 Hi guys! Good morning. We are filming another video for fixing the flow part. This is part 2. What did you all think about part 1? I hope you got something out of it in any case. If you have specific things you'd like to see, questions, comments, or concerns, please do leave them down below. And any links for things that I talk about, I will leave in the video description. So check that out. Okay, so today we are going to talk about and I have my notebook out. Number two, what I wrote says, make your things easy to find and use. Make your, it says workflow. Make your workflow, well work for you. Make it easy. So for me, I don't like to be digging around in the art room for stuff so much that the whole day has gone by. I haven't created a damn thing because I can't find the parts I'm looking for. I know some of you out there can feel me. It's not about having a ton or a little, just finding what you have easily to encourage you to be creative and to have this be your happy place and not just a workspace. Yeah, those are some important things for me. I do have an example here that I think I talked about in the last video, but we'll talk about it again. So the example says, I still lose random things and when cleaning my table found my lost transfer paper stuck between two books I had on the table. I knew it was in here somewhere. I couldn't for the life of me find it. I ended up doing something else for the project I was working on because I really made myself angry because I knew for sure I hadn't got rid of it, but where the hell I'd put it, I had no idea. It was stuck between two books. And I really dislike that sort of thing in myself, which is why I, if you see my art room in person, much less on video, everything is binned and labeled and I try to be as organized as I can be without being overly organized so that that sort of thing doesn't happen, meaning that I do kind of like to dig. So I do have a bin for my stickers, but all my stickers are in that bin. They are semi organized in the bins, but so I have to do a little bit of digging. But I know they're all there in one spot and they're not over here or over there or in the closet or they're in that one bin. The bin is a little probably too large, but I've found in my journey to try to use up my stickers that I kind of like stickers. Does that mean I can't get rid of some? Not necessarily, but probably isn't going to happen. They fit in the bin. So yeah, I do use the bin box or drawer method for me. I don't know what you call it. So when I say they fit in the bin, I do regulate myself to a space for certain things, a drawer, a bin, a cubby hole, a box, whether it's out on the floor in the art room or it's in the closet. If I don't have a container for things, a rack, a rack, a space, I'm looking at my stencil rack. Then I just keep collecting things and I would fill the whole house up with things that I maybe could use someday, you know, the Sunday disease. I know a lot of us creatives have. So I do corral my collections into things to try to control how much of it I have. That doesn't work for everybody, but it definitely works for me. And then so that I don't lose track of what I've put in one box or bin, I do label it. I have a Brother P Touch label maker. It doesn't matter what kind that you have, but I do find my label maker immensely helpful. So does my husband. Fun fact, he's used it downstairs in his garage. It's really handy to just label your cabinets in your workspace, whatever kind of workspace you might have, so that you're not, again, digging around in every drawer and cabinet, trying to find that one tool or that one piece of something, you know, is in there somewhere, but you can't figure out where the hell you put it away in that safe place that, you know, yeah, it's so safe you can't find it again. I do have three inspirations that keep me inspired and on track for organizing my art room and my house. I did the upstairs hallway linen closet earlier today where I have my craft bin collection hoard. I didn't clean out that so much as I did pull some things out, I think we're going to use today, but also I had some decor and table linens up there. They were just like it was a mess. So I cleaned that out. I'll put a few clips here maybe. Anyway, have some channels here on YouTube or people I follow in social media that keep me inspired. One is Marie Kondo. She is the, you know, inventor of the Kalamari method and I do follow her. Also the suitcase designer and my great challenge. My great challenge did her table linens recently and I'm like, oh, I have some of that upstairs. I should probably take a look at about a habit of washing them and folding them and then just shoving them in the closet and not, you know, and then you have to dig to find stuff, which I hate. So it's all sorted down. My main tools that I use again are bins, drawers or boxes, labels and space. So even when I had a small art room, I knew I had limited space to work with and it's not about filling the space up so I can't even get in the door. It's about being able to find what I have. Now for some people, it's about being a minimalist and being a minimalist person and creator. For some people, it's max being a maximalist. For me, it doesn't matter where on the scale you are and I'm probably towards the maximalist end. But if I use the boxes, bins and drawers, then I don't overfill the house in my art room, but I also can find what I have. For me, that's the most important thing is to be able to find what I have. And anytime I do a purge, a clean, a sort, a rearrangement, it's to be able to make the workflow in my space better and to be able to find what I have easily to not interrupt the creative flow and inspiration. Today, we're going to look at our list of categories that I made and I think because we sort of accidentally did yarn last week, I think we're going to continue with the rest of the needlework and the sewing table. Now I have done a lot of purging. I mean, we just did the fabric. That was like a big thing in that category, which is still in the back of my car and it is in the back of my car and has to go away and I'll show you in a minute what I found in a closet. When I was doing the linen closet and putting something back in its proper place in one of the guest rooms. Yes, I found another bag with another pillow form and some pillow covers in it. Anyway, so I think we're going to finish doing the needlework section and then we might work on glitters and embossing powders and mediums and things. So let's head over at least to the sewing table. I know at the very least we've got to rearrange some drawers because yeah, we'll talk about that. Let's go over there. Oh, in case any of you are wondering, I have written a book about this before. It is available on Amazon as both a paperback and an ebook. So if your budget is tight, get the ebook. It's less expensive. The blurb on the back of it says, Do you want to have a more creative self-expressive life? So do I. Here are some things I used to keep myself on track. They work for me. Who knows? They might work for you too. And it is a workbook where I have a blurb on one side writing about my thoughts and my journey. And on the other side is a page that's decorated with some kind of background, but it's basically blank. And then it has a question that I ask you and ask you to think about and work through. It's not specifically about purging. It's more about finding your inspiration and figuring out if you want to have a creative life and if you do what kind of creative life you want to have. But it is available on Amazon. The link is down below. All right, let's go to the sewing table, shall we? Before we sit down to do anything, let's go over a few things. So from about here, that way is sewing and needlework. So these are some rulers. Some are rulers intended for drawing. Most are dressmaking rulers, pattern making rulers. I have way too many of them. I probably don't need them all. So we will be going through that. I have a box of stones and crystals I occasionally make. Of course, it doesn't want to open. Hold on. There we go. I occasionally make sort of an art doll and I'll stuff it with inspiration stones like good vibe stones. So I probably won't be getting rid of these again, though I won't be buying any more because the drawer's full. These are buttons. I haven't bought buttons in a very long time. I have an entire drawer full of buttons, some of which are for my grandma mother's sewing box. I won't be getting rid of those. I have a small sewing machine that we use I use when I'm sewing on paper. Sewing on paper is not necessarily good for your regular sewing machine if you sew on fabric at all. So I have this little one that was like, I don't know, 50 bucks or something. I just use it for paper. I won't be getting rid of that because I do use it. This is my embroidery kit. I don't do a lot of embroidery kits anymore, but when I do, I do small ones and this I can just pick up and take with me downstairs on a plane, whatever. So that will be staying. Will it be going in a different place and being put away? Maybe, but then I think you can get a good look at this is way too many rulers. Um, I have a lot of embroidered cocktail napkins downstairs. We do use them every week. I got these a very long time ago at Solatob. These are two boxes of the napkins I never did embroider on. Do I need to? Probably not because I literally have like, I don't know, six dozen napkins downstairs that I already did. So these might need to go. So this is my crochet hooks, my knitting needles. That will probably stay there because that's easy for me to just grab them. I have some reference books back there that works for me. I have two scrap bins. I have this one and then I have that one. Do I need to? Not sure about that. My pin cushion collection because I can't stop making pin cushions, but that's okay. That's cute. I have this shelf here and now actually that I think about it, there's a green one of these double shelf things in the whole closet. You know, we might get it out and put it over here. Anyway, got this bin of randomness. We should probably go through. These two jars are from my grandmother's house. Her family used to own a grocery store and I think one of them had a deli in it. These are really old. There were three of them. I gave one to my sister. They're filled with trims and knickknacks, some of which are again from my grandmother's house. I'm not getting rid of any of that. When I do do slow stitching, I pull from here. I don't have to buy trims because, well, as you can see, I have plenty. Another pin cushion. Another pin cushion because you know, I have my serger and my off dressmaking machine. This probably won't change much. I do. Oh, sorry about the light. I do like my IKEA pegboard with my threads on it. Now, can we change up how they're on there a little bit? Maybe. I don't know if I need the stay tapes on there. Maybe there's going to be some other things I can put on there instead. And the drawers in this desk are a hot mess. So this one's a disaster. This one's a disaster. This one had unfinished projects in it and embroidery hoops, of which I might have too many embroidery hoops, but there were projects in here that weren't even mine. Some of them were my daughters and it's been in here for like four years. I think she forgot it was over here. She wanted me to teach her how to make something. I pulled it out recently. She said, Mom, just get rid of that. If I want to sew, I'll just buy it again. So it's in the car to get donated. These little teddy bears, I'm going to actually, I want to make those. That's going to be on my thing to do this year is get those made. And then we have more trims because you know, what's in those jars is not enough. Yeah, elastic and trims. Oh God, you guys. Hold on. More trims. I know. Wait. This one has trims in it too. I don't think I'm getting rid of any of the trims. I think I'm going to keep them. I don't need to buy any. So when I want to do a project, I can pull from what I have. And I think I'm good with that. Can they be reorganized a little better? Yeah, maybe. So in that respect, we might do some of that. But let's set up the camera in a sort of out of the way place. I did pull these out of the storage bin collection. And with the idea, we'd redo some of the drawers. I do have the label maker and some scissors out just in case it's not going to do itself. I guess I should get started. I'll be back. When I was pulling things out of the drawer, I decided to go ahead and get the trims out, even though I don't think I'm going to want to get rid of anything to pull them out anyway. I have a bunch of this like muslin bandaging stuff. I use it sometimes in mixed media and for doing like little machine embroidered pieces. So I do use it, but do I need this much of it? This wasn't a bin with some fabric. So I'll be keeping one or the other, but not both. They're nearly identical. I'll probably keep these and let this one go. So yeah. Man, okay, let me get going. I'll be back. Okay, I got rid of more than I thought I would, but it wasn't a ton. I need to re-label the drawers. I move things around based on what I'm doing at the moment with the sewing and needle work and made it a little easier to find things and made the flow a little easier. So I'll review the drawers in a minute, but I am getting the impulse and haven't been since before I turned the camera on, to be honest, to do my bin that has glitter and stuff in it because talk about something I do. So I have a feeling a lot of stuff is going to go. I almost got rid of my alcohol inks last time. I think they got to go this time. So let's do it. Let's get to it. Talk about something I haven't used in a very long time, alcohol ink. It's gone in it. It's in the box to go away. All right, before I re-label everything, I think I want to take a look at the drawers by the table and then we'll start re-labeling. Okay, on my table, I keep these stocked little drawers and things for daily use items that when I'm creating at the table, I can almost guarantee you there's something in one of these drawers that I'm going to need, whether it's a mark making tool or scissors or ink, pens or something. So this is what this is. I have already kind of cleaned it out. I don't think there's anything over here that I need to work on. It's always good to take a second look. There's some drawers I haven't opened in a while because I haven't done any slow stitching art, for instance, in a while. But that being said, I think we're good. All right, next to the sewing table, I have this bank of supplies, paints and things, and I'll move the chair out of the way, that I can easily reach for, get. They're organized and labeled, but I also don't forget about them because they're not hidden in the closet because that's the thing. I like the closet because I can put paper and stuff in there, but if too many things are in there, then I just forget I even have them. You see my tape bin right there? That's a little full. Let's clean that out. Okay, so get rid of anything in there. But I found my stash of popsicle sticks and q-tips and things that I use in the art room that they were in the tape bin. They don't need to be in the tape bin. So I put them over in the easel corner, which at some point I'll show you how I've set that corner up. I don't really need to clean anything over there. I don't think, but the way it's set up works really well for me. The flow when I'm in the painting mood on the easel with acrylic paints works really well for me. Clay and resin. Okay, other than air dry clay, I don't do anything with any of that anymore. I sometimes do UV resin, and I've kept a little bit of that, and I've kept the molds because I'll use them with air dry clay or even like paper pulp and stuff. But the rest of it went away a long time ago. I tried it, I don't like it, so it went away. Grasp that one off. Bags. So by bags, I mean art bags. I have this thing for art bags, for organization, but obviously organization things. I did go through it recently. My friend Leslie McGrath was here. I did give some things to her. I've given some things to both the girls. And what I have left, I'm keeping. There were a couple things I donated, but what I have, I'm keeping. And I do find, like with the bags, the new bag I made recently for my downstairs drawing stuff. I just like to change things up every now and then, and I like to refresh the way I'm doing things. It helps me boost my inspiration and my creativity to just sort of churn the art supplies, whether it's the downstairs stuff or the stuff up here. So having a stash of bags and organization tools works well for me. So I can cross that up off. I do keep all the bags in the closet up here in the art room. I have a bag of bags. And when I want to reorganize something or find something to hold paint brushes or something, I know where they are and they're all in one place. All the bags are on the same shelf. Stencils, we'll talk about in a minute. I've had my stencils on a rack, a hanging rack for a long time. I have recently gone through them and gotten rid of stencils I'm not using anymore. But I'm not buying anything new. I have plenty, believe me, when I show you the rack in a minute, you'll understand. And yeah, I don't need to acquire anymore. But I like what I have, so I'm not getting rid of anymore so we can cross that off. And I'm squinting at the book because, you know, the glasses are far away on their sweaty notions. We just did the notions, the ribbons and trims and stuff. I didn't get rid of any, but I did reorganize it so it worked better for me. Paper and notebooks. I will also show you that. Now the paper and notebooks, the backup supply, I haven't bought any in a while. Paper and notebooks are on the do not buy list unless I run out of something specific because I have a lot of paper and notebooks. I don't need any more anytime probably for the rest of my life. They're in the closet, they're organized by type, and they're on shelves. And when I need something, I just go with whether it's a new art journal or a notebook or a piece of paper, I just go in there and grab it. You've seen the Organization Horde of Bins. I do recommend as you're doing this that you keep any bins that you empty until you're completely finished with the space. And if you have a place to keep a few bins, if you're like me, that's probably a good idea because I seem to want to do this like once a year. Whether it's the laundry room closet or the art room or my master bedroom, it just doesn't matter. It could be anywhere in the house. Beads, I'll show you the beads. I'll show you some things I've already gone through that I have specific ways of sorting them and pens and pencils. Okay, that leaves us quite a few things, but let me show you some stuff and how I do it. Do it. Do it. How I do it. How I do it that helps me stay organized and helps me continually find my flow and inspiration in the art room. Let's start like kind of behind me and we'll work our way that way. Over here, I have these bins, not too many of them because I don't want it to be cluttered. I've got all my paper punches in that bin. So when I want to grab a paper punch, I just pull that bin out. I don't have a lot. I don't need a lot. And if I acquire something new, something that's in there has got to go away. Same thing with the dies. Now, I have big dies here and the die cutter and then smaller dies over here. I have dies that make me happy. If I buy another die, something's got to go, which is again why I work with the bin and box system. That works for me. I have one random bin of like big mediums like distilled water and stuff like that because they don't really fit anywhere else. Pens and pencils. I've had it this way for a long time. This was something I saw on a YouTube video back in the day. This works really well. Okay. So I got, these are paper sorters. They're supposed to be turned the other way and work on your desk. I got them at like Ross or something, stacked them up, found some little bins that fitted them three across, labeled them by color. So if I have a red pen, for instance, that goes dry, I pull this drawer open and pull another red pen out of here. Again, I'm not buying new pens unless I specifically run out of a certain type that I don't have. Otherwise, I come here to use what I have downstairs. The ones I use on the daily are in here and when these go dry, then I go over to that bank. I've got some pens, a few pencils, and that sort of thing, some markers. That works for me. Bin of bags and then two vintage leather suitcases, all of which I use to reorganize my art and or use for traveling. I know where they are. They're here in the closet. This closet isn't necessarily pretty, but I can find everything that's in here. For instance, this is the bin of bags. It's not a bag of bags anymore. It's a bin of bags. I forgot about that. But I also have this bin. This bin is travel art supplies. So travel watercolor palettes, travel journals, and stuff like that. So I'll grab a bag out of here, grab supplies out of here, and then go unless I want to bring something with me that I've already started, which I can also do. This is my paper, paper, hoard collection. It's sorted. I can find everything that works for me. And I have a closet. It's not the prettiest thing, but I can close the door when I don't want to look at it. Beads. Now I do have these labeled, which not everything in here is labeled, but these are, because otherwise I can't see what's in them. These are bead containers. I got it Joann's, and they have boxes. It's boxes in a box. And so I can sort a whole bunch of different kind of beads in these. They come in a couple of different sizes. If I can find them online, I'll link them down below if they're still available. They work for me. I haven't bought new beads in a while again, unless I run out of something specific. This is a retail store display with spinning shelves. And these are hooks with a clip on them. And I've had my stencils this way for quite a while. It continues to serve me very well. It's the best way I've discovered to store stamps. You have to look on some retail fixture websites. Uline may have one, but you have to look around. If I can find something similar, I'll link it down below. And the hooks are from Amazon, these little hook clips. But this works really well. I do have like this particular row or all my designs. I have tags on some of the rows, so I know who designed them. Down here I've got, let's see, there he is, my friend Mike Deacon. So yeah, so that works for me because I can just spin it, pull a stencil off, use it, and put it back. I also have the space for it. This is a big room. And I acknowledge that not everybody has space for something like that. But if you do, I do recommend it. Be nice if you saw all my face. So yeah, I mean, you have to work with the space that you have and the space that you're given. And with what works for you, what works for me, it might not work for you. But also don't overwhelm yourself. We said that in the first video, don't overwhelm yourself and feel like you have to like do the whole room at once. Again, we did more categories than I thought we were going to do. I'm mentally exhausted and I need to eat some lunch because I just need a break. I feel good about what we're getting rid of. I'm going to take it downstairs when I go to make my lunch and it's going to go away. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Okay, I try hard not to do this, but I think I'm going to take one pillow form out of the car. So when I was doing the linen closet, I found a bunch of these pillow covers, some of which have never been used. I use them in our old house and I have two with green feathers on them. This year, I don't know why, but green is just my color. When I was cleaning out the linen closet, I told you I found another pillow form and some more of the old pillow covers. So if this pillow form fits in that cover, then I am going to get one more out of the car and I'm going to fill these pillows. I'm going to put one here in the art room on the chair and I'm going to put one in that one of the guest rooms. I don't usually do that and I don't advocate pulling things out of the car that you've just purged. But in this case, I can maybe use it. Now, I also, though, advocate if you have a pile, as I'm talking, I'm going to be stuffing this in here hopefully. If you have a pile of stuff you're not sure about, don't get rid of it right away. You'll regret it. Think about it. Set it aside. Put it in a closet. You know, if in a few days, a few weeks, a few months, you never look at it and you haven't ever touched it, then that is probably okay to get rid of it. If you love it, even if you're never going to use it again, keep it. If you love it, keep it. If it makes you happy, keep it. I have things in here for my grandmother. I'll probably never use. I've got a couple of sock darners, you know, the wooden ball things. I'll never probably use them. I haven't darned a pair of socks in five million years. But they were from her sewing box. And so, and they make me smile. So I'm going to keep them. And, you know, they're not going anywhere. So I would say, I think this might fit. Maybe it's going to be a tight fit. I think it might be too big. It might be too big. Maybe it's time to buy a new pillow form. Okay. So that's not going to work. So these are all going to go away. They're all going to go away. And I'll have to measure this. And at some point when I have a coupon, I'll fill these up. I will say I found a whole bunch of pillow forms. I mean pillow covers when I was cleaning up the linen closet. And I kept the two that had green feathers on. The rest of them can go. They can go. This can go too. So let's sit down. So I hope this has given you all some insight and that you're getting something out of this series. Fixing your flow in your workspace for me seems to be a constant thing. I try or test out putting things in a new place to see if that works for me. Does it always work? No. Or sometimes it kind of works, but it's not exactly right. And sometimes I just need to change it completely. I've changed the Ikea peg boards. Not the sewing one. I have another one. Two or three times. Not because there's anything wrong with the way they were set up, but I was focused on something different and needed to put different items out on display to focus my creativity on. And you might find that that's true for you too and that it's not about things that you want to get rid of, but it's about putting out on display, making easy access out of things that are at the moment capturing your attention and putting away the things for right now that don't have your attention. Using bins, using a labeler, making sense out of where you put things. I for the most part have all the sewing stuff over there, all the acrylic painting stuff in one section. I have another desk over here in that corner that's just for tools. We've got the main work table here that we're on right now, the computer desk behind me. It's kind of zones that make sense where certain things are located. And that kind of a situation works really well for me. Maybe it'll work for you too. I get a lot of my displays and storage bins at Target, the dollar store, Ross, Marshall's, home goods. I almost always use a coupon if I can. And as you have seen, if a bin no longer works for me, that doesn't necessarily mean I get rid of it. I put it in the closet with the other empty containers. And I don't usually get rid of them unless something breaks or someone needs them. So my family all knows I have a hoard of bin and baskets. And if they need something and they need to rearrange their room, they are more than welcome to take something that's in there. And that's fine with me. So anyway, if you have questions, comments or concerns, please do leave them down below. We'll get episode three out soon. And if you have anything specific that you would like to see or more details you'd like me to share, let me know. We will continue with this process and going through some things because there's always shit in this room I need to go through. Anyway, I hope it gives you some ideas. I hope it fixes the flow in your workspace and that your muse becomes very inspired to create and I'd love to see what you're doing. So don't forget to tag me in posts, tag me in videos, message me. If you're in Patreon, you get copies of my thoughts and or questions for fixing the flow in your workroom and ready access to me in chats. If you're working on your room and you come across a problem, we have a private Facebook chat and stuff like that. They also have free digital downloads and other things over there that I put in once a month. So yeah, if you want to join my Patreon, support the free content here on YouTube, the link is down below along with the links to my three channels for inspiration and so much more. So anyway, go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'll see you later. Bye guys.