Craft Room Spring Cleaning Time

 Sorting out the Craft Room

So spring is here and I have 2 rooms now filled with my craft items. The original craft/office room which has always housed my paper craft items, and now the other spare bedroom filled with fabrics and on-going projects for my “Sew Useful Bag” makes. 

Spring cleaning certainly has become more complicated and time-consuming. So, as in other years, I am determined to down-size my craft mountain.  I started in March and was making some headway when I was contacted by someone who offered me his late wife’s craft items as he had found me on-line from my days of running workshops. although I no longer do these on a regular basis I talked to him about the outlets I had who could benefit from the craft items and he was happy that they would be going to fellow crafters, which is what his wife had wanted. 

When I went to pick up the craft items I had no idea how much to expect, but it turned out it would not fit into my Nissan Juke and I needed another trip to complete the pick-up. It took me 6hours to sort it and put it into piles for various crafting groups. There was a lot of very useful card, many, many dies a lot of Tattered Lace construction dies and a wonderful assortment of pencils, paints, inks etc

The craft group I attend weekly had a lot of the constructions dies and some card as we could make use of it all. Another bundle of dies and bits went to Wales to my sisters church group who make cards to support community projects, and a lot of card papers and some dies went to a craft group in Burnham that make for and sell for the local hospital. More bits and pieces including childrens craft papers went to a church group in my home town of Bridgwater as they have a childrens group and a family day where they could make good use of it all. Any remaining items went to the Childrens Hospice shop in Glastonbury as they have a craft section in the shop. I am so lucky to have friends and contacts who could make  good use of all the lovely craft items and well over a hundred pound was donated that I have given to Friends of Bridgwater Hospital in the name of lady whose husband past them on to me.  

It was about 4 weeks before I got my sofa back in use, after the distribution of all this, when I was contacted again by a WI friend with craft goods. Again I explained the various outlets I had and it was agreed the persons who had donated the items would be happy with them being distributed in this way, and the second lot was sent out. 

I am now tackling my craft room, with a view to cutting out anything I have not used for a while and selecting my favourite sets of stamps and dies for each occasion and shedding the rest. How will I get rid of my excess.  Well, again some will go to craft groups, some will get sold on Ebay and the money given to charity and the rest will go to the Childrens Hospice shop. So far I have sorted:

3 boxes of ribbons 

4 Boxes of dies plus my Anna Griffin dies, These are now in Storage folders (after an expensive bout of purchases, but that’s another story) 

3 boxes of embellishments 

Multiple Paper pads and packs

2 large boxes of cards envelopes and display sleeves. 

All my card is sorted into plastic boxes according to colour and finish 

My inks, paints, ink pads sprays and embossing powders etc have been downsized 

All that remains to sort are 2 boxes of stamps and more embellishments, beads and cords .

The job of sorting would have been faster if I had not had to stop every so often to try a new form of card making inspired by items that I was suppose to be tidying away. 

But I am happy with my makes which have used up some of the many many bits and bobs sorted from the boxes. Sorting through has also reminded me of lots of papers and embellishments I had forgotten were in the cupboard and these have inspired me to new designs 

So I encourage you to do a regular sort through and recycle, re-use and gift some of your craft products. It will make you feel better about your stash and give you inspiration for the next projects.

Happy Crafting Dee