How to Better Organize Your Crafting Supplies

When it comes to crafting supplies, many people, myself included, tend to buy much more than they really need or keep acquiring new, cooler things before they’ve actually used up the rest of the materials they have on hand. With so much lying around, it can be hard to find what you need for any given project unless you have a great organizational system. Here are some tips that can help you get your crafting essentials in order.

1. Find out what you have. It can be helpful to make a list of all the supplies you have before you begin organizing. Go through all the boxes, bags and table tops that are currently housing your supplies and list all the things you see. You may find that you have a lot of things you’d forgotten about that you need to make room for.
    
2. Sort by type. The easiest way to organize all the crafting stuff you have is to simply organize it by type. One method is to create locations on the floor or a table where items of each type go until you’ve gone through everything. This way, you’ll know what kind of storage bin you need to keep them in and you’ll already have like items together.
    
3. Get appropriate storage bins. If you have the budget it can be really useful to get some matching storage containers to put your supplies in. This way, they’re easy to stack and stow away until you need them. It’s likely you’ll need both some bigger bins and tackle box-like containers for holding all the small stuff.
    
4. Label everything. It may sound tedious, but labeling all your supplies will be a huge favor to yourself when you go to use them. Attaching a label on each container that says what it contains, even if it’s multiple types of items, will make it a cinch to find what you need when you need it.
    
5. Make them accessible. Being organized doesn’t do much good if you’ve got your materials stored away in places that are hard to get to. If you’re a regular crafter, try creating a space in your home that your newly organized supplies can call home and where you have room to work.
    
6. Save room. You may have room for all of your stuff now but what if you get something new? Make sure to leave a little bit of space in your storage solution for the possibility of new additions.
    
7. Clear out the clutter. If you were going through your supplies and found a bunch of things that no longer fit your tastes or that are too old to be of use, then you may want to toss out or donate some items from your supplies. You certainly won’t miss them and you won’t have to deal with having them around anymore either.
    

Once you’ve got all your supplies in order you’ll be able to focus on whatever type of crafting it is you like, from making jewelry to sculpting things out of clay.

This post was contributed by Meredith Walker, who writes about the online associates. She welcomes your feedback at MeredithWalker1983 at gmail.com