If you are like me, you can use all the organizing help you can get. This article on organizing your supplies for crafting on the go has some great ideas.

Via craftzine, I found this tutorial for how to get acrylic paint off of clothing using rubbing alcohol.

Well – one project I did, which I really like, was to add some wire lines inside the doors:

Copper Hanging Wire

In the photo, you can see the little copper accessories I made – hooks for hanging all kinds of little crafty things (in this case, a found object, but could be used for bead strands, works in progress, etc.) and paper clips so I can have notes to myself right where I’ll see them when I log in to my computer.

So far I just have a couple of these wires up, but I plan to make several more and really take advantage of the large inside door spaces.

I already have a workbook with my accounting stuff – I import my bank data & my paypal data so I can figure out what I owe at tax time – but this new workbook is all about business development. I can jot down ideas for blog posts, cut and paste the URL for a great website, and check my progress on annual goals – and everything is right where it goes, so I can easily find it when I need it. In the past, a lot of this stuff has gotten lost/buried in my notebooks.

Hoping my new system works! I’m not giving up on journals for “thinking on paper” but my spreadsheet database will, ideally, keep me from forgetting all the great ideas I think of.

Also – for those of you who have been enjoying the mixed media and art journal-themed tutorials, I found an interesting blog that is writing about art journaling this week, Comfortable Shoe Studio. Here’s a direct link to the post about “rules of art journaling“, and if you click around you can find the follow-up posts that go into more detail about each “rule”.

I just had an idea that I think will be really cute, if I can get it to work.

I’ve seen people using twigs and branches in home decor projects, and I thought, maybe I could make a crafty organizer using a small branch. We need to trim one of our trees, which has branches growing into our fence (not good) so as soon as we do that, I should have access to a bunch of cast off twigs and branches.

My idea is to mount a few pieces in the armoire, and use wire hooks (which I can make myself) to hang things from them. It’s more eco-friendly than buying dowels, since we have this wood that will otherwise go to waste, if I can get it to work the way I’m envisioning it.

Wish me luck!

Check out Monday’s Muse over at Maternal Spark for links to more blogs posts on creativity and inspiration.

After seeing some very cool DIY projects on other blogs about how people made great craft organizers for their homes, I’ve been thinking about how I can better utilize my space.

Here’s what my office looks like with the doors closed:

Leah's Office (doors closed)

The bottom half is storage – there is a shelf about halfway up, so it’s a great place for larger boxes of things, books, and a filebox. No pictures of that space, yet, because I haven’t quite decided what I want to do with it.

So here’s the functional part of my studio/office, with the doors open:

Leah's office (doors open)

One side houses my computer, router, etc., and the other side has a cube shaped organizer with pens, small notepads, scissors, packing tape, and other useful items I use most often so they are always within reach. There is a power strip in back, which I use as a charging station for cell phones and things, and a letter file for things I haven’t filed yet (which is getting really full….I hate filing…..).

There is also a shallow shelf underneath for printer paper, business cards, and other office-type stuff I use for my jewelry business.

Yesterday, I started working on what to do with all the unused space above – I installed cork tiles on the side walls, so I can start pinning up photos, quotes, pretty notecards, and anything else I want to look at while I work.

These boards can also be hidden, by sliding the doors back inside the armoire:

Leah's Office (doors covering cork boards)

The doors are solid wood, about 1/2 inch thick, so they can handle having some hardware installed on them. I’d like to use that space for some kind of hanging organizer for a few of my craft tools and supplies. One thing I’ve seen that I really like are dowels that you can slide rolls of things onto – rolls of wire, ribbon, tape, etc. – so I definitely want at least one dowel, and probably lots of hooks.

Unfortunately, the back is very thin wood, maybe 1/8″ thick, so I don’t think I can do anything to it without damaging it, but I’m thinking about hanging something like a clothesline across it, using hooks in the back of the side walls, so that I can at least make it visually appealing by hanging up some of my favorite photos and other lightweight items.

Today I am hoping to go to the hardware store for some hooks so I can start setting it all up, and either the craft store or drug store for some pretty thumb tacks to use on my new cork boards.

Just saw this homemade craft supply organizer and I LOVE it. Something along those lines would be so perfect for my very limited space!

I have three “walls” to work with – at least one will have some kind of bulletin board (probably something covered with fabric, so it’s pretty), and now I want a spice rack and hooks and stuff on another.

Edited to add: also check out this sewing room in a closet – great way to use the space!

I realized there is one category of things I need to majorly declutter, and that is my un-used craft supplies.

It feels almost sacrilegious to admit it, but I have too many beads, too much yarn, too many random bits and pieces that I know I’ll never use.

My giveaway, which you can still enter, is phase one of my decluttering. Two lucky people will receive boxes full of crafting supplies, just for leaving comments or posting a link for me on twitter.

Phase two might involve some kind of online yard sale…once I finish sorting the stuff I’m keeping from the stuff I can part with.

It’s somewhat painful to think about parting with this stuff, which I at once point was excited enough about to spend my hard earned money on, but I need to face facts: one girl can only knit so many scarves and make so many necklaces, so stuff that I won’t use for my business needs to get seriously pared down.

My motivation is being able to better organize the stuff I do use and love – so it’s easy to find when I need it!

Well. All of my pearls and semiprecious stone beads are inventoried! I can’t believe it! And I even have little tags made up for the next few purchases I make, just in case, so it won’t be hard to update that.

Now I just need to go into my etsy shop and match each listing with a bead inventory number (or several, in the case of pieces with more than one type of bead).

In my head, I’m working on an inventory system for the metal stuff I make – head pins, earwires, and the like – things I need to be able to make lots of that are virtually identical – so that I can start selling multiple pairs of earrings with handmade wires, for instance.

Here’s the funny part – I’m one of those people who has piles of bills on either side of the computer, and all my tax paperwork in an overflowing shoebox (yikes!) – in other words, organization is something I normally only do under extreme pressure (like, if it’s April 14th, for example). But I’m enjoying organizing my business! If I keep going at this rate, I’ll have my tax stuff finished in a spreadsheet way ahead of time for next year!