Featured design: Queen Anne’s Lace by india_parkhurst_ 

Ever wonder how to wrangle your craft room into better working order? Or how to create a craft room from scratch? Organization expert and blogger Lela Burris, whose blog Organized-ish focuses on how progress is better than perfection, visits the Spoonflower blog to share craft room organizational tips you can use if your craft room’s either a hot mess or a brand new idea. Lela also reveals her own craft room makeover with our Peel & Stick wallpaper and curtains 

How To Set Up An Organized Craft Room

Close up of a neat organized craft room with white-and-gray carpet, a wooden table in the center with black chairs around it, two white boards on the wall to the left with black storage cabinets underneath them and a large craft organization cabinet to the right. The left wall and craft cabinets are covered in wallpaper with a black background and small white and red flowers.

There’s nothing better than sneaking off into your craft room after a long stressful week to lock yourself behind the doors and get creative for hours. But if your craft space is cluttered and disorganized, it feels less like a refuge and more like another room to avoid.  

My name is Lela, and I’m an organization expert and lifelong crafter. I’ve helped hundreds of people set up and organize their craft rooms so they have more time for doing fun things and spend less time searching for the scissors. If your craft space needs some love, here are my top tips for creating a more functional work area. 

Assess Your Storage Needs Before Buying Furniture

A look at a planning wall on which two whiteboards, each for a different month have been placed. The design on the wallpaper has a black background and small white Queen Anne’s lace flowers and small red blooms. A black storage unit with gold door pulls is underneath the whiteboards.
Close up of a vertical row of small clear craft bins with peel and stick wallpaper stuck the front of the bins. The wallpaper design features a black background and small white Queen Anne’s lace blooms as well as small red blooms. The bottom drawer is open to reveal rows of different-colored washi tape in small white plastic bins.

First, assess the space: Before you buy a single piece of furniture, you need to assess the supplies you have now and understand what you need from your space. Give your supplies a good old-fashioned purge-fest, take inventory of all your materials and get clear on what kind of furniture will serve you best. Spoiler alert: the furniture you have now might be working against you, not for you. 

Then assess your tools: The type of tools and materials you work with most often will determine the type of furniture you need, and they’ll also determine the room’s layout. Some crafters need a large table and a wall of shelves for paper storage, while others need a lot of floorspace for dress forms and closed cabinets for fabric. 

Take time to plan: Also, take time to plan out your entire layout on graph paper and indicate each zone and workspace, along with how you’ll use it. By creating zones, you’ll be able to work more efficiently and avoid accidents. Zones are the secret for a functional craft space, especially if you have multiple hobbies. 

Choose The Right Storage Containers 

In the photo’s foreground at the arms of two gray chairs pushed together. A round white table is just beyond them, and a wooden shelving unit with black metal sides is at the back of the photo with white cloth storage bins on the middle and bottom shelves and square wooden baskets on the remaining three shelves. Black curtains with small white and red flowers flank the shelving unit.

Measure first: Once you’ve chosen the furniture that will best serve your craft room, it’s time to give all your supplies a home. Measure all your shelves and cabinets to be sure they’ll fit before ordering, and if you’re purchasing containers in-store, don’t forget to take that measurement list with you. 

Check your style: Take into consideration your storage preferences around the rest of the house, too. Do you prefer clear or opaque bins? Do you like open shelving or closed cabinets? Just because this is a craft room doesn’t mean you’ll organize it any differently than your living room. Stick with the styles you already love and you’ll instantly feel comfortable working in the room. 

Go with lidded bins: Not sure what options to choose? My suggestion is to always go with bins that have lids that lock into place. It doesn’t matter how careful you are, drops and knock-overs are going to happen. By making sure all your containers have lids, you’ll prevent an explosion of glitter on the floor, and you’ll allow yourself the freedom to stack containers on shelves to maximize space. 

Get Creative With Decor 

Go bold: A craft room is the perfect place to experiment with color and pattern, so don’t be afraid to go a little bolder than you normally would. You don’t have to completely change your look, but if you’re usually a solid neutrals kind of decorator, add a subtle pattern to the mix.  

Use your scraps: You can change the entire feel of a room with removable wallpaper, even if you put it on just one wall. Plus, you can use the leftover scraps to cover container fronts, wrap glass jars and make decorative labels. 

In my own craft room, I used Queen Anne’s Lace by india_parkhurst_ on all three walls but in different ways. On the planning wall, the pattern covers the whole wall using removable wallpaper. In the craft zone, I covered my storage furniture and all the bin fronts with the same wallpaper. The office storage zone ties the whole room together with matching full-length curtain panels. 

Wallpaper selection pro tip:

Always order samples first. You get a better feel for the scale of the pattern and the tone of the colors paired with your room’s lighting. This is especially helpful if you’re a content creator who shoots video. Some patterns show up better on camera, and others with fine lines can actually get distorted during image or video processing. 

Purge Often 

One downside about being a crafter is that we accumulate a lot of “stuff.” From mystery grab bags to clearance finds, and all the hopeful projects we planned on making last holiday season, we end up storing a lot of things we may never use. If you’ve ever organized your craft room and found it bursting at the seams again in a few months, you know the struggle. 

Stay in control of your stuff: The key to getting your craft space organized and keeping it that way is staying in control of your inventory. If a warehouse gets too full, they find a way to reduce inventory, and your craft room should function the same way.

Find things you don’t use: Every few months, go through your materials and tools to find anything you probably won’t use. Those sheets of baby-themed scrapbook paper (when your oldest child is now five) will likely never get a photo attached to it. And that paper punch that jams every single time has no place in your punch drawer. 

Make a donation box: Add a running donation box to a small corner of the room so you can drop in things you don’t need or want any more as you come across them. Once it’s full, donate the supplies that are in good condition to a local teacher or senior center. You’ll know the items you spent money on will actually get used by someone else while freeing up space in your own craft room for your next project. 

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