How to Organize Your Craft Stash

If you have a craft room, or closet, or cabinet, chances are you need to clean it up occasionally. Here’s how to organize your craft stash, make it fun, and find supplies you forgot you even owned.

I count myself extremely fortunate to have an office/studio/craftroom and it’s a gift I don’t take for granted. Every time I walk in the room, I breathe a little sigh of happiness and fulfillment. I’m truly in my happy place when surrounded by art, creativity, and craft supplies.

Sadly though, my beautiful office also becomes a dumping ground every few months. Apparently, the family sees this room as “extra space.”

At this very moment, next to my worktable a giant stuffed giraffe lies in a pile of roller skates, leaning against a hide-a-mat. Why? Not quite sure, as none of these things are craft supplies, or even mine. I think it’s because they used to live in my daughter’s room, and her idea of organizing means secretly dumping her cast-offs in my office and hoping I won’t notice.

But I can’t even totally blame my family, although they do their fair share of the dumping. Currently my workspace is covered with precarious piles of my own project materials, ranging from not-yet-started to finished-and-abandoned.

Then there’s the random scraps here and there throughout the room. A new paintbrush I picked up on sale. Three pairs of scissors that I left out because only one actually cuts, and I can’t remember which one. A bottle of rubber cement from a half-finished project.

I really need to spend a little time organizing, so I can get back to using all this stuff!

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Organizing Your Craft Stash

Organizing is tough because it involves a LOT of decisions. Whether you’re organizing a whole room full of craft supplies, or an overflowing drawer, it’s easy to get lost in the sea of questions about whether to keep each piece, and where to put it.

This is where most people get overwhelmed and can’t finish the organizing project, and it usually happens right after you’ve pulled out all your stuff into the middle of the room.

While the number of decisions can feel endless, they really break down into two types of decisions: what to keep and where to put it.

We’ll tackle each of these decisions separately because they use different thinking processes, and trying to do them both at once is confusing and frustrating to your brain. Or maybe just my brain.

Decision 1: Keep/ Toss/ Give

With apologies to Marie Kondo, who I greatly admire, I don’t believe in scaling back on craft supplies. Maybe that’s because each one of my own crafty bits brings me joy.

Also, I might be a bit of a hoarder. Just when it comes to crafting.

The problem with a craft stash is each and every bit and bauble might be useful someday. (I know, that’s exactly what hoarders say.)

But the nature of creativity means you can make something out of almost nothing. It also means you spend a lot of money on supplies, whether or not you actually know how you’ll use them someday. (That’s a problem for another blog post.)

So how do you know when to get rid of something crafty? When it causes a mental block for your creativity. For me, I’m most disturbed by clutter and things that look broken down and unkempt. If I can find a way to store things attractively, I can keep almost everything!

But I’m getting ahead of myself to step two. More on that later.

The Three Pile Method, Simplified

I use the three pile method when making the first decision about whether to keep my craft supplies. Except I really only use two piles. Here’s how it works.

The three pile (or bag) method means you make a landing spot for “keep,” one for “trash,” and one for “give away.” My interpretation, which narrows down the three piles to two, is to make a spot for “trash” and “give away” outside your workspace. There is no “keep” pile.

As you decide what to keep and what to get rid of, you’ll put the keepers back into your craft space and the things to trash or give away will go outside your office, closet or desk.

When you’re done going through everything, the things you need to get rid of will already be outside your productive space, and the keepers will be where you need to put them.

One caveat though: your keepers do not need to be organized yet. You’re just keeping them in the space to be ready for the next step. At this point, don’t waste your brainpower on deciding where and how the keepers will be organized. We’ll get to that in a minute.

What to do with Supplies You Don’t Need

If you find step one “keep/toss/give” overwhelming, I hereby grant you permission to simplify the toss and give piles into one pile. It’s perfectly OK to give away everything you decide not to keep, or even to trash everything you decide not to keep.

Don’t feel pressured to perfectly optimize this part of the decision. The point is to keep the things that are important to you, and to get the rest out of your house.

If it’s easier to just dump everything you’re not keeping into the trash then go for it. (Just don’t tell me what you put in there or you might find me dumpster diving in your trash can before the next trash pick-up.)

For the supplies that you choose to give away, you could always donate them to your local charity thrift store, or you could host a “Supply Swap” with your other crafty friends. It’s a great excuse to get together, drink coffee (or wine), and catch-up while shopping someone else’s stash for free!

Decision 2: Where to Put the “Keeps”

This is going to be different for each person, depending on your storage situation. While I have a whole craft room to organize, I try to keep all my supplies corralled in the closet, so I can free up my work space for creating and writing.

So I’ll tackle this project from the standpoint of organizing a closet. You can adjust as needed for your particular situation.

Once you’ve gotten your “trash” and “give away” piles out of your space, you can focus on the “keep” pile. Now it’s time to decide how to put all your keepers away in the right place, so you can easily get to them when you need them.

Organizing is all about grouping. You’ll group items together based on some common characteristic. I like to group things by function. I have bins and boxes for:

• Glue, tape, and adhesives
• Scissors and cutting tools
• Paint and brushes
• Drawing and other art supplies
• Clay and tools
• Paper and scrapbooking
• Ribbons, string, and rope
• Canvases and boards for painting on
• Floral and wreath supplies
• Sewing machine and supplies
• Block printing and carving
• Decorative odds and ends

If most of your supplies fall into one or just a few of the categories above, you might want to group them by some other characteristic. Quilters might sort their fabric by color. Or Painters might sort their paint by medium.

Scrapbookers, you guys probably have a whole other hierarchy for keeping track of all your bits and pieces!

Put it All Away Again

Once you’ve figured out how you want to sort your supplies, it’s time to start putting them away. Here’s a few tips to make this part easier:

Closed storage is your friend.

Putting odds and ends into a box or container just makes them seem less… cluttery. Is that a word? You know what I mean.

Round up all those bits and pieces and put them in a box or basket. Giving them a boundary will instantly free you from the clutter.

Your boxes or bins don’t need to be fancy, or even all match. Just use what you have. My own craft closet is a collection of amazon boxes, shoe boxes, and random baskets I’ve collected over the years.

Don’t spend too much time making your storage look pretty, unless it’s on display in a public room, like a living or dining space.

Get a label maker. Or a sharpie.

When you put things away in closed storage, you need to know where you put them! I love my label maker for making this job efficient and consistent looking.

Feel free to use a sharpie for marking on the sides of your boxes though, if you don’t have a label maker. Write the contents of the box clearly on the outside, describing whatever system you’ve chosen for organizing your stash.

Boxes are more efficient storage than bags.

In general, you’ll want to store most items in a rectangular shaped box or bin, especially if you’re organizing anything that will go on a shelf.

While it can be tempting to throw all your sewing scraps into a bag, consider folding them and stacking them into a see-through plastic bin. That way you can stack bins on a shelf, rather than stuffing overflowing bags into every nook and cranny.

The exception to this rule is if you’re organizing a drawer or cabinet. Sometimes smaller spaces can more easily accommodate bags that can be squished together.

The Don’ts of Organizing

Don’t buy a bunch of fancy organizing containers. That will just encourage more hoarding, and make you spend more time organizing. The exception is if you need certain supplies to be portable it makes sense to get carrying bins for them. (Like my painting supply tool box.)

Don’t waste time labeling things that are obvious. Labels are for the outside of boxes, bins and baskets so you know what’s inside. No need to label your gallon size jug of Elmer’s glue as “Slime Ingredient.”

Don’t fill up every nook and cranny of your storage while putting away the things you’re keeping. While a tight stack looks nice and satisfying, you won’t have any space to put the next supply you inevitably will bring home soon. Then you’ll have to reorganize all over again. If you leave a sliver of space in each box or on each shelf, that new supply can slide easily into its rightful place.

Don’t get down on yourself for being a craft hoarder. There are worse things in life than obsessively prepping for spontaneous creativity. If you feed off the kinetic energy of your craft stash, then it’s working for you.

Let’s do this!

Put on some music or a podcast. Light a candle far away from your paper products.

Pull out your trash bags and label maker.

Make it fun! cleaning is more fun when you make a game out of it, so I designed this fun little bingo game for all the things you might find in your craft stash. It’s really a checklist of things to try to get rid of, but it looks like so much more fun in a bingo card!

Print your checklist (instructions below) and start pulling out craft supplies. You’ll be surprised at what you have that you may have forgotten about, and you might even find inspiration to start a new project!

Happy organizing! Drop me a comment below and tell me the weirdest thing you found in your craft stash. I bet someone could find a way to use it!