*This is a collaborative post.
Crafting helps focus our minds on the task at hand. While we dive into our hobbies and create the pieces of art that give us temporary reprieve, our workday anxieties drift to the forgotten corners of our consciousness.
That’s perhaps what keeps us coming back to our chosen craft, the way it unburdens our minds. It’s basically a Zen-like flow state. But there’s an obstacle that makes it hard to get into that peaceful zone: a cluttered craft space.
You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you have to go rooting around for your craft scissors every time you need them. So let’s sift through some decluttering basics so you can sink into your craft and find that crafty flow state each and every time.
Clean Up After Every Session
You can probably harken back to an old art class of yore and hear your teacher admonishing you and your fellow students to clean up when you’re done. Well, we are here to tell you the same: CLEAN UP WHEN YOU’RE THROUGH. Whether your chosen craft leads to a mess of sawdust and wood chips or a mound of construction paper castoffs, your work product is almost certainly going to be creating byproducts for the waste bin. Lots of crafters — way too many of us — are tempted to simply nudge that mess into a corner and move on.
For the love of all things crafty, do not give in to that urge. Whatever it is you’ve just chopped up on your cutting mat, round up the detritus and keep that workstation clean. And put those tools away, too!
Eschew What You Don’t Use
That curious thrift shop find you snagged and stowed on your workstation a year and a half ago? Ever gonna get around to doing something with it? How about that tower of rubber bands or that pint of glitter taking up valuable real estate in your hobby space? Our craft workstations tend to accrue castoffs like that catch-all drawer — everyone has one of these — where we toss things we simply don’t know what to do with.
Take a look at all the tools and scraps and odds and ends that are taking up valuable territory around your workstation. Lots of stuff, right? That’s what happens if you’re always accruing and never eschewing. Gaze upon the assembled and nix what you are truly unlikely to use in the coming month. What you’ve assessed to be inessential doesn’t need to be tossed. It just needs to be moved away from your workstation.
Box that stuff up in an organized fashion and stow it in your basement, attic, wherever. Just don’t go tossing it into that catch-all drawer.
Get a Rolling Craft Cart
Nothing keeps your workstation as tidy and clutter-free as a rolling craft cart. It’s always at the ready, gliding in and out whenever you need it like a loyal valet. But the rolling craft cart can turn into a rolling bit of chaos if you don’t organize with intention. Don’t simply dump items onto it and fill up the drawers with the same carelessness with which you treat that catch-all drawer we were just bemoaning.
Keep that cart tidy. It’ll go a long way toward keeping your hobby space organized and delightfully clutter-free.
Don’t Forget the Pegboard
Organizing your hobby room isn’t rocket science. You want the essentials within easy reach but not cluttering your workstation. As we just noted, a rolling cart is a great place to stow your paints, extra blades, glitter, etc. But you want those go-to craft tools within easy reach. And one of the surest ways to keep things easily accessible but off your workstation is to install that tried and true hero of craft room organization: the classic pegboard.
You can easily install shelves on your pegboard, hang gear from hooks, you name it. To go in depth on the glories of the pegboard, check out this rundown from the crafting mavens over at PrettyLifeGirls.com.
Put Your Creative Flair to Use
You are a creative person. Case in point: You have a hobby space at home. Indeed, you’re overflowing with creativity and imagination, and all that juice means you shouldn’t have any trouble at all finding fun solutions for your organizing woes. You just need to detach from the old idea that tidying is a burdensome task. It doesn’t have to be.
Install shelves on your pegboard and line them with clear jars organized by color. Display your tools as though they are little works of art. Make fun labels and deploy them throughout your space. Of course, you need to abide by those labels to head off future messiness.
Just do what you can do to implement a little pizzazz and creative zeal. If you do, you’ll find that organizing can lead you toward a glorious little Zen-like flow state, too.
