The situation in the craft room is dire. At first glance, this disaster appears to be the result of a tornado, tsunami, hurricane or other act of God. It actually was caused by:

• Getting married and sacrificing your office to be the ManCave. All shipping supplies or anything remotely arty got dumped into the craft room.
• Rushed holiday crafting and shoving half-finished projects and leftover supplies onto every available surface before hurrying out of town.
• Having your fabric bins stolen lovingly giving away your fabric bins to your husband so he can use them for god knows what.
• Not ever needing to iron anything (hey this ironing board makes a great clutter collector!)

This is a great example of how clutter attracts clutter until it’s out of control. Don’t let this happen to you! Nip it in the bud. Or if it does get out of control, don’t get overwhelmed, just attack it in an orderly manner.

Here’s how I approach it.

Make piles. I set up a few cardboard boxes labeled thusly: Recycling bin. Trash. Give away. Papers to file. Tiny, annoying notions that need sorting or a place of their own. You get the idea.

Pick one 4×4 foot section and attack. Trying to clean a room that looks like this is insane. Just pick a small section and concentrate your efforts there. My first area was the closet (which isn’t even shown in this picture, we won’t go there). I began by pulling things out one by one and sorting them if they fit into the boxes I’d set up. There was a ton of fabric in there. I cleared a space in the ManCave and set up a folding table so I didn’t make yet another pile in the already crowded room. I worked shelf by shelf til it was clean. I only put things back into the closet that I wanted to stay there.

Work in short bursts. Let’s be real, if you spend 8 hours straight cleaning a room like this, you’re going to be one cranky bitch by the time someone in your family needs something from you. I like to work in 15 minute bursts, then take a break to check email, pet the dog or put on some music, then go back and work for another 15 minutes. Set a timer if that helps you. Shut the door so no one bothers you. You’ll be much more efficient.

Placement is key. I moved a lot of things out of the closet and am moving other things in. I think a closed area like a closet should be for things you rarely use, or long term storage. I keep my bath & body supplies or my stenciling/graffiti supplies here because I don’t use them very often. I will be putting things I want at my fingertips (like yarn, fabric, knitting needles, sewing notions) on my open shelving so I can see them and use them. I am also putting things I want to use more often (like a small watercolor palette, charcoal sticks and art papers) on the open shelves so I’ll see them and be inspired.

Everything needs its own place. If your sewing notions or your unfinished knitting projects don’t have a “home” they’re going to end up cluttering up precious workspace. We don’t want this. As I go along I’m making a list of storage furniture I need like big basket for unfinished knitting, basket for hand sewing/mending, 2 large clear bins for fabric storage, etc. I will be hitting up a few stores this weekend to get some bins, boxes and other storage containers. Anyone know of any good sales going on right now?

Make notes. I like to make little notes for ideas or projects like, “make small journals out of watercolor paper scraps” or “dye white wool yarn Amanda gave me” or “make a felted bag for letterboxing stuff” or “under no circumstances are you to buy more polyfill or pillow forms, no matter how cheap it is on sale.”

Purge thoughtfully. Freecycle is a great way to donate things that you might not need anymore, it keeps things out of the landfill and it saves you a trip to the thrift store. I love using Freecycle, I kid you not, within moments of posting, I usually have at least 10 phone calls or emails from people offering to come right over and take things off my hands. It’s an awesome resource.

When you’re done, celebrate! Do something nice for yourself! Get a manicure or pedicure, fix yourself a nice hot tea or chocolate and do something to christen your newly cleaned area! As soon as I get everything sorted, I’ll be finishing up a tweed skirt that is 80% finished, which I found buried in a basket of felted sweater scraps.

Cleaning itself is often annoying, tiring and unpleasant, but the results make you feel like a million bucks. Do you have any great organizing tips? The comments are dying to know.

Originally posted at My Aim Is True.

Tags: cleaning, clutter, craft room, organization

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Tips & Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.