I've been asked by a few lately how I organize my craft room. I'll tell you, I am blessed to have an entire room for my crafting. That comes from being old enough for my children to be grown and out on their own so one of the bedrooms became a craft room.
Don't misunderstand, I still have room for visits, especially from the grandchildren!
Anyway, I know a lot of you don't have that much space but I'm going to share things I've done that work for me and maybe you will pick up an idea or two that will work for you. Everyone needs a way to organize and utilize their space as effeciently as possible, right?
I'll start off with how I organize my stamp sets. I am a Stampin' Up! demonstrator so I buy their stamp sets exclusively. This helps a lot because I can keep the storage uniform. I always buy "clear mount" or "photopolymer" stamps whenever possible. Wood mounts take up so much more room I only have a very few of those.
When I get my stamp sets I make a copy of the front of the container that shows the images. I then put them into page protectors in my own "stamp set catalog". I have my catalog separated by catalog, "Annual", "Holiday" and "Spring" with another section for special promotions and Sale-a-Bration.
Once the pictures of the sets are in my notebook catalog I add a label to the spine of the box with the name of the stamp set. I also add Annual, Holiday, Hostess etc to the label after the name. This makes it easier to sort and pull when it is time for the catalog change over. It also makes the name of the set easier to see. I don't know about you but I can't even begin to see those little tiny pictures and names they put on the spines so the larger label really helps me out with that. BWG!
After labeling them I put them on bookshelves in alphabetical order. This way I can look through my "catalog" find what I need for my project, note the name of the set and find it on the shelf lickity split.
You could also store them in drawers with the spines showing and accomplish the same thing if you don't have a bookcase.
I keep my "catalog" next to my work space so I can grab it and look through it to find just the right stamp for my project. It works well for me because I certainly can't remember all the stamps I have and I need to see the image to know if it's going to fit with what I'm making.
So, that's the first installment of how I organize my craft room. Next up will be organizing my embossing folders, thinits, framelits and dies.
