A place for everything

Christmas 2010 is officially boxed up, put away and mostly cleaned up after. Now moving forward...
My unwritten New Year's resolution (for each year this past 5 years) has been to declutter the house. I have made progress, but it amazingly accumulates faster than I can unload it. There are a couple particular areas of weakness. My school supplies, as I had mentioned in an earlier blog (can't get rid of it, I might need it), office supplies (basically same excuse) and now that I have a craft room ... well, you get the idea.
I attacked the craft room as my New Years activity. The basic mantra for highly organized people is "a place for everything and everything in it's place!" Well, I'm starting at the very lowest level, a place for everything. The week before I bought a shelving unit from a teacher supply store going out of business and had a hunky neighborhood teen lift it out of the truck and put it into my craft room closet. I also bought a couple sets of plastic storage drawers and a few organizers. I then proceeded to unbury my work table - putting things away, trying to group like items in a logical fashion.
It quickly became clear that I also needed to apply mantra #2 to my mess -"Put it away, throw it away or give it away." This is what you need to do if you have too much of everything in the first place.
The biggest space holder in my craft room is my fabric. I liked how my mom stored extra fabric in her closet on the shelf in a laundry basket. Easy to get to, easy to tuck away. When I originally organized mine (a couple years ago), I ended up with 4 laundry baskets, 3 boxes and a couple of extra bolts. In that time, I have purchased more fabric for projects that haven't been done yet. Hmmmmm, I realized that I am stocking up - but not getting things done cause I couldn't find things when I needed them. This isn't working.
So I pulled down all the baskets and boxes and began sorting. I now have one basket of muslin - so it is easy to find for the many various projects that always come up requiring muslin (crafters and seamstresses would understand). I set aside a photo box for small pieces of interesting fabric I could use in making cards. And then the remaining fabric was divided into 3 piles: Supplies for specific projects (these were zip-bagged with all notions and patterns), yardage I had vague ideas for-but not specific patterns yet, and finally the rest to give away. Muslin and yardage now sit happily on the closet shelf, give away is bagged up ready to deliver to the thrift bin, and I have project "kits" ready for me to work on. This went a long way to clearing and organizing that room. I have also vowed not to purchase anymore fabric until I complete the projects I have on hand (unless an emergency gift comes up - gotta have a clause like that).
Thrilled by my progress I pulled out the sewing machine and completed 2 of the projects right away.
I still need to organize the stamping supplies, but already I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and I am enjoying the sense of accomplishment that comes of finished projects.