What do you get when you throw a bunch of NAPO-Austin Professional Organizers into a room with disorganized craft supplies? Well, at first, you get lots of wild sorting, big messy piles on tables, and some crazy laughing. At the end, you get a room full of beautifully organized items.

NAPO-Austin is the local chapter of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. Our professional organizer members love nothing better than to tackle big messes and make them more manageable.

For our “Keep Austin Organized” community project in January 2018, NAPO-Austin went to AGE of Central Texas at the Round Rock location to help them out. AGE of Central Texas is a wonderful nonprofit organization that provides services for senior citizens. They have a Health Equipment Lending Program where they lend out wheelchairs, crutches, shower chairs, and other mobility equipment, for free.  http://www.ageofcentraltx.org/help.php  They offer Caregiver Information and Resources  http://www.ageofcentraltx.org/caregiver.php  and an Early Memory Loss Support program. http://www.ageofcentraltx.org/early_memory_loss.php

They do a fabulous job of taking care of our senior citizens who need help, in Austin and Round Rock! In their Adult Day Health Care Center, they have all kinds of craft supplies, toys, and games to keep their senior clients entertained.

Organizing all those things was going to be a fun challenge! Here is the NAPO-Austin team that tackled this project. Top row from left to right: Merilee Abboud of Clutter Concierge, Carol Jones of A Jones For Organizing, Pam Clyde of BritLin Services, Courtney Grand of Make It Grand Organizing, Christina Potter (retired), Kate Martin of Organized Joy, Melynda Weiland of Order To Everything, Jamie Steele of Steele Organizing, bottom row, left to right: Ryan Lanier of Love Your Space, Kathy Blair of Envision Organizing, and Angela Murphy of Organizational Bliss. Not shown: Randi Lyman of A Helping Hand.

Before we started the project, the storage room of craft supplies looked like this. 

Some bins were labeled incorrectly, items were scattered in different places, and nothing had a permanent home. It was difficult to find what you were looking for, and impossible to keep track of inventory.

After we finished, it looked like this!

Everything is now grouped by categories. The games are all together, the paint bottles, fabric, yarn, and beads all have permanent homes, and everything is clearly labeled. There was enough room left over to keep three shelves empty for drying wet art projects.

Grouping similar things together into labeled spots makes everything easier to find. Managing the craft supplies and incoming donations will be much easier now for Naomi Dalsbo, Activity Director of AGE at Round Rock. “You all are rock stars!” said Naomi. “I can’t tell you how great this improvement will be for us.” Below, Naomi Dalsbo is thrilled with the chaos because she knows it will be so much better when we are done.

See below for some fun pictures of the process.

Let the transformation begin! We pulled everything out of the storage room, put it on tables, and began sorting. It always gets much messier at the beginning! 

Ryan Lanier of Love Your Space and Christina Potter, retired organizer, break into a dance at the thought of organizing all this fun stuff.

Kate Martin of Organized Joy and Jamie Steele of Steele Organizing love figuring out the best way to organize paper supplies.

Randi Lyman of A Helping Hand and Melynda Weiland of Order To Everything take a smile break.

Kathy Blair of Envision Organizing finds some oversized playing cards and tiny poker chips.

Kate Martin of Organized Joy finds a fun project to work on.

Angela Murphy of Organizational Bliss blisses out on organizing the beads.

Randi Lyman of A Helping Hand and Jamie Steele of Steele Organizing crack each other up.

Naomi Dalsbo and Christina Potter share a hug amid the piles of crafts.

Kate Martin of Organized Joy and Courtney Grand of Make It Grand Organizing discuss strategy.

Kathy Blair of Envision Organizing and Melynda Weiland of Order To Everything work on organizing the games.

Courtney Grand of Make It Grand Organizing proudly shows off the color coordinated paint cabinet she organized.

Ryan Lanier of Love Your Space and Naomi Dalsbo celebrate nearing the end of the project.

Angela Murphy of Organizational Bliss and Pam Clyde of BritLin Services make some color-coded labels for the wire shelving units. Using color to easily find categories is one of our favorite organizing methods!

Melynda Weiland of Order To Everything and Pam Clyde of Britlin Services find a cute sign.

Now, everything has been sorted, containerized and labeled.

One aspect of good organizing is using space effectively. Every inch of available storage in this supply room was used. The vertical empty space underneath this counter was perfect for storing inflatable balls in a wire toy barrel.

Things in this supply room used to get set down on any available flat surface, which made them hard to find later. Now that the NAPO-Austin organizers have swooped in and designated permanent homes for everything, it will all be easy to put away now, and find later. Even the paper cutter and corner punch have official labeled homes!

The NAPO-Austin team of professional organizers had a great time turning a chaotic collection of craft supplies and toys into a straightened-up, shipshape, easy to maintain space. Now we are looking forward to our next community project!

Thank you, AGE of Central Texas, for all that you do to care for our beloved senior citizens in the community!