Anyone who makes things in a group — a quilting circle, a class, a workshop, a Discord full of people doing the same craft — spends a genuinely silly amount of time answering two questions. What did you use? Where did you get it?
The answers get typed out again every time, usually badly, usually missing the detail that matters. And half the time the honest answer is "I don't remember, it was three years ago and the packaging is gone."
A restock list solves both problems at once, and it solves your own reordering as a side effect.
What belongs on a restock list
Not everything you own. The things you buy again:
- Consumables — the specific thread weight, the glue, the blades, the filament, the paint you have standardized on
- The exact variant. Not "cutting mat" but the size and the brand, because the replacement blades have to match
- The tool you would buy again, distinct from the tool you happen to own
- The cheap thing that turned out to matter — the good masking tape, the right needle, the storage box that fits the shelf
- Substitutes that work, noted on the item, for when the first choice is out of stock
Why a link list is the right shape for this
Craft supplies are the category where a name is least useful. Half the products have near-identical names across four brands, sizes are the whole decision, and the thing that works is often a specific SKU rather than a general item.
On MakerManifest each item is created from the URL of a product page, so the entry is the product — the picture, the exact variant, the store. Nobody has to interpret a description. And a list can span the big general retailer, the craft chain and the specialty supplier who is the only place that stocks the one you actually use.
The note on each item is where the value really sits. Use it for what a product page cannot tell anyone:
- "the 45mm, not the 28mm — blades are not interchangeable"
- "buy the 5-pack, singles are twice the price per unit"
- "the store brand is identical, this is just the one I have a link for"
- "discontinued — this is the closest replacement I found"
Sharing it with the group
Publish it and you have one link that answers the question permanently. It goes in the group chat, the class handout, a Discord pin, the description of a project post. Anyone opening it needs no account and installs nothing — a page opens, with your things on it.
When something is discontinued you edit the item and the link everyone already has stays correct. That is the part a screenshot or a typed-out list can never do: it goes stale silently and nobody tells you.
A free account gives 10 lists of 25 items — enough for a couple of well-scoped lists like "cutting and measuring" and "everything for the sewing machine". If you want one long list rather than several short ones, Basic removes the per-list item cap.
Keep it out of creator territory
Pick the Just lists experience when you sign up and the dashboard drops affiliate programs, link tools and click analytics entirely — you get the list builder and sharing. What that changes is written up in Just Lists, including one thing worth knowing either way: product links may carry an affiliate tag and every public list shows a disclosure saying so on the page.
Start with the consumables
If this feels like a project, do not build the whole craft room. Build the reorder list — the eight or ten things you buy again and again. It takes fifteen minutes, it is immediately useful to you, and it is already most of the answer to the next person who asks.
Build your supply list free and stop retyping the answer.