Organizing Crafts

From LoveToKnow Crafts

Organizing crafts and craft supplies can be a daunting task for people who are involved in a lot of crafts and always have several crafts projects going on at once. Here are some tips that should help make organizing our crafts a little easier.

Step One: What Do You Have?

The first step for organizing crafts is to take stock of what you have. It makes sense that you need to know exactly what you're trying to store and how much of it you have before you can come up with solutions for organizing.

If you can, go around the house to all the places where you currently store your craft supplies and put everything in one place so that you can see everything. Use a big table or the floor if possible so you can really spread out and see everything you have.

Step Two: Sort it Out

When you can see all the craft supplies you already own, you'll probably be a little surprised. You might find things you don't remember buying or supplies for crafts you ended up never trying.

The first part of sorting when it comes to organizing crafts is to get rid of anything that is broken or in bad shape, anything you have in duplicate, and kits or supplies for projects you really have no intention of completing.

Throw away those things that aren't salvageable. You can either sell the remaining items, plan a swap with other crafty friends, or post the items on Freecycle, a worldwide organization where people give away items they no longer need or want.

Once you've gotten rid of your excess, it's time to start the real organizing. Try to store supplies for the same craft together. This is key if you don't have a lot of space, or a lot of space that is all in the same room. You should only have to go to one place to find everything you need to make a greeting card or start a knitting project.

The yarn and needles should be stored in the same place. Card stock, stickers and rubber stamps are all stored together, but they may be in some other place.

Organize all your supplies into piles or sections by craft. You might also want a pile for general craft supplies like scissors, glue, fancy gel ink pens and other items that you might use for multiple crafts. If you can store these in a more accessible area, you'll be ready for crafting any time.

Step Three: Evaluating Your Space

Now that you have piles, you can see which crafts you have large numbers of supplies for and which ones will take up less room to store. This is where organizing crafts gets exciting or frustrating, depending on your available space.

Look at your piles and think about how it would be best to store those items. If you have a lot of paper, for instance, you might want to consider a paper organizer that sits on a tabletop, or you might need a plastic box that will go under your bed to store these items. Organizing crafts is a balance between what you need to store and the space available to store it.

If you have room in your house and can afford a new piece of furniture, a storage cabinet of some type might be in order. If you have very few supplies, clear plastic boxes stacked in a corner, under the bed or in a closet might suffice.

Don’t worry if you can't get every single craft supply into the same room or the same place. I have a home office/craft room/guest room so my crafts supplies are everywhere. One drawer in my filing cabinet stores yarn. The bottom of a bookshelf has doors on it, so I store my card making supplies, stickers and beading equipment in there. The candle making stuff is in the closet. Fabric is in a wicker laundry basket that sits in the room.

If I had a big enough house, I'd love to have a dedicated craft room/studio where I could have shelves for fabric, baskets for yarn and drawers for rubber stamps, all specially made and designed to have everything available exactly where I need it. But, I know that storage is hard to come by. With a little creativity and knowing what you have and what you need, organizing crafts can become a fun challenge. Good luck!

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