Operation Organization: Keeping Up with Quilting and More

As a military family, organization is important. As a crafter, organization is important. As a mom, organization is important. Basically, organization is important. 

When the Army brought my son and I home, while my husband spent a year overseas, I had to chance to unpack and organize at my leisure. That included my creative area and office.  

In Miami, I'd started to get organized and had a variety of boxes that I'd purchased as I organized my craft room there. It was so easy to sort my creative supplies and tools into these easy to stack boxes. I loved them especially, because I could open them through the snap fronts. That was quite helpful once we moved here and they found a home at the top of the closet.  

Once we moved, I had more space and I started to get more and more supplies, mostly from friends who pass stuff along to me. When my husband returned after a year overseas, he started law school and I had moved to a job that allowed me to work from home. Since there was less travel and Iwas able to keep up with housework that when I was juggling a job where I traveled, worked odd hours and kept up with a toddler.

I was exploring a sale at The Container Store after a lunch meeting one day and found these sturdy, deep boxes and being pink certainly was a bonus! The blue boxes were perfect for organizing The Lil Monkey's art that comes home from school. (I have plans for that later.) 

When I started the "A Year of Quiltsmart" Project, I knew I needed to find a way to organize my rotating projects (really, who does one at a time?) and my Quiltsmart interfacing and panels. By this time I'd visited The Container Store a few times, and had discovered their clear plastic shoe boxes in varying sizes. Once a month I had a lunch meeting nearby and would head over to grab a few, and before I knew it, I had all my projects organized, each in their own container. 

The boxes were also the perfect size for extra unpackaged interfacing. Whenever I want to work on a project, I can grab a box, which has all the fabric, interfacing and pattern or notes. I can get started with a project within minutes. I also found these small scrapbook boxes that I use for smaller projects. I have been using the larger ones for scrapbook, but have only found the small ones recently.

Keeping myself organized has definitely made my limited craft time more efficient. Living a businy life doesn't mean that I can't have a little down time, I'd just rather spent it doing a project than trying to find all the parts to one. When I started the "A Year of Quiltsmart" project in August I knew that I needed an organized method because inspiration can hit at any moment and who wants to waste timedigging  for stuff you think you might have, when you can reach for it and be started in minutes. 

   

Until our next cup of tea ...