Putting the FUN in functional

Five Steps to a Well-Organized Craft Area

1. Designate your work area

If you are fortunate, you will have an entire room to designate as your craft area.  If you do not have separate room for crafting, don’t worry—you can always partition off an area of a room with shelving, storage furniture, or screens to create a similar effect.  If you choose to use screens you might be tempted to skip thorough clean-ups, so you will need to make a conscious effort to straighten the area once you are finished.

When choosing the proper work table, consider purchasing a used table at a yard sale.  You will not feel any guilt about getting paint, glue, or having a spill on a used table.  Be sure that you have a comfortable chair since you will likely be crafting for hours at a time.

Make certain you have a well-lit area.  If you do not have enough natural light, consider purchasing a desk lamp that will provide bright lighting over your workspace.  A full-spectrum desk lamp is my personal favorite and they are reasonably priced.

2. Review your supplies

The first time you stock your craft area, assess the supplies you have on hand.  If you find that there are any extra items that you will not use, consider donating old and unused supplies to a day-care, homeless shelter, or retirement center.  Many of these places have small budgets to purchase crafts and will truly appreciate your donation. 

3. Purchase your containers

Next, take a look at the supplies you plan to keep.  Consider the amount and size of the baskets, drawers, containers, and shelving you will require to store everything easily.  If you need vertical storage, pegboard is a good idea for storing many tools in a small space.  If you have younger children using the space with you, you can even outline around each tool so they can make a visual connection to understand where the item should be returned to.  Of course, no child should be left unsupervised in an area with sharp objects or toxic paints or adhesives.  Keep such items under lock and key for safe storage from children.

4. Assign storage areas

Once you have your baskets, containers and so forth, organize your ribbons, papers, dried flowers, etc. The key to this is to bunch like items together.  For example, keep your tools together by type.  Tools should always be conveniently stored and easy to access, so frequently used paintbrushes, scissors and glue guns should be labeled and in their separate drawers or baskets.  Once tools are assigned a place, your papers, adhesives, paints, beads and ribbons should also have their individual homes.

5. Put it back!

Now that your are organized, once you are finished working for the day, put everything away.  This will leave your craft area tidy and ready for your return.

Serving Central New Jersey

Call Carole at 908-501-9623

Send mail to theprofessionalorganizernj@comcast.net with

questions or comments about this web site.