Craft Room Organization & Storage Ideas

Due to my sluggishness in housekeeping and bad time-management, I seldom cleaned up my craft room after each project. Also, I always start a new project immediately after one, and most of the time I am on several projects simultaneously. My hands work slower than my brain, this is the major one to blame! With so many things to do at one time, all my craft materials are all over my working space, on the table, in the drawers, on the floor and some even still in the bags of the craft store where I bought them from….. one word, MESSY!!! At time, I spent more time searching and digging out craft materials than the actual crafting time. Out of sight out of mind, majority of the time, I don’t even remember I have bought certain materials and have to buy again when I need to use them, opppssss… the materials pop up in front of me when I am not searching for them (I think this happened to many of you too… :D). It is time to change this bad habit, I need a neat craft room so that I knew where I keep my things and create more spaces so that I have more room to work on. Knowing where they are, seeing how they look give me better inspiration to create and design. Here I am, writing the my option of craft room storage ideas.

My craft room is very small and I am sharing it with other storage of the house…. should I say my craft room is inside the store room :p ? Due to space constraint, I made use of the wall for extra storage spaces. Shelves are the best solution for me… I have used up almost all the walls in my craft room (ahem… or store room?) for the shelving. I tried to put everything vertically to reduce the foot print so I have more room to walk around. My ideal craft room would have an island table, but again, struggling for spacious room, I have to set my working table near to the wall. May be next time, when I have a new craft room, I want it to be double the size of this one so that I can have my dream islander…. hubby, do you hear me?

Label, label, label on the boxes and drawers!!!! It is important so that you know where you keep your things, especially in the early stage of your craft room re-organization, also good for house keeping after each project.

Small sewing accessories like buttons are best store in transparent containers. I like the small multi-level containers (see picture 1), each level for each different type of buttons. Since I like to sew bags, I used glass jar with lid to store my others bags notions.

Fabric storage is the main concern for may of you who sew and quilt. For big yardage, I fold them and stack them up according to fabric type in a hanging shelf inside the wardrobe to keep away dust and damages caused by UV ray. For stashes and fat quarters, I fold them into smaller pieces, sort them according to color type, then slot them into an airy stackable container. Ideally, 1 container for 1 color, I took this picture before I managed to get another 4 container of the same types. For those who live in Malaysia, go to Popular book store to buy it, for limited time only. If you have bulky fabric, like fleece, microfiber, towel etc, use vacuum storage bag to reduce the occupancy space.

As you may notice, I also made use of all possible places to hang my tools, like embroidery hoop, quilting rulers, dress maker ruler etc….

Now, you have reorganized and kept your material in proper place which is easy to access…. can you maintain the tidiness?

Tips on how to maintain a tidy craft room:

1. Stow away stashes and left over materials back to their original place immediately after each and every project.

2. Labeling on boxes and drawers helps a lot in faster house-keeping.

3. Keep working table empty to spare space for the next session & project.

4. Keep tools back to their original storage end of every session.

5. I find that non-carpet flooring is much easier for cleaning up. Vacuum cleaner makes clean-up of threads, lints, and many other small particles easier and faster.

6. Spare a box or container to keep small pieces of fabric stashes. I won’t throw them if they were more than 1″ square. Keep them for other projects especially small applique & embellishment.

I think that’s all for now for the craft room storage ideas….. It is more time consuming than I anticipated to write this post and get the photos well presented. I hope you find it useful 🙂

More sewing projects coming up!!!!!