Decluttering Your Craft Room

Decluttering Your Craft Room + free labels

How to find some much needed me time by decluttering your craft room and tidying up

You have two hours of me time while the baby is taking a nap. You could whip up a cute diy craft but then you remember that you need to declutter your craft room and you just give up on the whole idea.

What if you could use that magic hour or two to do something really fun just for yourself.  What if you could take the time to get back to your favorite hobby and create something beautiful. If you had an organized craft room with all of your supplies in just the right spot you could do it.

Cluttered Craft Room

Craft Rooms can get pretty messy and out of control really quickly.

You start out organized, but then after a few fun. crafting sessions, your glue gun hidden is under an overflowing stack of vinyl sheets, markers are fighting for space between, yarn, mugs, scissors, glue sticks and the cables to your cutting machine.

There is glitter permanently stuck to the table, the carpet and not to mention, your hair and maybe even your kids and the dog too.

So how do you keep from being swallowed by a washi tape avalanche every time you open the door of your craft room? How do you begin to declutter your craft room?

Sorting Craft Supplies

There are a few approaches you could take start decluttering.

– Kon Mari Craft Room

Is the Kon Marie craft room just a dream? You may be thinking, “what in the world is a Kon Marie craft room?” A Kon Marie craft room is one that has been decluttered using the KonMarie method made famous by Marie Kondo, the author of “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up”.

The runaway hit book and now television show about decluttering is popular for a reason.  Marie shows people how to transform their lives simply by making choices that bring them joy in order to declutter their living spaces.

At the beginning of each show, almost all of the participants are completely overwhelmed by the mess in their homes.

Being a mom to two kids, I can relate to feeling defeated before I even tackle the huge task of organizing and cleaning up.  Busy moms and bloggers not only have to juggle the regular daily tasks like

• helping the children with their homework,
• the to-do list,
• housework and
• finding time to spend with family and friends, and then
• finding time to work on our blogs.

It may not seem like much, but cleaning up the clutter in your craft room could allow you to

• Make more fun crafts, by spending less time looking for supplies
• Save money by not buying those tools that you already have but can’t find
• Share your crafting passion with others; take pictures without all the clutter in the background.

We all want to tidy up and get organized but sometimes we just need a little help.  So how do you start decluttering?

– Too Many Supplies

Often, the first culprit is having too many supplies. We’ve all been there. That moment in the craft store when you buy three of the same item just because you have a coupon to save fifty percent on all of them.

You have every intention of using them all, but most often, they just end up sitting at the bottom of the drawer or in a basket in the corner.

If you have drawers spilling over with unused craft items, but keep buying more, then your first priority is to stop buying new supplies until you can find a place to neatly store your current supplies.

It may be hard to part with some items.  After all, you spent money on them and you think you may use it one day. But that surplus of supplies is probably holding you back from creating.

Sometimes, just having too many craft supplies can turn you off from practicing the hobby that you love. When there are too many choices to make your brain just doesn’t want to deal with the stress of having to choose. It’s like you’re making your brain work to hard to have fun. Crazy right?!

So now, you’re probably ready to put the fun back into crafting get rid of the extra stuff that’s slowly taking over your beloved craft room.

How To Organize and Declutter

Before you organize your craft room you must declutter your room.

After all, you don’t want to just move items from one place to another.  You’ll just end up with the same clutter that you started out with.

Start by taking out all of your supplies. You may need to do this in sections, meaning start out with one side of your craft room before moving on to another side.

Now that you have taken out all of your supplies. Here is what you will do next.

Take two baskets, label one basket “keep” and label the other basket “don’t keep”.

Keep

• Supplies that are in good condition
• Pending crafts with a deadline date

Don’t Keep

• Supplies that you haven’t used in the past 6 months
• Items that are past the expiration date.

As you pick up each item, determine if it is something that you want to keep or not keep. Place each item in the appropriate basket.

You will be suprised by the number of half finished projects that you’ll come across when you start to declutter.  There may even be supplies that are no longer useable or even broken.

For the items that you want to keep, be reasonable and really ask yourself if you are going to use them within a defined timeline.  For instance, will you use them within the next three months or the next six months. If the answer is no, then you know which basket they should go in.

Purge, purge, purge! This will be your new favorite word when it comes to cleaning up that space.

How To Reduce Craft Supplies

Now that you have purged you are ready to move on to the next step.  Your stock is manageable and you can start to organize.

Anything that is in the Don’t Keep basket can be sold, given away or donated.

List the supplies that can still be used by someone else on marketplace websites like

• Craigslist
• Ebay
• Etsy
• Amazon

You can also donate them to a local church, school or senior center.  When I worked as a volunteer art teacher, we were always happy to get donated art material.

The items in the Keep basket can now be organized using space saving techniques.

To do this, you’ll need small baskets, trays or small boxes.  You probably have lots of them already. If not, here is your excuse to make a Target run for some fun but useful storage baskets.

Place labels on each small basket so that you can quickly know what’s inside. Once the basket is on the shelf or in your closet, you can easily identify the contents. I’ve included some really cute labels for you to use. They can be printed on Avery labels. You don’t have to fiddle about with scissors to cut them out. Just print, peel and stick. Click here to sign up and download them instantly.

Craft Declutter Group

Once you have your room organized and cleaned up, how can you keep it nice and neat?

Consider joining Facebook groups like a craft declutter group or a swap group.  You can find lots of crafters just like you who have supplies that they want to trade, sell or swap.  The good thing about this option is that you get to try new supplies, get rid of supplies that you don’t want or need anymore. The best part is that it will help you maintain that beautiful, clean, decluttered craft room.

What are your best tips for keeping your craft room organized? Make sure to download the free labels to help you stay decluttered.

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Hi, I’m Naa Ardua, I make digital illustrations, svg files and clip art for hobby crafters and small businesses. I help crafters learn how to use digital art to make craft projects. Learn how to get the most out of your cutting machine and craft supplies with my tips and tutorials at paperflodesigns.com.

 

 

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Hi, I’m Naa Ardua, I make digital illustrations, svg files and clip art for hobby crafters and small businesses. I help crafters learn how to use digital art to make craft projects. Learn how to get the most out of your cutting machine and craft supplies with my tips and tutorials at paperflodesigns.com.