Craft Room Storage Reflections

Before I reveal my latest craft room configuration, let me give you some background.  Many weeks ago, I signed up for the Scrapbook.com "Get Organized" class when they put it on for free.  It's a 27 week class with a new craft organization challenge landing in your email inbox each week.  I was just filing them away without having read them.  I was going to read them all over the holiday break.  Turns out, the links expire.  Luckily, I started reading in or about week 25, so I had a more current link to the content where I found a "read ahead" link and was able to retrieve all weeks.  So, that is the guidance I followed for redoing my craft room.

The first thing I wanted to do was rearrange my furniture.  I used a piece of graph paper to draw my room.  Then I cut out furniture parts from more paper.  It's like making a paper doll for your room.  I was able to quickly and easily move furniture around until I got a configuration I liked.  I could take a picture of it before I re-arranged it again so that I could see my top three "best" layouts before committing to one.

Week 2 was the imagine your dream space week (squeeeeaal!).  I spent a LOT of time looking at craft rooms to figure out what I liked best about them.  If you need inspiration, my favourite place to peruse is the Crafty Storage Blog.  Great ideas I saw on here include:

• Stickles homemade upside down storage
• Stickles with pipe straps (This person has since deleted their blog.  This idea is the one that I used for my storage.)

• DIY stadium style stamp display boxes
• Copic/Marker storage in wine racks and down spouts
• Copic/Marker storage in PVP pipes (pictured below)

When looking at rooms and craft room video tours, turns out the ones I loved the most were ones with the containers the same colour or the same style.  I loved the uniformity and repeating designs (like a repeating motif or theme in any piece of art).  For examples, check out these lovely rooms:

• Mary Fish of Stampin' Pretty
• Craftaholics Anonymous Uniform storage example 1
• Craftaholics Anonymous Uniform storage example 2
• Karen's Small Craft room uniform storage example (pictured below - video tour available at link)

I previously painted my room grey with the intention of accenting with teal and purple.  I haven't been able to achieve the accented look but I think it's close enough.  I settled on congruent containers instead of repeating the same one.  I tried to stick to my teal and purple combo choice but I didn't find many.  So, I fell back on neutrals: black, grey, white and brown.

Another dilemma I faced: I need to see it to use it but, simultaneously, I don't like clutter.  Well, how can I have it all put away but still see it?  That was a challenge.  I think I've reached a happy medium though.

I told my husband I wanted crafty storage for Christmas.  Then I told him I was doing this 27 week program over my holiday break but that I was stuck on week three: clean your craft room.  Ugh.  (He laughed.)  That took DAYS but it certainly helped me to mentally catalogue what I have and what I, therefore, need to store.  I read ahead through all of the weeks to get ideas of the kinds of containers would work for me.  Hubby took me shopping to pick out my new crafty storage containers.  I was able to shop with purpose and knowing I could start using them Christmas Day really helped me to get through the cleaning part.  (I got a gift card towards crafty storage from my sister too!)

I wanted to share a bit of my process with you and the great links to all the inspiration I found on the web.  I love the DIY storage ideas and also ways to make ugly storage pretty.  My favourite ideas were how to make supplies pull double duty as room decor - that makes them visible and yet organized.

A big THANK-YOU to all the crafters out there who have shared their ideas and their spaces!

I'll be taking some pictures and a video of my new configuration soon!

Sneak Peak Craft Room Redo

I've had a break this holiday season.  I've used it to re-arrange my crafting room.  This time, I nabbed a free class from Scrapbook.com called Get Organized.  It's a 27 week class that I intended to tackle in a weekend.  Well, it's been about 10 days and I'm not quite done (but close!).  I've gotten all kinds of attractive storage as my Christmas gifts.

By re-arranging the furniture, I was able to add 2 pieces, one of which my hubby assembled (a Billy Bookcase from Ikea that I bought to hold DVDs but that never happened and it has sat unassembled for months)

Here's a sneak peek at what I got from Home Outfitters.

I used one expandable just as is and another in (what I think is) an innovative way.

 You'll spot these under shelf baskets in my new room in a jiffy.

Bet you'll be surprised how I used these stacking pantry baskets!

What are your guesses?  How would you use these in your space?

Handmade Holiday Wreath

For no particular reason, my sister decided to make a wreath for me!  She gathered all the stuff at Michaels Craft Store when they had their Black Friday deals and put it all together.  She gave it to me when we went for a family skate.  She scented it with pine too.  I'm not fond of the smell, but the wreath is outside, so it's okay!

It's got poinsettias and pine cones, holly berries, and a glitter-tipped, white, wintery, butterfly.  It's not a big wreath, but it's pretty.  We usually decorate the exterior of the house for Halloween, but we do very little for Christmas (just lights).  So, this was a much needed holiday decor injection!

We were kept up with the ice on the trees in the conservation area breaking off the branches.  The damage is so sad to see this morning.  The freezing rain has stopped but high winds are expected.  We fear that when the surviving ice-laden branches start swaying in the wind, we're going hear a lot more branches cracking and crashing down.

The news says many are without power.  Our power lines are underground, so we have been spared (phew!)  I hope we get a few days of warm up to melt some of this ice!

Stay warm.  Stay safe!  Me, I'm keeping inside (no surprise there!) and am in the midst of my (thus far annual) Paper Studio redo!  (And wrapping gifts.)

File Folder Card for Mom's Birthday Card

I've been meaning to try out a file folder card since I got my hands on an Envelope Punch Board.  I bought this punch board so I could make envelope sizes outside of A2 but, so far, I've been using it for anything BUT envelopes, it seems!

Here's a card I've made for my mother in law.  I've been trying to come up with an idea for a couple of days and I suddenly just decided I might as well give this file folder card a try!  I've been wondering what to use for an image but another thing on my card-making bucket list was making a card where the sentiment is the focal image.

Voila!

I do like how it turned out!  I used a sentiment from a Close to My Heart stamp set, Stampin' Up! red seam binding and some sprinkles bling from Annabelle Stamps.

Click for larger view.

I'm definitely going to make more of this style of card!!  Google "file folder card" and you will find tonnes of YouTube videos on how to make them with the Envelope Punch Board.