Archives for posts with tag: craft room

I went on a bit of a manic organizing spree during my days off between Christmas and New Year’s. I emptied and re-organized all my kitchen cupboards and my linen closet. And both make me smile now whenever I open them, yes I’m an organizing dork.

I also happen to be a gift wrapping dork. I love wrapping presents but all my wrapping supplies were shoved in a bag at the top of my linen closet so it always seemed like a chore to get the stuff down – that and I never knew what I had. So I decided to take that out of the linen closet to free up some space and finally get my wrapping supplies organized in the guest/craft room closet. The problem was… what to organize it in. Of course I turned to Pinterest for inspiration 🙂 And it finally clicked… magazine racks mounted to the sidewall of the closet! I finally found the perfect ones – they are clear acrylic and about 3 inches deep. Once I found those it was time to dig in…

Yup, all that was crammed onto the top shelf of the linen closet. And stuffed into a few other nooks and crannies - it was definitely more than I thought I had.

Yup, all that was crammed onto the top shelf of the linen closet. And stuffed into a few other nooks and crannies – it was definitely more than I thought I had.

First up - sorting and organizing the paper, tissue, bags and fabric... (yikes that's a lot)

First up – sorting and organizing the paper, tissue, bags and fabric… (yikes that’s a lot)

 

Next up, the ribbon, gift tags and other embellishments.

Next up, the ribbon, gift tags and other embellishments.

 

I started by corralling the wrapping paper at the bottom.

I started by corralling the wrapping paper at the bottom.

Then I hung and filled all the magazine racks (these make me really happy).

Then I hung and filled all the magazine racks (these make me really happy).

And finally the ribbon went on the shelf along with boxes of neatly organized small boxes, ribbons and gift tags. I found the boxes in Vancouver this weekend and a very dangerous store full of fun things to organize with (we spent an hour in there and it wasn't very big...)

And finally the ribbon went on the shelf along with boxes of neatly organized small boxes, ribbons and gift tags.
I found the boxes in Vancouver this weekend and a very dangerous store full of fun things to organize with (we spent an hour in there and it wasn’t very big…)

The best part about my  new set-up is that it’s using that side wall in my closet, so except for some of the space on the top shelf I didn’t need to use any part of the closet that was already being utilized. Gift wrap on display and a new storage nook made this a very fun project.

 

 

I’m really lucky to have a room that I can use most of the time for sewing & crafts – though it does still need to be used as a guest room occasionally.

As I’m working to set-up the room, my biggest dream was to get the largest table possible into the space. It’s not a huge room, so I knew I couldn’t have something that would always be full-sized. There are a lot of folding tables out there, but most are ugly and many would need to be carried in and out of the room which isn’t ideal. My very talented & creative brother-in-law designed and built me my dream craft table.

It’s a simple, clean modern look that I love and is also perfectly functional.

The table is six feet long and can be one, two or three feet deep. Most of the time I leave it with one leaf open, which is about two feet deep and perfect for most projects.

So far, I’ve used it to spread out photos to finally finish a three year old album from a trip to Asia and I’ve used it to piece, cut and pin together sewing projects.

And the best part is, when it’s time for company I just fold down the front leaf and it tucks in-line with the bookshelves leaving plenty of room to set-up the guest bed.

Now that I have the best craft table ever! (photos coming soon, I promise) I needed a chair to go with it. I few months ago I snagged this freebie outside my office.

Not pretty, but simple and an easy chair to spruce up. Dusting it and taking it apart was step one. Then I sanded down the frame a bit before painting.

Then the fun part… painting. I have a love hate relationship with painting. I love how easy it is t make a huge change to something, but I always get bored part way through. Luckily this still managed to be just an afternoon project. I’ve gone back and forth on the color for this chair, white, grey or turquoise… I have all of them available as leftover wall paint. I finally went with my gut… turquoise!

No need to play it safe with a chair, so I might as well pick the fun color. Fabric for the seat was the toughest part… I even bought a couple different fabrics and of course ended up finding the perfect fit in my scrap stash! (well now I have new fabric calling for new projects I guess…). I’ve always loved this fabric and the dark turquoise matched the paint perfectly. Ironic too, because I originally bought this fabric to recover chairs for the office. While the frame dried, I recovered the seat (adding a bit more foam because it was really hard & flat…).

It was coming together so well and I had to make myself wait until the paint was completely dry. Nothing like watching paint dry… But it did and I got to put the pieces back together.

A perfect fun craft chair!
Here it is in its new home…

I’m a little in love with felt right now. It’s the perfect mix of craft project and sewing. It acts like paper and fabric at the same time.

The new room still needed more color, so here’s the 2nd in the turquoise felt pillow series:

I started by finding a simple line drawing of an origami crane then cutting out the individual shapes and piecing them back together using fusible interfacing.

As I got ready to stitch in the outlines I realized I could’ve just started with the full shape and just used the outline to show the shapes – but at least the puzzle was fun to put together.

While I am enjoying adding pops of color to the soon to be craft room, the next project needs to use the beautiful poppy fabric I have from Jill Bliss.