April Craft Room Clean Up - Week 1
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Welcome to our April Craft Room Clean Up!!!
If you saw our post a couple of days ago, you saw that I did something that is extremely out of my comfort zone...I shared the current state of my creative spaces. As many of you know, I previously had a brick and mortar location as part of a trio of businesses in our wonderful co-op called NOCO Crop Stop. For seven years I shared the space with two other amazing companies. We had retail space, tables for classes and crops, and felt so fortunate to be part of a vibrant community of customers, many of whom became our dear friends as well as friends with each other.
And then in early 2020 the world changed.
As small business owners we had to adapt. Like many other businesses we started to connect in other ways. Virtual crops and classes, zoom meet ups, contactless pick-up times, and porch-drop deliveries took over. Through that process we met lots of new friends, near and far! Over that time we had all diversified our businesses so much the we knew the location we were in was no longer working for all of us, each for different reasons. We knew it was time for new adventures. We were sad but so excited for the new things to come in each of our businesses. In mid 2021 we closed the doors of NOCO Crop Stop. I stayed in the space to simply use it as a work space to try to get all things Memories Unlimited into one place while I searched for a new location for my new headquarters.
Then the building sold. And the new owners had a new vision for the space.
And I changed jobs for my day JOB as a Physician Assistant in Urgent Care.
And the realization that my daughter Grace is graduating high school in May hit me.
And then two vicious variants with new greek letters started making their rounds. And the world looked like it might not get un-weird for awhile.
So in December 2021 I moved EVERYTHING back into my house to set up a temporary home office and headquarters until the right space and time come along, all the while trying to run business as usual. We put all the back stock of product plus some things form the shop back in the "vault", converted our home dining room to a store/shipping station, and kept my home office the same office/design space it has always been. We moved a lot of stuff into some really small spaces.
That brings us to now. In short...IT'S NOT PRETTY. I know where everything is, but it's not efficient or user friendly! It's making me crazy. I love making chaos while I'm being creative, but I find it hard to be creative when there is chaos first. Anyone else feel the same? I know there are lots of you out there that have busy lives and life events that have landed you in the exact same situation. Feeling overwhelmed, not even knowing what you truly have, what you'll truly use, and what you really need. (Yes, I used the word "need", and I know that's a no-no word in crafting...I mean everything is a "need"!)
SO...WHERE DO WE START?
If you are anything like me, you love home organizing shows! And we have perfect timing - season 2 of The Home Edit just dropped on Netflix. Whether you like The Home Edit, or the Konmari method (Marie Kondo also has some amazing Netflix binge-worthy episodes), or the classic HGTV shows like Hot Mess House, the one thing most organizers all agree on is you have to start with sorting! Some people call it "the edit", others sorting, still others purging. But to know what we truly have, we have to physically touch everything and decide if it brings us joy, we'll use it, or if it should be thanked for its service and passed on to someone else.
Today I am starting in my home office/design space. I happen to have a bunch of extra empty bins in my basement, but you can use boxes, bags, or tape off areas of your room into zones if needed. I printed basic signs and used some leftover washi tape to put the signs on 3 big bins. My initial sort categories will be "keep", "to the vault" (items that would be better put in back stock to be used for further projects or designs), "donate", and "trash/recycle". If you have additional extra bins, boxes, or zones, you can further organize the items you want to keep into categories like paper, stickers, stamps, adhesives, dies, etc. Don't worry about how it's all going to be organized quite yet...we'll get there. This week we are just focusing on going through every single thing and determining what stays and what goes.
Now, I know life is busy!! I am with you. I am still going to be working my PA job, designing and creating projects, and planning for upcoming Memories Unlimited events, etc. That's the beauty of the bins! I don't have to feel overwhelmed or like I have to do it all at once. I can do a little bit even if I only had 10 minutes between dinner and drum lessons.
Today's homework:
1. Decide what you are going to use to sort (bins, boxes, bags, creating zones in a room.)
2. Decide what your categories are going to be
3. Make labels for your categories to make the process faster
If you want to start sorting, great! If you want to go watch some organization shows to get some inspiration, even better!
Meet me back here tomorrow and I'll talk about several things that hold us back from letting go of items and great places to take items you may not want or need any longer!