Organize your Craft Supplies after the holidays, Continued!

Here are more tips to organize your craft supplies after the holiday season:

Hello, and welcome back. My previous post, Organizing your Craft Supplies after the Holidays was the first 4 tips on how to organize your craft supplies after the holidays. The tips can also be used if you ever feel the need to organize your craft supplies at any time, not just around the holiday season.

Donate or sell anything you don’t need.

So, now you’ve done all that work with sorting, labeling, and finding bins. Don’t forget to label your bins! What should you do with leftover supplies that you know you won’t use but are still in good working order? DONATE!

Make a donation to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. However, my first phone call is always to local assisted living facilities. Assisted living facilities are a very good way to give back to your community, and they have a lot of activities for our elders that include craft time.

I ask for the entertainment director and explain that I am wanting to donate some items to them for crafting activities.I will give them a quick run-down of general items (paper, stamps, ink, etc.) and see if they would like them. This is also a good time to have a conversation about donating handmade cards.

Keep your work area clean and clutter-free.

So, now you’ve done all that work with sorting, labeling, and finding bins. Don’t forget to label your bins! What should you do with leftover supplies that you know you won’t use but are still in good working order? DONATE!

I feel like this is also an extension of tip number 4, which is a long section.

However, if you make sure to put away all your craft supplies when you’re done using them, it will be easier to find everything when you want to use them next. Tip six, seven, and eight can be done together.

Organize as you go.

As with keeping your work area clean and clutter-free, organizing as you go is a great way to stay on top of your craft supplies. Making sure they don’t get too out of hand and assisting with finding items you may not use again and can donate.

Whenever you buy new craft supplies, take a few minutes to put them away in the correct place and find a system that works for you. I put a strikethrough through part of that sentence because I find that if I put my new things away right away, I forget to use them. Instead, I have a few buckets I got from the dollar store and label them like the old inbox trays (I am dating myself here). I then put them in my rotation of projects to be done.

Now, I have these lovely, organized projects. I keep about 4 bins in rotation for my new stuff that comes in. As I do this, I like to look and see what else I could use with them. For my card projects, I will add in some cardstock, DSP (Designer Series Paper), ink pads, and dies if the stamp set has coordinating dies. Then when I’m done using something, I make sure to put it away immediately. After I’ve labeled it and put it in the sleeves, I use it to store my stamps and dies.

This section also goes with Tip 4, “organizing as you go.” This method helps with finding a system that works. I also keep a binder with tabbed dividers, and I keep card sketches for future reference, along with information on where I found the sketch so I can credit that person when I do use them in a project.

Use a calendar or planner to keep track.

If you’re someone who likes to plan, use a calendar or planner to keep track of your craft supplies. Planning is a great way to stay organized.

You can use a calendar or planner to keep track of when you need to restock on supplies, or to remind yourself to use up certain supplies before they expire.

Using a planner is helpful as you can use tabbed dividers for various sections. Sections such as weekly and monthly plans for your projects, or content ideas if you are creating social media content sections with materials and tools you are wanting to purchase.

It’s a great way to hold all your ideas and have them on hand whenever you need to update anything.

I have recently started to use a white dry-erase board to plan out content and hold myself more accountable in the new year. I have thin vinyl tape at 1/8 inch, and I’m making a calendar with the tape and adding places to write notes.

The vinyl tape will allow it to be removed at a later time. I’ll list the content I’d like to create as well as the dates and deadlines for social media posts related to my blog and content creation.

Take your time.

Don’t try to rush through the process of getting your craft supplies organized. Take your time and do it right, find the method of organization and what resources work best for you, and keep yourself motivated, and you’ll be much happier with the results.

I can’t really stress the importance of taking your time and finding what works for you. If you rush through it, you will miss out on really evaluating what your crafting style is, what you like to craft, and what you just do not have any interest in crafting any longer.

If you need to take a break, take a break from that specific craft. Move on to something else, or step away completely and come back with a fresh look.

Make Lists.

Once you’ve got your craft supplies organized, make a list of what you need to keep your supplies stocked.

How are you doing with adhesives? Do you use wet glue? Do you have an ATG tape gun? Look at what’s out there for refills and find the best price. I get my ATG refills through Tape Jungle. I do more paper crafts at this moment.

This list will come in handy when you’re shopping for new supplies and will help you make sure you don’t forget anything. Keep it handy and out in the open, I have a list going on my desktop with a sticky note program that is on my desktop.

Have a paper planner? Keep it on a dashboard that is easy to move from week to week. Better yet, keep it on your phone in a notes app (looking at all of us iPhone users). I’m not familiar with Android, but if you have suggestions, please let me know!

Conclusion

While this concludes my list of tips and suggestions on organizing your craft supplies are the holidays, I’ve mentioned before that really you can apply all the tips in this post and in my previous post, to organizing your craft supplies, as well as general organizational tips for other areas of your home.