How to clean a craft room

Step 1: Put on music that moves you. Forget Enya and Yanni, go for something with a beat you can dance too.

Step 2: Gather your tools. It helps if you can carry the entire arsenal in one tote.

Step 3: Remove all chairs. Chairs will call to you to sit, and sitting leads to crafting which leads to more messes. Avoid sitting at all costs.

Step 4: Put a box (or bag) at the door of the room for things that belong elsewhere. When you come across a magazine, toy, empty water class, etc that belongs in another room put it in the box. Do NOT put these things away while cleaning the craft room. You may become distracted by the other dirty dishes, a pile of laundry or toys that need to be dealt with and never get back to the craft room. Stick to one room at a time.

Step 5: Put the obvious (read chunky) things away first. This is not the time to organize your pile of scrap papers into color families. Put the stamp sets, ink pads, acrylic paints, Xyron machine and Cuttlebug away and put all scraps in a box together to deal with later.

Step 6: Clean the room in a circle. Start at the door and work your way around the room. If you are distracted by a child’s skinned knee or a phone call set your duster down where you are and when you return you can resume your circular journey.

Step 7: Carry a wastebasket or garbage bag with you and toss things as you go. The punched scraps from your handheld punch, the bits of ribbon too small to tie and adhere with a glue dot. The Fly Lady says dump 27 things – bah! Dump as much or as little as you like just make sure the things you keep have a place to go.

Step 8: Answer the phone, it’s your mom and she has a lot to say. Lay on the floor for this marathon conversation – your chairs are in another room. Get up when she says she is tired and wants to go to bed. Check the time, look around, admit defeat, retrieve chair, make several cards using punches that make small bits of scrap. Crash when you are too tired to stamp straight.

Tomorrow is another day.