I know, I know-It's been a while. I'm just now coming out of my busy season at work (OK-not really- busy season never really ends for me, but its warmer now, and I seem to have a little more energy in the evenings!)
Today, I'm back with another product review. I would like to talk about the Fiskars Craft Crate Rolling Organizer. I bought one off of Ebay last summer, and have found it quite useful. A friend of mine wants one like it, so I started looking for another...only to find these Fiskars totes increasingly difficult to get hold of. From what I can tell, Fiskars is no longer featuring them in their product lineup, and major retailers like Joann are no longer stocking them. So, if you are looking for a rigid, wheeled scrap tote, now would be the time to snap one of these up before they are all gone.
So, what does the Fiskars Craft Crate have to offer? For starters, as noted above, it is rigid. It is essentially a collapsible plastic milk crate on wheels. The nice things about it being rigid are that; 1.) it protects your paper and does a better job of keeping it upright than soft-sided luggage-like totes; and 2.)it is sturdier and therefore less likely to break. Shell has one of those luggage-type totes, and she showed me where the cardboard bottom was buckling under the weight of her materials. I throw this thing in the back of my car, plunk it back down again, and jerk it around by whatever part of it I happen to grab. After almost a year of this continued (sometimes hard) use, the Fiskars cart shows no signs of structural deformation or defect.
The other really nice feature of the Craft Crate is its canvas organizer overlay. It is filled with pockets that do an excellent job of organizing my pens, scissors, and small embellishment containers. I still haven't managed to fill them all up, so I have room for more small stuff if the need arises.
The only real complaint I have about the Fiskars cart is its handle. It has never broken, but it feels flimsy and lightweight, and it flexes a lot when I pull from an angle. I would have preferred a more solid handle, but as long as this one doesn't break, I'll be content with its flexible feel. The mechanism for telescoping the handle is also little hard to use, and looks a bit dodgy, but so far, it has been holding up under normal use, though I do try to take care not to push or yank it as roughly as I do the rest of the cart.
The overall look of the cart is about as attractive as a rolling milk crate can be, which is to say that it doesn't have the same appeal as some of the luggage-type totes, but it manages to look efficient and business-like with all of its flaps and pockets. I personally would have preferred a pretty pastel over Fiskars' standard royal blue and kelly green color scheme as well. As much as people seem to gravitate to the "special edition" pastel colors of scrap tools, it would seem like manufacturers would just make pastels the default colors for their products.
However, performance wins out over looks in my opinion,so I would skip all of the pretty luggage-type scrap totes, and opt for one of these rigid rolling carts instead. If you are looking for a rugged, roomy scrap tote to take to crops, or just want a portable place to keep your scrap supplies, this cart is a good investment.
These are still available from time to time on Ebay, as well as on Amazon. Other brands of rolling rigid craft crates are also available both places. These other crates look like the Fiskars crate, but since I have never seen one in person, I can only assume they are of similar construction and quality.
Fiskars Craft Crate Rolling Organizer- $81.40 at Amazon.com
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