Up until now, I have been firmly in the Really Useful Box camp for stacking boxes, but now that I’ve tried out a Scubl box I have switched allegiance and can’t recommend them highly enough for IKEA-based storage!  I don’t know if you can tell, but I REALLY like this Scubl box! 🙂

In fact, I like it so much that I’m proud to be an affiliate for Iram and the Scubl box because I truly believe it’s brilliant and can make a real difference. I’m happy to be spreading the word and sharing something that I think can genuinely help people to feel more organised with their yarn, toys, fabric, crafting supplies and tools – whatever it is!

If you like the look of it too and choose to buy through my link, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you, and you’ll also receive a special Winwick Mum discount by clicking the button below.  The discount only works through links which connect to my Scubl store page so you’ll need to click through here to take advantage of it.

Do let me know what you think if you decide to try the Scubl boxes out!  I think there must be a million uses for them and I am already starting to think about what else I can put in them … I think there’s going to be an order arriving at my house soon! 🙂

 

If you don’t want to buy now and you’ve got a Pinterest account, save this pin for later as it links back through to this post so you don’t miss out!

 

 

Scubl boxes – good to know