While clearing the clutter in my craft room I have been learning some lessons in organizing in the most efficient way possible. My mentor, Leticia Pfeiffer (of Styled & Organized), has introduced me to a new concept: Think of your main storage area as valuable real estate. In my craft room the main storage area is a shelving unit that we refer to as the Craft Credenza.

Here is the “before” picture of the Craft Credenza:

This shelving unit had an up-scale title, but it had become the down-market hodgepodge of all my crafty hobbies. Two sewing machines took up most of the usable work surface. Since I wasn’t using the machines as much lately, we decided to move all sewing related items to a separate shelving unit.

If the room was going to serve multiple purposes, then grouping items together by hobby would make it easier to switch back and forth. Now that being said, some tools are used across multiple hobbies. So, these items definitely needed to be the easiest to access.

The Craft Credenza had to be re-organized so that it could support easy access to all of my most valuable tools and supplies. We started talking about it like it was an extremely valuable piece of real estate due for a little “remodel”. We added two new smaller strips of utility boards to the right of the existing boards and three rows of new drawers on the bottom.

When we were ready to start returning my tools and supplies to the credenza, Leticia referred to the area with the utility boards, counter and one level of drawers under the counter as “5th Avenue”. This is where I decided to keep my MOST used tools and supplies, including: scissors, rotary cutters, needles/sewing notions, my favorite paper punches, paper trimmers, my most used office supplies, tags and adhesives of all kinds. The four shelves above the utility boards were referred to as “Madison Avenue”. This is where I decided to keep things that are still accessed a lot but maybe not on a daily basis (such as my twine, Prismacolor pencils, in-progress and soon-to-be started knitting and sewing projects and card making supplies.) The bottom two drawers were referred to as “Park Avenue”, and this is where I stored all of my ink pads and other paper crafting tools.

Here’s a diagram to illustrate this concept:

This concept helped me think about how I work in the craft room in a brand new way. What things do I grab most often? Which things do I always seem to hunt down before I can start a brand new project? These should all be in our prime storage areas…the most accessible ones. I hope this helps you think differently about your valuable storage space. Leticia’s concept applies to all kinds of spaces, not just to crafty ones!

More articles are still to come this month regarding this total overhaul of my craft room. Be sure to come back soon for even more fun, practical information to help you on your organizing journey!