Organising Craft Space - Part 2

For all my current disorganisation, I actually do have a desire to be organised. I recently found myself sorting all my pins by colour, and back into their original containers, strange but true.

Let me give you a visual on my craft space: we have recently claimed a childs bedroom and converted it into an office / craft room / spare room (complete with futon, 2 x printers, a scanner, a shredder, 2 x computers, 5 x 5 Ikea book case and 2 sewing machines). The floor space is limited as we have failed to sort and file as we have moved into the room, so clutter abounds. I am really starting from a place of desperation as the room is not conducive to work or craft. Here is how I approached the organising of this space:

1. Checked to see when the local council is having a clean up day (this weekend - lucky!) and I have committed to "cleansing the house" of those items I know I will never use.

2. Located my trusted best friend - a Dymo labelling machine.

3. Considered how many shelves and storage boxes I may need.


4. Strategically positioned 2 boxes: 1 = rubbish bin, 1 = donation or re-gift box

5. Gathered together any plastic see-through (preferably double sided) bags in readiness for preparing dedicated project bags. I hoard commercial manchester or pillow bags. A recent purchase for our dog came in one such bag, in a very handy size too.

6. Got realistic about how the space will be used i.e. my space is a shared space so everything does need to be put-away-able. I also like to do my craft in the living room so I'm still surrounded by the family which means I need well organised project bags and I need 1 bag always packed with all the essentials which can be used for retreats, going to my quilting group or simply joining the family. Carolyn Woods has a section in her book "Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter" covering what to pack for retreats and quilting in small spaces.

7. Set a time limit for having the space organised.

In summary, before you start 'doing', there may well be some 'strategic thinking' required to ensure your efforts are executed in an efficient manner.

Good luck. Sandra.

Organising Your Creative Space

This week I have arrived at the point of "I simply must organise my craft items". When I found myself with mending tasks and the easiest thing to do was go out and buy what I needed rather than try to find it in my craft supplies, I knew I had reached a point of no return. It is time to change my organisational paradigm.

Is it procrastination that stops us, or the size of the task we think it might be to organise all our essential supplies (of course, nothing can be thrown out as we might need it one day!)?

"The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started." ~Dawson Trotman

This book "Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter" recently came across my desk and of course, I procrastinated looking in it because I just knew it would tell me what I didn't want to hear i.e. Author, Carolyn Woods offers Step One as "Identify the Causes of Clutter". Well there is only one answer to that - ME. I am the cause.

Carolyn also offers these shuddering questions; "To Keep Or Not to Keep" and "How Much Is Too Much?". Are six rotary cutters really too many? How do I know whether I might need this in a year or two? My answer to these questions was to ask my husband to move some of his files to give me more space to keep the things I don't know if I need or not!

Stay tuned - I will keep you posted with my progress.

Sandra.