How to pack and move a craft room.

If you’re an avid crafter, you likely have a lot of craft supplies. You may have organized your craft room, or you may have left it crowded and cluttered. Either way, no matter what crafting personality you are, you’re going to want to keep in mind some tips when it comes time to pack and move a craft room.

This is because, when you add up all those few-dollar items, they amount to a lot! You wouldn’t want your craft supplies ruined on a move. We want to help ensure your belongings stay as safe as possible. But sometimes this may involve prep work on your end too.

See our related articles:

• How to move fine art safely to your new home

We’ve searched the web and come up with a few ideas to keep in mind when packing a craft room or art supplies room.

Create an inventory before you pack your craft supplies.

As we mentioned above, craft supplies can be worth a lot. Especially if you have purchased high quality paints or canvases, this is important to take note of. And, if we’re also getting into sewing machines and sewing equipment, this can come to even more. Let alone cutting machines or stamp-making machines.

While you may be thinking that each little bottle of paint cost two or three dollars, imagine losing everything – all of it. It would take a lot of time and money to replace all that material. Especially considering that you’ve probably acquired it over several years. A craft room is basically a collection.

We recommended creating an inventory of your craft supplies before you move. This will theoretically help you make sure you’ve found everything when you unpack after moving. Although, you will want to be organized with your supplies anyway, which we’ll get into. But, if your insurance or moving company insurance covers this type of thing, you’ll want to make sure you have the proof of what these supplies were like, and what they cost.

Use some life hacks as moving hacks when packing your craft room.

When your craft room is set up at home, a lot of things may be readily reachable. Maybe hanging on peg boards, or suspension rods. That’s great and helps keeps things organized when you’re settled in after moving. But when moving day comes, you’re going to want to tie up loose ends – sometimes literally.

Some life hacks that can double as moving hacks in this area of your home are:

• Using pill boxes, prescription bottles or spice containers to sort beads, paper clips or small items.

• Using clam shell tool boxes as organizers that can shut tightly so pins, paper clips, beads, thread rolls, etc. don’t get mixed or tossed around.

• Using plastic wrap around paint jars after the lid screws on, to ensure a tight fit. Do this also with modge podge and polyacrylic coating, etc.

• Keeping paper packed tightly so it doesn’t get ruined. Folders, envelopes and paper-sized boxes will be helpful here.

• Tying ink pads with elastic bands so they don’t open and dry out.

• Making use of magnets to keep pins or metal pieces together as much as possible.

• Removing or keeping casters on carts containing supplies – use your discretion here.

• Roping or taping shut the drawers that may contain craft supplies.

• Wrapping embroidery string around clothes pins to keep them intact.

Plus more. Don’t forget the obvious like taping down ribbon rolls and keeping the lids on spray paint cans. Also, ensure any sharp supplies won’t injure anyone. Exacto knifes and scissors can be sharp! Those jewelry pliers can also do some damage. If there are kids around, please take extra care to pack these carefully and securely.

You may also want to invest in proper art supplies travel gear. They are specially made to hold paints, pastels, brushes and so on. Sometimes they look like suitcases on the outside, but unzipping them reveals the magic of an organized art supplies collection. Other times they are plastic totes with drawers and lids and the like. Find the one that suits you best.

See our related articles:

• Moving Hacks: Lifehacks that Make Moving Easier

Declutter as you pack up your craft room and art supplies for moving day.

This should be an obvious one. It’s something this blogger touches on a lot.

Moving is almost always a time for getting rid of stuff. And the craft room can have a lot of small trinkets that you forgot you owned. Because after all, they’re good at hiding! This is the time to decide what to give away, and what to throw away. You don’t want to pack junk to your new home. It’s a waste of time and a waste of space.

And yes, as our blogger noted in the article linked to above, this means planning in advance of moving day. You’ll want to give yourself a lot of time to sort out the ‘loose’ things that can easily disappear during a move anyway.

Direct the movers on moving day: they may not know how to move a craft room.

As this blogger points out, along with several other useful tips, you’ll want to clearly explain the needs of your craft room to your movers. Remember these guys are probably not attuned to the importance of keeping felt pens organized by colour (giving the example the blogger gave). It’s going to be up to you to do the prep work by bundling things together that go together. And you will need to take care of packing and boxing in this room if you want it done to your own specifications. Movers are on a time budget, so if they aren’t told otherwise in the estimating process, it’s possible your drawer materials will get ‘thrown’ into a box, mixed with other things.

Help your movers so they know if a box has to be kept upright, or if there are fragile items in there. And don’t be silly and assume that they’ll know craft materials are fragile. Pack for the unknown – several layers of bubble wrap or padding is necessary. Not only that, they can’t be responsible for leakages, so, as the above-mentioned blogger pointed out, it’s up to you to pack your paints in plastic bags beforehand.

Keep temperature in mind for moving craft supplies or putting them in storage

As this forum poster mentions, storage is not always climate controlled. This can seriously affect your craft supplies.

Take that a step further and let’s consider the ride in the moving truck. If you are going long distances, you will want to prepare for this. You don’t want your expensive scrap booking paper or canvases getting ruined due to moisture. And you don’t want crayons melting in heat. You also don’t want powder paint to clump.

This may mean separating the material as you pack your craft room. Some things may need to go with you in the car or plane (though that can be a nuisance). In other cases, you may want to seek out temperature-control solutions.

In short, don’t neglect the craft room on moving day!

As you can see above, moving a craft room or packing craft supplies can be more complicated than it first seems. Thankfully, if you’re crafting, you may already be a creative person with more ideas to add to our list of how to move a craft room! And if not, don’t worry. Be sure to tell your movers well in advance that your craft room may require special attention. They can then consider this when giving you an estimate or quote on the cost of moving.

If you are looking for a professional moving company, give Ferguson Moving & Storage a call at 604-922-2212 or request a quote online.