Friday, July 20, 2012

Well, let's go back to the great closet clean-out,

shall we? Cleaning out the office closet had one sole purpose – to make room for CRAFT STUFF. Now that Craig has re-purposed Drew’s bedroom into an office of his own I wanted to gather all my crafty goodness into one room too. Crafty Goodness = scrapbook stuff, mixed media supplies, knitting and other fiber art things, as well as sewing supplies [plus fabric.]
 THAT was the number one goal – secondarily, I wanted to have a bit more space to create, and thirdly, I wanted things where I could SEE them [and thus, use them more.] And, let’s be honest, I wanted space to use some cute little green storage boxes that had been hanging out in the playroom since I’d picked them up at Ikea over a year ago. As a reminder, I have a desk in the alcove of this room that has always been my ‘scrapping’ desk – [here's a peek -] all those supplies are in that area. And while the organization may get tweaked from time to time – it’s pretty much set up and easy to use [and grab & go to crops. [I've recently bought a giant yellow tote to replace the bin that my monthly kits are stored in - much easier to grab and go to crops - ]
I knew I was going to take the closet doors off the closet that is next to the desk I’ve taken over for mixed media - this is what it looked like before -  [I tucked them away in the back so there’d be no mix-up in the future should someone want to put them back on] and had pondered for a while what kind of work surface / shelving to put in… But y’all know I’m all about re-purposing [and had already planned to move some furniture around in the playroom] so I took this [cheap-o] computer desk we’d bought at a thrift store when we moved in 9 years ago and put it in the closet [had to virtually take it apart to get it in – but it’s all back together now…]
and here we are now – Love. It. Everything in here came from the playroom & playroom closet  - all the fiber art [knitting, etc] and sewing stuff is tucked underneath, the shoe boxes with drawers were moved off the work service [giving me more room to create!]
 And the green boxes are perfect storage up above. I pulled out a lazy susan [again, bought at Ikea, maybe two years ago] and have it to keep often used supplies handy – and I’m using an old bicycle basket I picked up last year to hold vintage books for mixed media.
I've moved the paint basket and the train case off my paint desk and moved it here - much neater and gives me more space!  I’m sure that things will get moved around and tweaked a bit more as I use the area – I'm not thrilled with the area under the shelf - but I can't decide what I might want to do there - maybe more of the drawer boxes? Or,  may start with the bin I moved off the scrapbook table [ I think I have three...]
 Top shelf holds my hand-made [and purchased]  scrapbooks from middle school, high school, and college, as well as copies of Simple Scrapbook magazine - my all-time favorite! And of course the green bins and a couple of [Christmas] boxes from Big Lots that old my daddy's slides from the 50s - as well as those of Beau the Dog we bought at an estate sale [ WHAT? Have I not shared Beau the Dog with y'all?!? Love the fun little pennant I made to spruce things up a bit and on the other side I've used pant hangers to hold a couple of my favorite crop bags.

A whole new area without even one new purchase! I encourage you to look through your ‘stuff’ and see how you might move things around to use them in a new and better way! [You can see that my crafty organizing 'style' is to have things where I can see them  - out of sight is out of mind for me.]

2 comments:

Gloria L. said...

Oh, my! Looks GREAT! I am really liking that cute little banner above your desk...

Linh C. said...

great ideas for me as I try to create my crafting space in the guest bedroom. I'm having to put a lot of my supplies in the closets.