What does your crafting space look like? Chances are, if you’re like the majority of crafters, you have things all over the place, so you can find them easily and get started where you left off when you get the time to jump back in. Correct?
Imagine the joy of easily finding your supplies and having everything you need at hand, all while maintaining a sense of order. An organized space not only saves time but also inspires creativity. It’s a sanctuary for your craft, a place where your ideas can flow freely and your projects can come to life.
These tips are designed to help all crafters make sense of their crafting space and regain order and organization.
Purge and Simplify
As challenging as it may be, curating your craft supplies and discarding anything you don’t want or need is a powerful step. Taking control of your supplies and removing anything that isn’t useful anymore gives you a clear view of what you’re working with. This empowers you to avoid becoming a hoarder of craft supplies that simply aren’t of use.
Once you have worked through all your supplies, you can easily see what you have. From here, you can determine the type and style of organizational features and products that will benefit your equipment and supplies.
It’s also a good idea to refrain from topping up your supplies with purchases from craft stores like CraftDirect. While a shipping service can replenish any resources you lack, it’s a good idea to wait until you’re fully organized before filling up your cart.
Labels
Labels are the key to achieving organizational goals for all crafters. Everything that goes in a drawer, tub, tray, or anything else needs to be labeled. Labels provide a sense of security and control over your crafting space, ensuring that everything is in its place and you’re the master of your craft domain.
So take some time to get that label maker out or design your own hand-embellished labels. Prior to making labels for your supplies, it’s a good idea to separate them and look at everything you have to give you an idea of the type of labels and number of labels you will need.
The idea of having all of your storage areas labeled is that it will encourage you to need others to put things back in the right place and keep things tidy when working. Because if everything has a home, it’s more likely to end up back there when it’s no longer needed. Labels are key to identifying and alerting you and others as to where things are or should be, reducing the time spent searching for items and ensuring a more efficient crafting process.
Be Intentional with Organisation
Organizing your craft storage with intention is a key to increased satisfaction. It’s about understanding how you work and what you need when you do work. Taking control of your space and making it work for you, not the other way around, brings a sense of accomplishment.
Let’s take a rolling cart. A rolling cart can be convenient for crafters; however, it can be a clutter magnet. To avoid this, you need to look at what your rolling cart needs, i.e., does it need your frequently used craft items? Does it need to stock your tools on it for easier flow around your craft space, or does it need items that need to be used in different spaces or for different crafts if you have more than one thing on the go or you’re lucky enough to have an entire room dedicated to crafting?
Address how you work and what you need close to hand, and then use the space you have to ensure that your craft space flows to benefit you where you work. Don’t just blindly put things somewhere because they need a home; make it make sense.
A good example is keeping all of your greeting card embellishments in one unit next to the card you use for making greeting cards and tools such as scissors or glue. It may also be worth keeping your paint brushes together in one unit, then your painting trays in another, and painting materials in another. Make it make sense, label it, and arrange it in an order that makes crafting easier, and it will transform how you craft.
Use Displays
Not everything needs to be put away and hidden. This point is especially useful for those with limited space. You can use your craft supplies to help you create attractive displays without losing organization. This not only keeps your supplies organized but also makes them easily accessible, adding a decorative touch to your crafting space and boosting your productivity.
You might use a peg board to hang pots of beads on a wall, or you might use storage pots and lazy susan turning trays to store paintbrushes on units. You might prefer to hang open shelves to stack colored paper or have hooks on walls to hang long items, such as ribbons, that can create a visually stunning wall. These methods not only keep your supplies organized but also make them easily accessible and add a decorative touch to your crafting space.
By using your crafty know-how and getting creative, you can expand the perfect crafting organizational space by using the area you have, taking up horizontal and vertical space, and essentially using your tools and supplies as decorative displays.
Containment
Containment is vital for improved organization. What this means is that when you buy something, especially smaller items, you have a specific container for it. So if you’re purchasing small tools, have a tray that resides in a drawer, for example. If you’re topping up flower embellishments, then have zip-locked bags or boxes with lids to store them in as opposed to throwing them in a drawer or leaving them in their original packaging.
Containment is about creating dedicated spaces for each type of item, reducing clutter, and making it easier to find what you need.
Essentially, think of it like those refrigerator refill videos you see on social media where they remove items from the original packaging materials and put them in plastic boxes or glass bottles in the fridge to be used. Except with your craft supplies, this is less about aesthetics, although that’s an added bonus; it’s about having dedicated contained spaces to reduce the risk of things becoming messy and ensuring you can find everything.
Stacking Boxes
Stacking boxes can be invaluable when it comes to an organized craft space. Invest in containers that can be stacked and closed and, more importantly, are clear. You can quickly move things out of the way when you’re not using them, and see exactly what you have or need by glancing at the stacked boxes.
Great examples of stacking boxes are ones with handles and lids that slot together, creating a uniform look. Best of all, they come in different sizes. These boxes can be stored on shelves, in drawers, stacked on the floor, or used in closets. The key is that they allow you to reduce the space taken up by supplies while still maintaining order and visibility of what you have to hand.
Organization and crafting might not feel like they go hand in hand, and for many, trying to find order in chaos is easier said than done. By finding a system that works for you using some or all of these tips, you can begin to make sense of your craft supplies and enhance your workflows to enable you to work better and be more accessible to improve your crafting abilities.
