I love to organize my crafty stuff almost as much as I love to use it and I don’t think I’m alone in this. Not too long ago, my crafting group was having a swap so I went through most of the sections of my room and tried to purge and organize. Even though I’m not a Quilter, the book Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter was extremely helpful in this. It is definitely one of the best craft organization books I’ve found (and boy, I’ve read a lot of them). This cleared my floor and worktable…briefly. Soon I couldn’t even get in the door.
If I can’t see it, I forget it’s there. That’s my biggest problem. However, one tip really stuck out to me. If something has a home, I will use it more. Let’s say I just brought home some really fun flower embellishments. Normally, these would get set on my table because they are new and pretty. Inevitably, they would get buried under the NEW new and pretty things. But now (or soon), after sorting everything into baskets and giving them a home, when I need a flower, I will go to the FLOWER basket and see them. AND not only will I see the new ones, but also ALL the other flowers that I have purchased and loved. Every time I go for one, I will see them all. It will be so much easier to remember what I have when I see them more often.
Since I’m new to blogging, I’m not in the habit of taking a bunch of pictures yet, so I forgot to take one at the very beginning of this process. These pictures are one night and day later. So in the first one, pretend you can’t see ANY of the floor. (My Bagua marital arts training came in handy as I tried to navigate my way through. ) I moved EVERYTHING that was on the floor to a separate room because I knew I’d at least need to walk around if I wanted to get anything done.
A superficially clean floor.
Then I set up the sorting areas on the big table, and the little wooden table is there so I didn’t have to keep picking everything up off the floor! I took one bag back into the craft room at a time and sorted everything into the baskets. I still had bags to unpack from the crop I went to in October. *Sigh* If something miraculously had a home already, I put it there. I can’t believe how much I got done in the day. Here’s the crazy state of my table right now.
yikes!
Yeah…I know. And this is a HUGE improvement! I managed to clean out several drawers in the tall Ikea wardrobe in the corner of the room and those will be filled with baskets of my newly sorted goodies. Then I can take the baskets to and from my worktable when needed. I’m also hoping the “just throw it in” approach with the baskets instead of containers helps me with putting stuff away since I spend so much of my time making things away from home. Wish me luck and I’ll let you know how it goes!
crafting{without}kids 