Crafting Solutions Clever Organizing Techniques Can Make A Small Hobby Space A Fun, Relaxing Place To Work

A visit to Liz Jensen’s sewing room is a lesson in organization, innovation and making do. Jensen’s converted 8-by-10-foot spare bedroom in her Colorado Springs area home is a crowded yet functionally organized craft area.

“If someone else had to come in here and find something, they never would,” she said. “But I know exactly where everything is.”

The popularity of crafting — nearly nine in 10 households have at least one such hobbyist — has meant an increase in the supplies that can overtake a home. Particularly when the average crafter spends nearly eight hours a week working on about five different projects.

That means sewing baskets and closet shelves are overflowing with half-finished projects. Dining room tables become craft central, and the spare bedroom is no longer spare nor a place to sleep.

So it only stands to reason that crafters are using their creativity to find room where there seems to be none.

Jensen, co-owner of Crazy for Quilts in Colorado Springs, has seen her home workshop evolve from cardboard boxes into bookshelves that display hundreds of yards of brightly colored cloth and plastic drawers that organize her patterns, zippers and collections of handkerchiefs and lace.

Jensen’s favorite storage trick is the plastic file drawer — with wheels. The large drawers are next to and under her work table, while smaller ones dot the tabletop and other areas of the room.

“Those have been a blessing,” Jensen said. “You can not only put something away, you can see it, too. And before, as dry as we are, the dust that collected on your supplies was incredible. This also helps keep the dust down.”

Debbie Smith, a Colorado Springs mother with a household of seven, doesn’t have a separate room for her crafts.

“I’d give anything for a room,” said Smith, who not only decorates her home but also makes her children’s clothes. “But right now, with as many as we have, the laundry room will have to do.

So she stores materials in large Rubbermaid storage bins on plastic-coated wire shelves in her laundry room.

“Of course, there are days when we can’t eat in the dining room, because I have stuff everywhere.”

Even the pros find ways to make do.

Carol Duval, host of Home and Garden Television’s “The Carol Duval Show,” satisfied her need for space by making work counters from interior doors and storing material in see-through plastic shoe sleeves that hang on a door.

“Those always come in handy,” she said from her home in northern Michigan. “They stay out of the way, you can see through them, and they are cheap.

“Crafters are a very innovative bunch of people. My producer lives in a small apartment with one bedroom, and it’s amazing what she has done to keep all her stuff. It’s unbelievable.”

Among the special touches crafters have adopted are decorative baskets with lids that hide unfinished crafts while brightening a corner or a shelf. Buttons, zippers and decals may be stored in mason jars or other clear decorative jars. Old vases get a new use by holding paint brushes, pencils and rulers. Even terra-cotta pots make for quick inexpensive storage.

“One craft that has a tremendous need for storage is scrapbooking,” said Susan Brandt, assistant executive director of the Hobby Industry Association. “There are so many pieces to scrapbooking.

“But for many hobbyists, it’s a matter of being lucky enough to have the space and, if not, it’s a matter of being creative with what you have.”

Hobby habits A national survey commissioned by the 4,000-member Hobby Industry Association in 1998 shows that nearly nine out of 10 households have at least one family member involved in crafts or hobbies. In fact, home crafters have pushed hobby product sales to a $10 billion-a-year business. Other findings of the survey: * Nearly 71 percent make crafts to give as gifts. * Cross-stitch/embroidery stands as the most popular needle-craft, with 40 percent of households involved in the activity. * Only 9 percent of crafters took classes in the previous year. * Nearly half of hobbyists buy or subscribe to craft- or hobby-related magazines and newsletters. Almost an equal number watch hobby-related TV shows. * The craft most likely to involve several family members is art/drawing. The Gazette.