Step 1
Determine how much space you have. Try to find storage items that will fit in the designed space. Consider purchasing a storage cabinet and filling it with craft containers. A filing cabinet may be especially helpful if you use lots of different kinds of paper. This way, you can find the types and colors of paper just as you would find an office document, without having to take out all the craft paper at once.
Step 2
Use labels. This makes it easy to identify objects that don't go into storage containers. Use paper bags, for instance, to store colored cotton balls. Tie off the tops with rubber band, and label by color with a permanent marker or pen. Then take out a larger paper bag, label it as the bag for all "cotton balls," and put in all the bags. Store all of the large paper bags in a box. Or, use plastic or glass jars and align them on the shelves according to the type of craft item.
Step 3
Use manufactured, compartmentalized, durable containers that are transparent or translucent. These storage containers, which may look like microwavable containers, are usually wide, flat and rectangular. They can be easily stacked on shelves and labeled in the visible side of the container. These trays or lidded trays will have squares or other geometric shapes separated from each other for the storage of like items. Thus, one container could contain all the beads, with different colors of beads placed in their own sections, separate from one another.
Step 4
Use easy-to-see, vertical layers of shelves or storage containers to design the craft space. Wide shelves that extend far back require horizontal stacks of storage materials. Making vertical layers that are only one object thick requires more shelves, but it makes things easier to see. If you have low ceilings, use clear containers that go only two layers back on a wide shelf. This makes it easy to pull out the front layer, hold it in one hand and use the other to get the desired object.
