Organizational Yarn 101?

Does your yarn stash resemble this....

 Chances are your yarn supplies mine when your students have been weaving for a week or two.  I'd roll everything up into nice little balls and have it stowed away and before I knew it, we had a twisted, knotted, woven mess.  I didn't want to single any of the culprits out, they were just doing what kids do in their desire to select the best color ball of yarn ever but the knots and disarray were making me nuts.  I chose to dive right in and attempt to create organization out of this total chaos.  So the great UNTANGLE began......

or this?????

Let's create

a solution 

or two.

First on my agenda was finding a new way to store the yarn.  Like all art teachers, I seem to always see possibilities in all those recyclables.  I don't always know what the possibility is but I stash it away and wait for the moment to arrive.  My daughter binged on those biscote for years and I never parted with one of the big square containers.   After a few holes punched in the lid for the yarn to thread through,  Wa La, yarn storage.  Tape on the lid because the kids think they are suppose to remove lids from things.  You gotta teach them how to use it correctly, don't assume.  Next shown are some artificial creamer containers that a fellow teacher passed on to me at least 7 or 8 years ago.  Yeah, they have been sitting in a bag waiting to be discovered for a looonnnnggg time.  They work great and the lids screw on so no take needed.  They also hold one skein of yarn each so no tangling allowed.  Finally, I have purchased a variety of things from the dollar store in those little mesh bags.  I think some held river rocks and others little trophies.  Pull the yarn through the mesh and then seal them back up again.  Individual ball storage.  I should have shot one more picture of the nice way they look stored in the messy bin above.  That photos is for another time.  For now I am totally yarn organized for the next weaving session!