Office/Craft Space

Short-Order Track

Keeping your workstation in check will be a cinch with this inexpensive rail (or ticket holder)—it’s what restaurants use to stay on top of a steady stream of orders. (Look for them online or at restaurant-supply stores.) Mount one above your desk, then load it up with all your ephemera. Marbles inside the track hold papers securely underneath. A groove on top keeps photos and postcards in place.

Color-Blocked Workspace

Beat desktop clutter while keeping necessities within reach: Arrange painted pegboards (organizing workhorses), magnetic sheet metal panels, and chalkboard in an orderly grid.

The details

• Vary the orientation of the pegboards and metal to fit your space.

• Spray-paint the hardware gold to unify (and elevate).

• Create zones on the pegboards—such as a wrapping station vs. craft supplies.

• Stow thumbtacks and other tiny objects in magnetic lidded jars.

• Bonus: For a generous work surface, rest a hollow-core door across two sawhorses, all painted with scuff-resistant high-gloss paint. Screw a yardstick to the desk if you measure on repeat.

Desk Organizer

The easiest mood board ever: Spray-paint a metal garden lattice, let it dry, and prop it up over your workspace or hang it on the wall. Use binder clips to hold inspirational items.

Stenciled Holders

Magazine file boxes offer a neat way to keep periodicals and other printed material from piling up—but it’s easy to lose track of what you’ve got in there. Rather than a boring label, try stenciling each box with a modern number or letter form, to identify the contents with style.

Washi-Tape Labels

Japanese washi tape is not just for kids’ crafts. It can also be fun and functional in your workspace. Use it to create labels in different hues for an at-a-glance organizing system for notebooks or file folders. You can write on the labels, or just choose a different color for each family member and/or record-keeping category, such as household bills, school and medical records, or recipes.

Scissor Saver

Your scissors will stay sharper longer when they’re used exclusively for either fabric or paper, not both. So that you and others will know which is which, mark each pair with a looped piece of washi tape (or ribbon)—assign a color for each (such as blue for fabric, orange for paper), or label tape with a marker to be on the safe side.

Ribbon-Scrap Keeper

In the interest of not wasting a single scrap, wind all your ribbon odds and ends around a small rectangular piece of (upcycled) cardboard. Group them by color, as here, or material (velvet vs. grosgrain, for example), and secure each one with a ball pin. Store the pieces upright in a box or bin, for easy access.

Wrapping Station

Holidays aside, kraft paper is an all-purpose gift wrap that suits any occasion, even no occasion at all! Outfit a craft hutch or storage unit with cut-to-size 1-inch-diameter wooden dowels to make the heavy rolls more manageable. Use slimmer dowels to hold spools of string and twine. Then just unroll what you need.