Within the last year I have set up and moved my craftroom to set it up again. I was originally upstairs. Problem with that is, it is another world. Like cut off from EVERYTHING. I had to have a baby monitor just to hear if someone was looking for me downstairs. It also had no windows and I couldn't stand not being able to see out. So we did a huge room fliparoo. Heather now has the room upstairs and of course for her safety we had a window put in. You can see her room HERE. So now I am in a room on the main level and I cannot tell you how much I love it. For one, it has windows! I can see out the back to my feathered girls. I am near the kitchen so I can step in here while I am doing other chores to slap something together or look something up. In a perfect world I would LOOOVE to have everything built in. But this works good for me for now. I am quite happy.
The table tops are cheap doors that I picked up at Lowe's. I eventually might paint them, but for now just the natural works for me. Then I have Walmart bookshelves. Yes, the very ones that if you try to move even a centimeter will fall apart in a heap. But it all is inexpensive and definitely works. So I have my cup holder mounted, and I Jerry-rigged my kleenex box off of that. I know it looks silly, but it kept getting in my way. It is all about functionality RIGHT??
Up on my desk I have my handy dandy cuppy cake holder that I totally scored big on at a garage sale. It holds the things I use most often. My watering can holds my most used tools.
The next two things are systems I have used for several years. I love it because I can literally pick them up and be ready to go to a crop or playdate.
First, my ribbon holder is snapware. I think this is maybe 4 sets? They all snap together and I spray painted the lid to match my color. Gotta love that plastic paint. I loooove this organization of ribbon though. It works really really well for me.
Inside I have each ribbon wrapped around a small piece of cardstock and as you can see they are filed by colors. I love it because I can see everything I have just by looking. I find that I use more of my ribbons like this.
Organizing embellishments has always been a chore. But this WORKS! Again, I can close it up and take it with me on a whim. It is a painters box I think. ArtBin I think is the name. I have had this system for years. Everything from buttons to eyelets to metal and charms fits in here. Up top there is room for chipboard and the bigger stuff.
This is an old milk bottle carrier that I sprayed black. The cans are soup cans that I covered in black paper and accented with ribbon. Again, very easy to grab n go. As most of you know I am Copic certified, but most of my markers need refills so I have kind of switched just to pencils for now. They dont take refills and seem to have an easier upkeep. I have no doubt I will go back to my Copics, but for now I love my pencils.
You are going to LOVE this one!! It is a box. No really....a box. I couldn't find a trash can I liked. If you get one big enough then it is too tall, if you get one short enough I'd be emptying it hourly. So this is a cardboard box I covered in contact paper. Stylish huh?
The next one is totally a Pinterest hack. I mounted an outlet strip on one of the bookshelves. I can now plug in my phone or computer or the heat gun or glue gun without having to stand on my head. It is sooooo handy!
Having my sewing machine set up all the time is a dream. I LOOOOVE the fact that I don't have to lug it out of the closet or from storage and then find a place for it.
If I should have a friend over, I can totally move the sewing machine out of the way and have another work space too.
This is one of my first attempts at cutting vinyl on the Cricut. I also painted the vinyl, again to get my color tied in. Kinda fun I think. The frame is one that was left down in the basement when we moved in and of course I had chicken wire on hand. I painted a bunch of clothes pins and embellished them a bit. Works pretty well to display a few cards and pictures.
One of the most daunting tasks that I took on was cutting my paper. At the last play retreat I went to I was extremely happy with what I had taken. I had my ribbons and my embellishments, my colors and all of my tools, but I was sooooo paper poor. It definitely was NOT because I didn't have any to take with me, but rather the fact that what I chose to take did not work for things I ended up making.
So I decided that SOMETHING different needed to happen with my papers. I had 2 ginormous bins of 12 x 12 paper. The tops of some of the sheets were crinkled because they't been moved so many times. I had a LOT of paper that I seriously got when I first got into paper crafts and I really didn't like, but kept it anyways. This time around it all went away. The rest was still a huge amount. So...I made the executive decision to cut it all down to card size. All of it. Well, I kept a good supply of black, white, craft and gray in the bigger sizes and since I have done this I have purchase one book of primary color paper. But all in all, I have ZERO regrets. I am using paper I had forgotten I had bought and papers that I would never dream to use if it were in my bins.
The best part is, I can snap the lids on and they are ready to travel!!!
Dollar General was kind enough to have this great box for my vinyl!
A shoe wrack inside the closet door for my punches and scissors and cuttlebug embossers. Everything is all organized and easy to find.
Of course what is a craftroom without a Raskog cart from Ikea?? My mom got me this one and it was a rather loud shade of turquoise. I spray painted it and I think it looks soooo awesome!
In the top I have all of my ready made cards ready to go. Sorted and organized by type. As you can see my FRIEND slot is getting a little weak. I LOVE THIS though. They are right where I can get to em, and guess what---I am using them!!!! Plus it is really easy to tell which kind of cards I need to focus on making.
Down underneath I just have extra adhesive, my address books, printer ink and random whatnots.
Im not in love with my HOUSE MOUSE collection here. But it works for now. I am hoping that Ronnie will build me a tiered shelf that will help them feel a little more loved. This also brings me to the 2nd and most painful reorganizing feature in my craftroom. The stamps you see here on the shelf are the only stamps that I have still mounted on wood. I love my mouses and refer to the blocks often when I color so I didn't take them off. They are kinda my pets. But yes, the boxes down underneath of them....all cling mounted and filed.
I sewed little pockets with transparency film and cardstock. I stamped the image on the cardstock and tucked the stamps into the pocket. After I mounted them to clingfoam. This is a HUGE undertaking. Like years worth of work. Seriously...years.
But again, NO REGRETS. I used to have all of my stamps in 6 large rubber maid boxes. I had no idea what I had. It was such a major ordeal to get something out that I spent more time sifting through each box than actually creating. Again, not very good for traveling.
Each sleeve is labeled with a number. Like this is PA4 for Party #4. This makes it easy to clean up. If I have PA4 out, I know that it goes in the party section behind 3 before 5. Simple enough right??
Okay, so I have one t-tiny regret. I wish I had made note of the manufacturers of stamps. Yes, I split up my sets. My words are all with words, my animals are in animals and so on. But I think Id like to know the makers of some. But it is not something I dwell on.
Next, let me introduce to you an app call Sortly. It is not perfect but it really does what I want it to for the most part. This is on my iPad. But I also have it saved to Dropbox so I can open it from my PC or any other device I want to get on.
I took a photo of each sleeve and then uploaded it to Sortly.
Again, using my categories that they are sorted in, in the boxes.
I sub labeled everything so that I can do searches and find what I am looking for. It tells me where they are located and shows me the photo so I can see which will work. I hate that I can't just scroll through the photos all at once. That is a major set back of the app. But like I said, it works pretty good for me. I am definitely using my stamps more and guess what...yes you got it, they are easy to travel with. The boxes are all ornament boxes from the Christmas organization isle. They snap together with lids and are ready to go!
There you have it. My little piece of heaven. I truly love my little room. My husband strongly encourages me to be creative but has a come apart when my supplies and projects venture out into the rest of the house. With this set up I don't have a need to drag anything about. I have lots of room and it just works! If you have questions about any of my organization ideas let me know. I KNOW that my way is NOT the end all be all. But I have worked hard trying to figure out a way that would serve a few purposes:
- Not look like who-da-thunkit.
- Be travel ready
- Be easy to not only use, but clean up from. (I am NOT real good at putting things away as I go. In fact I had to clean up just to take these photos.)
- Simple enough that my friends can play with my stuff too.
I think I have nailed it. My next hopes are for some track lighting and I really want to get a drafting chair that is on casters. I think that would help so much!
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