WOYWW #9

Although it's Hallween and I should have some super awesome tutorial.  Unfortunately, with our big move I didn't even have a chance to do any fun Halloween crafts this year!!  *frown*

I do, however, have a brand new edition of WOYWW (What's on Your Work-desk Wednesday)!!  The twist is that I'm not showing you my desk or even a work station.  I'm showing off my new craft room...err...I mean...my future new craft room!!

My hubby & I moved into a new home this past week and I was able to claim and entire room for my crafts!!  I already have soooo many plans for this bare space and I can't wait to get started setting it up!!  Let's get to the new room...

That wall is going to be mostly storage.  I'm going to add another black shelving unit against the back wall and a different, more decorative shelving unit to the right of the current industrial shelves.

That's my little sewing table and funky stool that needs replacing.  You can also see the industrial shelves pretty well in this picture...they work great for me!!

This closet is going to store my Etsy shoppe inventory and will have 3 smaller shelving units inside.

So far, I know the layout and I'm pretty sure on the rooms color scheme...

I'd love to hear your ideas on how to decorate this crafty space!! 

Send me your ideas because I'm ready to get started!!

Thanks for reading!!  Until next time...

A Tour of Our New House

What a crazy summer this has been!!  I don't know about you, but I simply cannot believe it's the end of October already!!  I had so many plans for great Halloween projects & tutorials and I'm totally bummed that they're going to have to wait until next year!!

The good news is that my hubby, my cat, and I have moved into a much bigger home!!  We decided to move to the base where my hubby works because the hour-long commute each way was taking it's toll on him.  Now we live about 10 minutes from his work!!  The down side is that we're only going to get to enjoy this house for about a year before it will be time for him to transfer again.

Here's a quick tour of the new home in it's current state...

FOYER

This is standing just outside of the Foyer looking towards the front door.  There's not much here, but I figured I'd show it to you anyway.

HALLWAY

This is our ridiculously long hallway!! It goes from the front door to the wall of the Master Bedroom at the back of the house.

DINING ROOM

This is a photo looking in from the Foyer.  As you can see our little dining room table is way too small for this room.

This shot is looking in from the Kitchen.  Those boxes are all kitchen items that need to be put into the cabinets, drawers, & pantry.

LIVING ROOM

This view is looking into the Living Room from the Foyer.  

As many of you know, I'm disabled and spend 98% of my time in my home.  This will be the room where I spend my days working on my Etsy shoppe and blogging.

This photo was taken from the Hallway, right next to the Kitchen.

KITCHEN

This is the left side of the kitchen and just so you know, this is giant compared to our old galley-style kitchen!!

This is the right side of the Kitchen looking towards the Breakfast Bar which looks into the Family Room.  Again, lots of boxes to be put away!!

FAMILY ROOM

 Looking through the Breakfast Bar area into the Family Room.

A photo from the Hallway looking towards the right side of the Family Room.

 Another angle which shows the left side of the Family Room and the Breakfast Bar.

LAUNDRY ROOM

Although it's not really a "room", I'm calling this area the Laundry Room!!  I think it has great potential!!

SPARE BEDROOM

Although this is going to be a Spare Bedroom at some point, right now it's just a holding area for my craft supplies!!  Yes, those boxes are all craft supplies!!

CRAFT ROOM

This picture is looking in from the Hallway.  All of the items and boxes you see there are for my Etsy shoppe.

 Here's the big closet I get to stuff with craft supplies or Etsy shoppe inventory!!

OFFICE

This is Hubby's office.  Not much more to say about this room.

MASTER BEDROOM

Sorry this photo is kind of blurry.  This is the last main room of the house.  I would've shown a couple different angles, but I wasn't sure if Hubby would want me showing our personal space in great detail!!

To us, this house is a mansion!!  We've never been so lucky to have a home this big!!  To put this in perspective for you, our last home was literally 1/2 the square footage of this house!!  We're so happy to be living here!!

From now on, I'm taking you along on this new journey...  You'll get to follow us as we unpack, organize, and eventually decorate this new home of ours!!  

I'm going to need your input and ideas at every turn because I've never been good at home decorating!!  If you've already come up with some ideas while looking at the photos, please comment below and share them!!  I need all of the help I can get!!

Thanks for reading!!  Until next time...

Craft Room Organization Update - Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my Craft Room Organization Update!  The following photos go around the room, from right to left.  This will be a little long, but I really want to share exactly how I've managed to organize my massive amount of supplies in a relatively small space.

The shelving unit in this picture holds all of my beading, polymer clay, and leather supplies as well as my greeting cards, paper punches, stamps & stamp pads, and a few other bins of miscellaneous supplies.  Each shelf can hold 12 plastic shoe bins with room to spare!!

On the wall, I've worked out a way to keep all of my most used supplies at my fingertips.  The bookshelf will eventually hold my organizational binders, art journals, Keri Smith books, a container of gesso, and a sewing kit.  The  "Bygel rails" from Ikea are actually sold for kitchen organization, but when I saw them, I HAD to have them for my craft room!  The "Bygel wire basket" on the right bar stores my various glues and jewelry pliers and the 3 "Bygel containers" will hold my many scissors, pens, pencils, paint brushes, and markers.  I stretched the hooks on "Dignitet curtain rings with clips" so I could hang zip lock bags containing rubber bands, craft sticks, glue dots, baggies, plastic gems, and my spare clip hooks.

The sewing desk is able to open up so I'm able to pull my chair right up and under the desk.  It has some shelves inside to store supplies and has a shelf underneath in the back to hold my sewing machine when it's not in use.

This shelving unit holds most of my paper-crafting supplies.  I could fit up to 10 plastic scrapbook containers on a single shelf, but I've just intermixed my shoe bins and my scrapbook containers.

All of my 12"x12" scrapbook paper is in the containers on the lower shelf in this picture and on the shelf above that is my new & vintage ephemera, stickers, small papers, fabric paint, and some other miscellaneous supplies.

In this picture and the one above, you can see parts of the closet, which was originally full of household storage and some of my hubby's belongings.  There's still some non-crafty things on the top shelf, but at least I have the rest of the space for supplies.

The shelving unit on the right side of the closet has my craft books, specialty paper, sewing supplies, buttons, ribbon, lace, household paints, and other miscellaneous supplies.

On the left-hand shelving unit, I have most of my mixed-media/"altering" supplies.  This includes cigar boxes, books & journals, puzzles, picture frames, unfinished wood items, artificial flowers/moss/gourds, paper mache items, etc as well as my acrylic paints, paint brushes, and stamp carving supplies.

Between the two shelving units, I've piled my gift wrapping supplies such as bags, paper, and curling ribbon.  To the left of the beige shelves are my art canvases and larger pieces of cut wood.

In a future post, I will give step-by-step instructions on how to organize and store your craft supplies as I have in my craft room.

Craft Room Organization Update - Part 1

Back in February, I posted my New Year's Resolutions and one of them was to complete my craft room.  Although I haven't finished it, I've made a lot of progress and wanted to share what's been done so far.  Since I will show photos of the transformation as well as explaining exactly how I've managed to organize my massive amount of supplies in a relatively small space, I'm going to split this into two posts.  

February 2011

In this picture you'll notice that I had sort of started on getting organized, but still had a looooonngg way to go!!  I'd purchased and set up the big industrial plastic shelving units from Lowe's.  Even though it's buried you can sort of make out my sewing desk.  Also, I'd developed the beginning of my primary storage method: plastic shoe bins.

March 2011

Just before this photo was taken, a good friend of mine helped me during a one week organizing spree and here's what the room looked like after that week.  Here you can see that I'd put more of my supplies into containers and have them on the shelves.  My sewing desk is actually visible in this picture!!  Even though you can't see it, there is a bed 100% covered in craft supplies that is opposite that wall and to the left of this photo is an unorganized closet filled with my hubby's stuff.

November 2011

Even though there are still some boxes left to go through, this is a huge improvement compared to when I started.  My primary method of organizing is using plastic containers, especially plastic shoe bins from Dollar Tree.  To sort the stuff inside the bins, I use 2"x2", 3"x3", and 4"x4" zip lock baggies from PaperMart as well as your standard sandwich, quart, and gallon zip lock bags.  I also like organizational binders and my nifty "Bygel rails" from Ikea that are on the wall above my sewing desk.

In tomorrow's Part 2, I'll go from one side of the room to the other and go into much more detail about how I have organized and stored all my supplies.

Happy New Year and Happy New Year!

It's only February and 2011 has gotten off to a busy start! So busy in fact, I haven't had time to write my New Year blog post! Luckily, there is the Asian New Year, so I'm taking it as a second opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year and discuss my personal crafty resolutions!

Crafty Resolution #1: Organize my newly acquired craft room. As you can see by the above photo, the new craft room is definitely not usable at this time. I'm actually very overwhelmed at this daunting task. However, I must get it partially done by March because my best friend Brook will be visiting and will need somewhere to sleep. Oh yeah, there is a bed buried in there to the right of the photo.

Crafty Resolution #2: Learn how to use my sewing machine. I've owned my awesome Singer sewing machine for a few years now, but just never got around to learning how to use it. Sad, I know! Thankfully, Brook has promised to teach me how to use it when she visits me next month! I'm so excited because there are so many projects I want to do, but really should use my sewing machine for!

Crafty Resolution #3: Post regularly to this craft blog. I have so many topics to write about, interviews to hold, projects and tutorials to share, and more! I just need to pick a couple specific days of the week and make those my blogging days.

What are your crafty resolutions for 2011?