Organization for Your Creative Space—Taming Your Tools

Hi, everyone and welcome to this month’s MFT Organization for Your Creative Space—Taming Your Tools. I don’t have any magical system—it’s just kind of evolved according to my needs and acquisitions but it works for me. I’ll take you on a tour around my room and show you where and how I store my tools.


My craft room is a bed room turned Girl Cave. I didn’t want to do any built-ins because I want everything out where I can see it or I’ll forget I have it. I’m not interested in cabinets and I don’t want things behind closed doors, so I just have work tables and shelves. Starting with the right wall as you come into the room you’ll see a table with my sewing machine (which I rarely use any more—funny since I used to have to MAKE myself NOT use it, LOL!), a Cuttlebug, and my Vagabond. Behind the Vagabond is a two tiered stamp holder for my Ranger sponge handles.




I keep the Cuttlebug handy for embossing with Cover-Up Die-namics. I broke a Vagabond once by accidentally trying to run too much through it and I’m chicken to try a Cover-Up since it needs a mat ;-) Cuttlebug works great and if I break it, I have another ;-)

Under my Vagabond I have some stacked Sterlite drawers that contain a supply of new cutting pads for the Vagabond and on top of it are my embossing mats and my metal shim, always handy for when I need them.




Moving around, I have a desktop paper cutter and a Zutter paper cutter that I use solely for cutting card bases.




On the floor, and to the right of my work table, I have a metal stand that was intended for use in a bathroom but I decided it would be great to hold my air compressor on the bottom, a tray of glue sticks in the middle, and the basket on top is perfect for my Copic air brush handle, my heat gun, and a flat iron—right at hand.





Now on to my work table. I am someone who likes to have everything right at hand as much as possible. I have my brand new favorite tool, the MISTI at hand all the time as well as a pair of reading glasses ;-)

To the right of my Copic markers you’ll see my Score Buddy, I have a pair of scissors that I only use on fibers—no paper—and my hot glue gun. I use it a lot and don’t want to wait for it to heat up so I have it plugged into a power strip along with my desk light so that when I turn my desk light on, it comes on and starts heating. Similarly, when I turn that light off, the hot glue gun also goes off, so I don’t have to worry about whether I turned it off or not after I leave the room. My ATG tape runner resides in front of my Copic markers…




…as does a small canning jar with small tools I use constantly like several different pairs of sharp scissors and tweezers, etc…




…and to the left is my tool carousel in which I keep longer tools like bone folders, pens, 6” rulers, my Quik Stix, stylus, hemostat, wire cutters, utility scissors, and stapler.



I have another stack of Sterlite drawers to my left, under my work table. The top drawer holds new cutting blades for my small paper trimmer, larger rulers, paper piercers, quilling tools, spare blades for my craft knife and similar sharp items. I know when I go into that drawer to be very careful.




The next couple of drawers hold embossing powders and glitter, but this drawer holds a Crop-O-Dile, Corner Chomper, brayers, crimper, and various small punches.

On TOP of that stack of drawers, I have a small tote that holds all of my acrylic blocks plus my small paper trimmer.




And that’s pretty much it as far as my tool organization and storage—my main goal is to have everything handy for better efficiency, and this works for me. I hope I might have given you some ideas for making your space work a little more efficiently for your needs. Thanks so much for stopping by! See you soon!