source: brighterworlds

Okay, now that you’ve asked yourself some questions about what role crafts play in your family and where you’d like to keep them and looked at frugal containers for organizing crafts, let’s look at a plan to actually get organized.

1. Lay out all of your children’s craft supplies. I know this is always the hardest step of getting organized, but I really believe it’s the secret to getting organized.

Pros: You’ll be able to see everything at once and organize it as you pack it away, so that you can group things together rather than having them scattered throughout the craft area.

Cons: If you have little kids, laying out all of your craft supplies at once with them around is a recipe for disaster. Also, if you lay it all out, you’ll need to be committed to packing it all away or else deal with the additional clutter until you get it done.

2. Throw away any craft supplies that have outlived their usefulness – old glue that’s hardened, broken crayons (unless you’re really going to make these adorable melted crayons), sticker sheets that are mangled and almost empty, coloring books with hardly a blank page left in them.

Pros: You’ll have a fresh start as you begin to organize. You’ll need less space and everything will be neater and easier to straighten.

Cons: Be prepared for much wailing and gnashing of teeth if your children see their craft supplies in the trash. In my experience, it doesn’t matter how trashed the supplies are or how many beautiful supplies they still have – or that they won’t even notice if they don’t see it in the trash can – they’ll decide THAT was their favorite craft supply that they can’t possibly live without!

3. Group the crafts in a way that makes sense logically and also makes them easiest to get to.

If you’re using baby wipe containers, you may put markers in one, paints in another and crayons in a third. If you’re using a larger shoe box or plastic storage bin, you may find that combining similar supplies to fill each box is a better way to do it.

I have six boxes in my craft area:

• Paints and Glue
• Paper and Stickers
• Embellishments (foam shapes, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, popsicle sticks, etc.)
• Play-Doh and Moon Sand
• Bubbles and Chalk
• Manipulatives (okay, not really a craft…)

I’ll show you the rest of my craft area tomorrow, since I’m sure you’re wondering where our crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc. are.

4. Use smaller containers to hold small craft supplies together so that they don’t just make an additional mess in your boxes.

5. Pack and label your boxes! It’s okay if you don’t have a label maker, just grab some tape, write a label and stick it to the box.

And that’s it – now it’s your turn to make it happen. I can’t wait to see pictures of your newly organized craft supplies!