To keep my, then 10 year old, grand daughter busy one summer gave her the task to sort my buttons. At the time was allocated to mason jars, plastic shoe box totes and cookie tins. Alot of buttons!~ She asked for plastic bags and a marker. She sorted by color, shades of the same color and then labled each bag. Since then I have kept her system, she will be 19 next month. Keeping all the plastic bags in one clear plastic tote makes looking for buttons easy. Sometimes children make come up with the obvious simple solutions to problems.