How to set up your craft space?

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Whether you have a craft room or a place to put your craft, you need to work out how to set it up so it's convenient and works for you.

The first things to do when setting up a craft space:

You need to create sections for all your different craft hobbies. My hobbies, are all very different and all require different storage.
So decide where you will put which hobby in your home.
Work out what you will need to store everything.

Break down your craft space based on your hobbies.

Ok, let's work out all of your hobbies. Write down, what are you hobbies. Then write down exactly what you have in resources for your hobbies. This includes any tools you use and exactly what you have to store. Break it down into categories. For example, if you have a truck load of stickers, write it down. Because they will need to find a home. If you have heaps of diamond paintings not yet used, write down how many. Do this for all of your hobbies.

Look at what you already have storage wise in your home. Can you allocate it to your craft?

I find if I look around my entire home, and write down my current storage places, some I may not have fully used. For example, I had used 2 draws out of a 5 draw set in my room, whereas now I have taken those 2 draws out and filled it with 5 draws of scrapbooking. It's about using what you have first. Then looking at what you may want down the track. You don't have to buy it straight away, just work out when you can afford to buy each storage item and try to buy it then. One at a time, not everything at once, if required.

How much storage space do you need? Is at a whole room? Is it half a shelf? Now you have worked out what storage you have and may be what future storage you need, use a pencil and draw your craft space to work out what goes where and to determine if its enough room for your hobbies. Remember, your craft space doesn't have to be an actual craft room if you don't have space. It can be in all different parts of your home and you just bring out what you need when you are crafting for whichever hobby. Read my blog post on how I use a small space for craft in my home.

As I am a short person, having tools or hobby resources up high is not beneficial for me. I am unable to reach it which means I will rarely try to do the hobby. It just becomes a problem. So when setting up your space, think about what is in easy reach for you. If your craft is in a spot where you can reach it easily, it is more likely to be used. However, if you do have young children or small pets who like to pry, may be you might have to put your craft up a decent height where they can't reach or put child proof locks on your cupboards.

So now you have created or designed your craft space. Where do you put your finished craft?

Finished craft is always tricky. You need to determine 3 things before working this out:

1. Are you going to keep it for yourself?

2. Are you going to give it away?

3. Or are you going to sell it?

1. If you are going to keep your craft, you need to work out what space you have for it.

For example, I have kept all my diamond paintings. I may place one of my favourites into a photo frame. But the others are stored into a storage tub. This keeps them dry and dust-free. So if I decide to swap one of my framed diamond paintings for a different one, I easily can.

However, you may want to display your hobbies that you have made. At one point, I displayed my miniature homes in my lounge room. So I could feel proud of them and showcase them to others when I was in the lounge room. This did require a bit of space. Even though they were miniature, they were about half a shoe box size in length. Some were bigger.

2. If you are going to give your craft away, you will need to work out when you are giving the items away.

For example, I crocheted over 20 suns. I originally was going to sell them online. They didn't sell. So I kept them for Christmas (about 6 months of storage) and gave them away then. Because of the length of time I kept them in storage, I needed them to stay in shape and dust-free. So I placed them in a large storage tub. This worked, and helped me realise after a full storage tub of crocheting items, I had crocheted a lot during the year. Luckily, once I gave away the suns and ice creams I had crocheted, it made much more room for the New Year's crocheting projects.

3. If you are going to sell your craft, this is what you will need to work out.

Again, if you are going to sell items. It might make sense to make 3-6 months worth of hobby projects to sell all at once rather than sell after each one is made. This is up to you. Either way, you need a place to put your hobby items in to keep them sellable. For example, if I was selling miniature homes, I did just leave them out on display. I didn't put them in a tub because they could have become broken just by handling them, as they were very fragile. They also didn't seem to collect dust.

However, as mentioned above, for my crocheting projects, I did use a storage tub for items I wanted to sell. This was easy, because if I decided to take them to the markets to sell, I could literally pack a couple of storage tubs in the car to take with me of the goods. Rather than baskets or bags of crocheted projects and then forgetting some along the way.

Again, all of the above is determined on what craft storage you have already and what craft storage you have room to include. Also don't be afraid to change up your craft space as often as you need to. It's important you find out what works for you.

#crocheting #diamondpainting #scrapbooking #writing #reading #hobbies #craftspace #meltoye

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