Craft Room Perfection!

Craft cabinet- Before

After running into this long time friend in Wal-mart, and talking about organizing. She told me she was in the process of moving her craft room from an upstairs bedroom down to the main floor so she could be close to the family. She had already purchased the organizing system she would like to use. She had already started to move things around but got to a place that she had what she needed moved and kind of stopped. So I convinced her to let me help her out and get it all moved and organized according to her style.

Old craft room- Before

She took the quiz, and like I had already known, because I have seen her house and know how she likes things to be, she fits in the persnickety style. Par for the persnickety course she had stopped her plan because it was no longer perfect in her eyes. She had it all put away into the cabinet, but a lot was still upstairs in piles and she wasn't happy with what the cabinet was doing. I had her show me what she already had moved around, and what she had left upstairs. We talked about what she didn't like that was happening in her cabinet and what still needed to go into it.


We started upstairs and went through everything and organized them into Keep, Trash, Donate, Move to another place in the house (other then to the new craft room) She knew she was going to purge a lot and was in the right frame of mind. We flew through the upstairs. It was now time to go through her cabinet and assign areas to her craft supplies. She had filled all of her drawers with yarn. She didn't want that to happen, but wasn't sure how to stop it. I reminded her that 1. She would create the amazing wall of yarn*, and 2. She needed to assign each space in the cabinet with what she wanted in there. As usual we took everything out of the cabinet and placed them into the keep/donate/trash/relocate/maybe piles. Some individual containers were in perfect organized order so we didn't need to mess with them. Other containers we needed to empty and go through each item. Then we organized our keep pile and started to group things together. This persnickety client already had many organizing bins that we were able to use. After we organized the keep items we took a look at the cabinet and I asked her what she wanted to see in the space. Then we started to place the items back into the cabinet.

New Shelf

We realized that after creating a home for every keep item, we were able to add another shelf, which created so much more space. Her drawers that she didn't know how to utilize to their best ability, we assigned them each to a specific craft.

Assigned drawers

 The bottom one is all sewing; material, thread, and tools for the sewing machine, and yes each like item is organized by color and put into its own container. This provides easy access and is easy to be pulled out used at the desk. The middle drawer is for future projects. This client is VERY creative and can find anything on Pinterest and recreate it perfectly. She also creates amazing gifts for people, and then everyone comments on how awesome they are. Then, she buys more materials so she can make more and sell them, sometimes they don't get made, but she keeps the materials. One of her reasons for keeping the items was that she doesn't save the receipts. They other was because they are holiday specific so they aren't sold at craft fairs all year long. I gave her some suggestions, create an envelope to put the receipts into. As she buys materials and places them into the cabinet she can put the receipts into the envelope.

Receipts envelope

Then to alleviate the problem of too many extra supplies, she should only make new ones when someone has asked her to make a specific craft and are willing to pay her asking price right away.

Awesome yarn wall

*She did have a plan for a yarn wall which would help with the yarn overload, but was saving up for the tools she needed to create her vision. She got her vision completed quickly because once a Persnickety personality has their project almost perfect, and they have a plan they execute it as fast as possible. Yes this once was the hang up. It stopped her dead in her tracks only because the cabinet was what was holding her back. That and the fact that she wasn't letting things go. Once I came in, I was able to motivate her again. As a Persnickety myself, I know this all to well. I know what I need to work on, or what I want it to look like, but sometimes I lose the motivation to get it finished. Because the cabinet was now in order she didn't put her energy to other things in her life, she got what she needed to make this yarn wall and it was finished in a weekend. She is so excited to get crafting again!

Empty shelves, and storage boxes for future
projects!

Tada- we were able to finish the project in just little over 4 hours. Her husband has a very clean home office now, and she has a beautiful craft room where she can be close to the family while CRAFTING! She is so happy to be able to know exactly where to find things and even more importantly, put them away. Her craft room is now the first thing people see when they come over to her house. This new system helps her to be able to work when she has free time and is easily able to be put away when she needs to. I love when I can help people who think they don't need help.  You might be amazed at how much free time you will create once you have gone through and organized your stuff!

Utilize all space- even hanging space!

I know you are thinking, "It

Finished Craft Cabinet
The yarn at the top was our solution until she
got the *yarn wall made. I knew it would
bother her to have it out like that so it
was a great way to motivate her even
more to get that project finished!

wasn't even that bad to begin with!" 

and you're right, it was 

organized, but it wasn't being used to its best ability. Most importantly it wasn't being used by my client. Why have it if you aren't going to use it. She wanted to use it but was stuck. Now she is unstuck and able to get creative in an organized space! If you are feeling stuck in an area of your life, please reach out to Prim and Proper Method and we would love to get you unstuck!