Keep it Together! Tips on Staying Organized

If you're like me, it can be very easy to end up with your costume pieces and sewing stuff all over the house. Here are some tips on how to stay organized!

#1 - Get a Room
If you have the space, dedicate one room in your house or apartment to your costuming. This way even your stuff becomes unorganized, it's all in one place rather than scatter throughout the rest of your house, and you won't have to look too far to find your things.

#2 - Bag It
If your costumes have accessories, put them all in a large ziplock bag. Label the bag with the character, show, and costume variation (if applicable).

EX:  Gun mage   Yuna Braska    FFX-2
         Ayuzawa Misaki    Maid Uniform    Maid-Sama!

#3 - Patterns
This is a tip that I got from my friend Katie who got it from some cosplay group, but it's worth reiterating.
Don't bother trying to get your patterns back into the original envelope. Instead, fold them reasonably, put them in a document envelope, cut and paste the picture and pattern number onto the front, and put it in a file cabinet or something similar. Then you can organize your patterns by garment type, costume type, series, etc.

EX: Pants, Shorts, Skirts, Shirts, Jackets, etc.
       School Uniform, Military, Magical/Fantasy, etc.
       Final Fantasy, Sailor Moon, Tomb Raider, etc.

This way you can see which pattern you're getting and you don't have to try to stuff it back into an itty-bitty envelope.

#4 - Thread Boxes
Ever tried to find a spool of thread in a heap of sewing materials? I have. Ever found the spool, only to discover that it's been unraveled and is now spread over your entire closet? I have. Thread boxes are a great fix for this, and they can be pretty cheap. It's even better if you can get one as a present!

#5 - Notions
Notions can be obnoxious to keep organized. Try buying a bunch of small plastic storage containers and labeling them for zippers, buttons, hooks/eyes, elastic, boning, etc. That way you can just keep things in a handful of boxes and spend a minute looking rather than having one box and spending three hours trying to find a zipper that was on your nightstand the whole time.

That's all I have for now, but if I think up any other really good tips I'll post them. Thanks for reading!