Tips and ideas for how to clean your craft room if you are a visual organizer! I had to clean and organize my craft room (again) and I will take you along on this journey with me!
Why I Wrote This Post
I KNEW my craft room was a mess… obviously the evidence was all around me! So I trotted on over to Youtube to get some help and wah, wah, wah.
Most of the people over there were super organized already (I could laugh at how “messy” their craft rooms are at the start if I wasn't over here crying in my beer about having to clean my craft room AGAIN!)
I KNOW there are other visual type craft people like me out there and I thought I would show you my systems for organizing to help you if you have to see everything out like me!
Organizing My Craft Room Like A Craft Store
As I was going through this process I was thinking to myself that I would like my craft room to work and function like a craft store!
Think of all the different sections in a craft store and match them up with what you have in craft supplies! My “store sections” are:
- Planners & Past Journals
- Essential Oils and Candles
- Metal Things
- Embossing and Stamping
- Dies and Stamps
- LOTS of paper
- LOTS of paint
Functionally I made that list thinking of how I have my craft room organized from the furthest away things to the closest things and then how I use different mediums together!
So if you are reading this and trying to figure out how to organize your craft room visually here is a kind of overview of my “craft store” organization system if you are following along with the pictures or the video!
I tried to match up the color of things so you can figure out where I am when I am showing you the pictures!
Craft Room Tour Video
I recorded the process starting with the mess and then onto the “craft store” magic! Here is a video of the stages of organizing my craft room!
Before and After Craft Room Pictures
Okay, here is how we are going to do this… I am going to show you my messy craft room areas and then how I organized that area! This will mostly be from the furthest away to the nearest to my desk.
Closet and Second Desk Problem
The problem with this area was two-fold. First off, that metal rack did not have enough storage spaces in it… it was a hold over from when this was my daughter's bedroom.
The second problem was my second desk… see it under all that crap.. nope, neither can I! I thought that if I had it over there I would work on it sometimes, but I NEVER ONCE slid my chair over and worked on it so I am going to swing it around and then put in “new” storage cubbies from around the house!
Gather Storage Supplies You Already Have
One of my goals for this cleanup project was to NOT spend a fortune on cubes again. My Kallax Cubes are AMAZING and I love them, but I have other cubes around the house that are not functioning the best so I gathered them up to put in here!
I took two cubes out of my closet and then one bigger cube set out of the upstairs room in my house.
New Storage Closet With Cubes
Here are the cubes in my second closet (I KNOW, I am so privileged to have a HUGE craft room, but it is sorta my job so I feel like I can justify it!)
This is the old journals and planner section. The cart in front of it has essential oils and my candle stuff in it!
Middle of the Room Storage
This is totally new section of my craft room I made by swinging my desk around and using this cube cabinet from another room!
The cubes hold my Christmas, Halloween, extra paint, fabric and the top pull drawers (which I got at an estate sale) hold my ribbons.
I asked my super organized husband if he liked my room and this is what he hated the most. He couldn't fathom putting a desk and a dresser sticking out into the room like this.
But I was thinking “craft store” and they don't have a huge open space in the middle, instead they have aisles you go up and down to shop. These are things that I don't use everyday so having them over here is a great way to keep them visible but not a bother.
Red Bookshelf for Miscellaneous Storage
Here is the next messy craft room picture… the red bookcase and the black bookcases were not doing what they needed!
The red bookcase holds miscellaneous things like, sewing needles, buttons, random tools, extra supplies and new things. I moved the buttons and thread box to the other black bookcase to free up shelf space over there!
The nice thing is that I have more space for my decoupage storage boxes that I did as a HUGE project a few years ago!
Black Bookcases
These black bookcases are a hold over from when I had a “real” office for my marketing company. They are just okay for craft room storage, but they do add a little bit more flat space for when I need to lay out papers to dry.
I have all my sprays in those decorative tray boxes and then ribbons in the silk and thread drawers (the cotton drawer is empty… whoo whoo!)
This is my FAVORITE new storage solution. Those Portland Bottling Co boxes I got cheap at Michaels and used old jello molds to put all my metal bits in. They are super organized but still visible to use.
That middle shelf is a rock star… she keeps herself super organized (for me) all the time… there are chalk paints. sanding blocks and leftover jello molds in there.
I love using clear glass jars for storage, these have my DISCs for my Disc Bound planners, paintbrushes and hardware metal bits.
Kallax Cubes Storage
As I was researching craft room cleaning videos I saw a LOT of hate for Kallax cubes… not gonna lie, these were SOOOO expensive, but totally worth it for me! My Kallax cubes organization is what makes me able to have so many craft supplies close to me while I work!
I didn't change these a ton besides moving some things closer to me and some things further away.
That said, a huge thing I did was free up space so I could move my stamps and dies closer to me. I had them in the mess of the closet and I think I used them one or two times all of last year.
I had my acrylic stamp storage book near me last year and I used it A LOT… yay! But with the dies storage so far away I never schlepped over the 7 feet or so to get there (you saw the pile in front of that closet, do you think I even COULD get over to them?)
My goal this year is to actually USE all the craft supplies I bought and this should make that so much easier!
I moved my gel plate box down to the end furthest from me because it is super specific and I will grab it when I want to gel plate!
I also moved “papers I made” down since I don't use them a ton, mostly they are left over from whole projects I did and I am not great at reusing old stuff.
If you have Kallax cubes for sure get some dividers so they can hold more things… that is one my best Kallax tips!
Another thing that works great for me is to have a mess of tools, paintbrushes, scissors and functionally all the things that I use day to day right beside my desk.
I KNOW, this looks messy, but generally I will just grab a handful of paintbrushs, not look for the “right one” and I know by the colored handles of my scissors which ones I want to grab!
Two Alex Desks
As far as messy-ness goes, I don't think this picture really shows how dysfunctional my desk situation was before this cleaning project began.
I felt like all my “stuff” was closing in on me and I could actually use anything I wanted to without a hassle.
Can I just say that looking at this setup makes me smile so big!
I have two clear work surfaces to use, my Big Shot Switch right on the side and lots of room for random craft supplies that I use every day but they are not all crowded around me!
As you can tell I am visual organizer but I do love having the Alex drawer right there next to me!
I tend to put things I use all the time in there because even if I “forget” about them, I know they are in one of the darn drawers or another!
A big part of my “craft store organizing” is that all the things that I think are alike are in one place. For example, I think texture paste and glitter goes together because Tim Holtz launches them together at Halloween and Christmas time.
Really the thing that makes this craft room storage and organization so perfect for me is that I used Dana K. White's advice to put things where I think they will be rather than where I think is their “right” place!
Clutter Bug Lady – Butterfly Organization
The only person that helped me all in the process of cleaning was Cas the Clutterbug Lady. She talks about 4 kinds of organizing starting with the premise of whether you need to see your stuff or if you want everything hidden away.
After taking her quiz and exhaustive research (watching a bunch of her videos), come to find out I am a butterfly. That means that I have to see everything and I have to organize at a macro level… no little storage tins or box, no lids, just dump everything in and figure it out as I go!
I wanted to give you this additional resource because I am not a cleaning and organizing expert (obviously) and she was super helpful to me in thinking about how to manage my craftroom storage!
Visual Craft Room Organization Wrapup
I hope this has helped give you ideas for how you could clean and organize your craft room if you are a visual person.
One of the gals commented on my video that this would be her dream craft room… well it IS my dream craft room now and I feel so blessed that I have the space and organization thing all figured out for this year at least!
