Organizing a Craft Room: 12 Things You Need to Throw Away Right Now

I’m a crafter.  Know what that means?  I like to hoard collect crafting supplies!  Anybody with me?  One of my goals for January is to clean up and get organized.  I especially needed to work on organizing my craft room.  It gets crazy busy in there the two months before Christmas.  I spend most of my time filling orders and creating special orders.  Absolutely NO time for cleaning!  (At least, that’s my excuse.)

So now it’s time for me to face this room head-on and get rid of a LOT of stuff.  Scroll down to see how I decided what to do away with.

NOTE: I wrote this several years ago when I lived in a townhouse in California. ALL my crafting supplies were in one room. Now that I have a 16′ x 24′ SheShed, it takes me a week to get organized in January! But I still follow this list.

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What to Throw Away When Organizing a Craft Room

1.  Pens – I had pens, pencils, and markers everywhere!  I got them all out on my table and wrote with every one of them.  Anything that didn’t work was immediately thrown away.  That included pencils with hard erasers that wouldn’t erase any more.

2.  Paper – I haven’t actually scrapbooked in about 7 years.  But I still had a supply of scrapbook papers.  I do use them from time to time in other projects so I didn’t want to throw away everything.  So again I got all the papers in one place and really thought about what I would use.  My style has changed over the last 7 years so some were easier to part with than others.  I also looked at my list of projects I have planned and saved some papers for those.

3.  Paint – I love to paint!  But I don’t even remember the last time I threw away paint so I decided to tackle this too.  Many of my bottles were dried up.  Into the trash they went.  Some colors were almost used up and others I didn’t have any ideas for projects for so they all went, too.  I got the acrylic paints down to one plastic shoebox.

4. Dried up glue

5. Multiples – When I started organizing I realized that I had multiples of some tools.  In the past, I’ve occasionally just bought a new tool when I couldn’t find the old one.  So I passed my extra tape measures, pincushions, and rulers on to someone who could use them.

6. Tools you don’t use – I have my favorite pliers that I use for making jewelry.  When they wore out I went and bought more just like them instead of using the pliers I had.  When I organized I found 5 pairs of pliers that I never use!

7.  Supplies for projects or hobbies you’ve lost interest in – For me, that includes knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, and scrapbooking.

8. Craft magazines – Just about everything in magazines can be found online but I still like to read magazines.  So when I find something I want to remember in a magazine, I’ll find it online and pin it to one of my Pinterest boards.  Then I can pass along my magazines to another friend who’s just as addicted as me!

9. Kids’ artwork – I know.  This is a super hard one.  Especially because it’s so sentimental.  I want to save every scrap of paper they’ve ever drawn or painted on.  But, let’s face it, my girls are now 22 and 24.  It’s time for me to get rid of some.  (Yes, I was STILL saving some of their art!)  BUT before I threw them away I took a close up picture of each individual one.  Now I can keep all of their artwork in a folder on my hard drive.  Wow… I wish I’d had an iPhone when my girls were little.  I’d probably have to buy an external hard drive JUST to store photos of their art.  They were very prolific artists.  (I’d also have a few pictures of murals on some of our walls, too!)

These last three items fall into a special category.  I’m giving myself one more chance on these.  I’ll add these to my list of projects.  BUT if I don’t do them by the next time I declutter, they’re going to Goodwill!

10.  Anything broken 

11. New craft supplies over a year old that still haven’t even been opened

12. Unfinished projects

If you need to know more about organizing a craft room, you might also like these:

• One Simple Trick to a Clutter-Free Home
• Ideas to Organize Small Craft Rooms
• How to Declutter a Craft Room
• How to Clean a Craft Room with a Lint Roller
• 21 Hacks To Help You Organize Your Art Studio

I hope this inspires you to do a little decluttering, too.  Leave a comment and let me know what is the hardest part of your craft room to keep organized. Originally published January 22, 2016.

‘Til the next project,

 Ann @ Duct Tape and Denim

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