Office Organization

I've received a lot of fabulous comments about my office, and I'm thrilled y'all seem to enjoy it as much as I do!  Several questions and comments focused on organization, so I figured I'd take the week to show you what works for me.  Let me start by saying, I used to be the most unorganized and messy person on the planet...as my sorority sister graciously pointed out.  However, if I can change...anyone can!

However, I've discovered life is much easier when you're organized.  The one and only thing I'll say before moving on is...organization takes work.  Once you're organized, you have to maintain it.  This means always looking to improve your system or purge what you don't use.  I think a lot of people get stuck on this one concept.

Okay, here is my first tip...

Whatever you use most often, should be stored closest to where you work.  Most often in my office, I'm sewing.  So, these supplies need to be front and center for me.

So, for my thread I've hung thread organizers on the wall (within arms length from where I sew).  I can quickly grab the thread I'm looking for because it is so close.  You'll see that I try to put all thread in the same color family together, so I can quickly find what I'm looking for at the time.

The next most often materials I use in my office are my sewing scissors.  I'm a little obsessed (as you can tell).  I used a magnetic knife organizer to hang all of my metal sewing scissors.  Because I'm a little fanatic, I hang my scissors in order of size...just my preference.

Another often used item in my office is ribbon.  I have way too much of it, but I use it across many crafts.  So, I took all the ribbon off their spool and put them onto old fashioned clothespins.  I taped the end to the ribbon to the clothespin and wrapped them until I ran out of ribbon.  Then, I used a straight pin to keep the ribbon in place.  I had so much, I wanted to sort them even more.  So, I put the ribbon clothespins in glass cookie jars.  Each jar is specific to a category: (1) polka dot, (2) stripes, (3) plain, (4) design, and (5) flowers.

The final spotlight for today is my photo boxes.  Last year, I purchased a bunch of these basic white photo boxes on clearance (specifically for my office).  None of them hold photos.  Instead, I store all sorts of materials (from paintbrushes to Mod Podge to glue to felt) in them.  However, I quickly found that they needed labels.  This makes it so much easier to quickly find the box I need.

Tomorrow, I'm going to walk you through my least favorite area of my office.  However, it is my command central.  You'll see how I had to let go of some of my rigidness and let it be.