How do You

I know many will have detailed storage systems,but I just toss my extra sprues in a large box and sort thru when I'm looking for something

I have a plastic 3 drawer thing. I separate German, Allied, and decals misc in the 3rd drawer. I trim as much as I can off the sprue before filing away. It works well enough. 

I use one of those plastic organizers like below but it is quickly running out of space...

So I am in process of moving spare parts into a bigger organizer chest... damn those Dragon kits leaving me too many spare parts but I often find them handy!

Several methods. For my 1/72 and 1/48 scale armor, I use a plastic storage bin like Deafpanzer's picture.

For 1/35 scale armor, I use old kit boxes and separate the spare parts basically by vehicle type. I have an old Sherman kit box that holds my Sherman excess bits, an old Tamiya Jeep box that holds my US wheeled vehicle parts, an M113 box that has my APC spare parts and an old Tamiya M1 box that holds my old modern tank stuff. Got a German box for everything German too.

I place a sticky label on the side end of the box and toss it on the shelf with my other similar kits. The label says "Parts" so I know it's not a kit.

Recycling pre packaged deli-meat containers (washed out) and a label maker are my latest way of keeping things organized.  I also have used the old kit box and plastic multi cell box method too.  The label maker is key though.

Gary

Thank you all for your help. I've just been throwing every thing into a box and its a muddle.

I can see that I must sort it all out and follow some of your suggestions...cheers....Kenny

In the beginning after my long hiatus, I started to throw left overs in a bin. Shortly after I started to put those extra parts in a small zip-lock bag and that bag is stapled to the kit's instructions. Now I know where part X comes from a year later.

I use old kit boxes, like Rob, and try to used a box that corresponds to the parts inside. They are then marked as to what they are, ie: M60 suspension, hull and turret, external details, etc.

I tried using generic containers, but I'm a little too cheap to buy the things.........