Hello? Organization Fairy?

I haven’t been doing much crafting lately, due in part to scheduling, but mostly because everything is such a mess and all over the place that it frustrates me to try and find anything. When we moved into the house, the basement was where all of my crafting things went, since it was where I was going to be sewing. I kept saying “oh, I’ll organize this later.” Then we got a dog, had dinner parties, vending events happened, Christmas gifts were made, and I now work three part-time jobs. (I told my Mom the other day “I thought it was supposed to be easy when you got your dream job.” She just laughed and laughed.)

Regardless of life events, I’ve let my craft area get out of hand. It’s more like a craft/fabric dumping ground. I also found more fabric in boxes that were packed from our last apartment, which really means they had been packed in a hurry and never unpacked from the previous living situation. Gosh..

I don’t even want to take pictures because it’s too embarrassing. I have three scrap boxes that are overflowing and I keep finding projects and thread in unexpected places. I had a hole punch, sharpies, and paper scraps in my dance bag from who knows how long.

Here’s what the table looks like when I’ve been on a sewing spree:

I’ve been looking at fun ideas to organize using fancy boxes and bins, cute revamped dressers, and even filing cabinets for fabric which all seem like they would like life so much easier and prettier. Here is a link to one of the sites I like to dream about using all these ideas. http://www.thescrapshoppeblog.com/2015/01/20-fabric-storage-ideas.html

I’ve come to the conclusion, however, that I might need my own sewing store set up, just to contain it all.

I currently use a mix of old suitcases, cardboard boxes,  randomly sized Rubbermaid totes, and some smaller baskets. Mason jars and tins hold my buttons and smaller things. I have some wheeled drawer carts and a two shelf thing with dividers in the shelves, making it into four thin shelves. I have a three shelf bookshelf and a 2 shelf metal shelf that is questionably sturdy.

Oh, and the huge old wooden trunk that tried to kill my husband by sliding into the driver’s seat of my old van while he was driving. He hates that trunk, but it works pretty well to hold my fat quarters and I borrowed it (with no intention of giving it back) from my parents so I can’t really give it up. Plus, I would have to replace it with another option to store fat quarters anyway.

I think that I need a more standardized set of storage containers and at least one more sturdy metal shelf. My crafting and sewing books take up almost all the small bookshelf and I still have some magazines to add to it, so I don’t really have that as an option. We have some nice IKEA shelves in the kitchen that I think would work well down in the basement too.

I’ve seen people who leave their fabric wrapped up on comic book boards in a bookshelf and think that it looks adorable. I don’t want to leave my fabric exposed though, since it is all stored in the basement. I am going to use the cardboard from our moving boxes to make my own comic book boards for fabric, but they will be in totes. All my totes right now are different colors and I may want clear ones so I can see what is in it. The other option to avoid having to spend money is to divide the totes by type of fabric or by how much, such as all cottons, all apparel fabrics, or by 2 yard, 3 yard, etc. That is sort of how they are now, but it is still a mess. Having the cardboard should help everything stay in the right shape and make things easier to store hopefully.

I’m not giving up my suitcases though. I love the way it looks to store things in them and it makes it look a little more personalized instead of all totes. I have a cool vintage 60’s one that has my already cut squares in it, and another one that has already cut strips in it. If you’re interested in seeing that scrap saving system, I used Bonnie Hunter’s guidelines from her site Quiltville. It works really well to get me going through scrap boxes, but lately I have not been good about using it. http://quiltville.com/index.html

I also want to do something different with the scrap boxes and color code them. Most of the time with scraps, I’m looking for a specific color and have to sort through ridiculous amounts of fabric to find them. I have two sets of clear plastic drawer carts with three drawers each that if I can move things around, I can use them. Some of the colors can be put together, like yellow and orange, so that might work. They also sit next to my sewing space, so it would be very convenient for scrap quilting.

So those are some of my ideas. If you have any other ones that work for you, let me know! Hopefully one day soonish my craft area will be lovely and well-organized space to work in. I’ll post some progress pictures along the way to keep myself motivated.