Craft Room: Tweaking Storage Systems

Back in August, 2012, I put the finishing touches on my craft space. I absolutely love having a dedicated space and use it a LOT!

After living with this space for a couple of years, I've come to a few conclusions:

• I should have bought a larger table. One can never have too much work space. On the other hand, I'm not willing to give up more floor space for a bigger table, so I'm going to keep it. I plan to have a piece of glass cut to fit the top of it which will make it easier to remove adhesive.
• Even though I wish it were larger, I LOVE the tall table!  A desk would not work for me.
• I love the Target storage cubes (even though they're not super sturdy) but I've struggled with how to efficiently use the canvas bins that fill some of the cubes. I'm still figuring that out.
• I can't stand visual clutter, and piles of stuff sort of make me crazy. There have been way too many piles in my craft room lately!
• Some of the organization "systems" I put in place two years ago are working, and some are not. It's time for some tweaking!

 If you're a crafter, you know that having your supplies organized and accessible is a big deal. I recently re-vamped my stamp storage and love it, so I was inspired to make a few more (much simpler!) changes. I hope these little improvements will help me 1) use what I have and 2) be more apt to put stuff away!

Here are some of my little tweaks:

12x12 Paper Scraps 
First of all, I love, love, love the closet. If I had to get rid of the rest of the room and keep only the closet, that would be fine with me. I could find a way to work in there! My 12x12 paper/cardstock vertical storage system works for me, with one exception -- the 12" paper scraps. Since they don't fit in my 8.5x11 scrap drawers, I shove them into the vertical storage bins and they flop all over the place, getting bent and lost in the process.

In addition, the labels don't stick forever to this plastic. I decided to keep them but replaced some that were dogeared and added more adhesive behind others.

To solve the problem with the long scraps, I grouped them together and clipped them at the top. Now they can stay in the vertical holders and not flop around.

 Christmas Supplies
I had Christmas stuff stashed in my paper holders and various tins around the room, making it hard to find when I needed it. So after paring down my stash considerably for the upcoming garage sale, I moved everything to one stackable box (shown in the top photo), with small items in bags. I don't store my supplies by theme so doing this was a bit of a departure for me, but since I have so many Christmas supplies, I think this makes much more sense. This will make it super easy when it's time to make Christmas cards this fall.

Small Die Cut Pieces

I'm a huge fan of October Afternoon but have been frustrated with storing all the little die cuts and doodads that come with some of their lines (there's a small package shown in the photo above). Previously I had them all in a big tin which was annoying the heck out of me. I couldn't find what I needed (and as a result, I didn't use them at all), and they looked messy, too.

I finally decided that what I needed was a muffin tin. I brought several old tins home from my grandma's house last spring for just this reason, so I commandeered one to see how it would work. After removing all the Christmas die cuts, everything else fit nicely in the muffin tin, with larger pieces in a separate container. The jury is still out on this new system, but I'm hoping that it will help keep these little pieces corralled and more accessible. When things are more accessible, I'm more likely to use them...and clean up when I'm done!

Here's hoping that these little changes will make a big difference!

jp