Some fun craft/sewing workstations
Today I wanted to share some neat workstations I’ve found online. I like that they don’t take up much space and look to be very functional. I heart functional!
The Elfa System from the Container Store
Foldaway Mobile Workcenter from Get Organized!
Triple Utility Table from Solutions
Sauder Craft Armoire – Antiqued White
My favorite is probably the first one, I can see so many great uses for it. How about you?
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13 Craft Storage Solutions
Today I want to highlight some nifty craft storage solutions I’ve found as I’ve cruised around some of my favorite online organizing sites. Now you know that I don’t think that all these things are necessary to get your crafts organized. Not all all, cardboard boxes work great too. However part of my addiction with organizing revolves around gazing lovingly at beautiful containers and thankfully this here gig I’ve got allows me to do just that all in the name of “research”. I don’t even have to have them in my home (although gosh let’s face it, it sure would be nice) in order to appreciate the cleverness of them all.
I just really like them and what kind of junkie would I be if I didn’t share my habit with others :)
So here we go.
Fabric Storage
Accessory Storage
4. The Keeper:
5. Portable Craft Organizer Caddy:
6. Four-Drawer Acrylic Storage Chest:
12. Snap ‘n Stack Craft Organizer:
13. 14 x14 tote with adjustable dividers:
See more Thursday Thirteen participants here.
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This month we are organizing our sewing/craft areas for Org Junkie’s Monthly Organizing Round-Up. Join us and you could win a one year membership to List Plan It!
How many uses for…..a thread holder?
Okay I’ve got a new fun game for us to play. My good friend Sarah owns the local thrift store so I spend quite a bit of time there. Quite often I find little gems at the store that were originally designed for one purpose but that could easily be adapted or used in so many other creative ways.
Starting today and then whenever I’ve got a new treasure to share with you I’m going to put up a picture of my find and show you some alternate ways to put it to good use. Then I’m opening the floor up to you and if you can think of any other clever uses then please share in the comments. What I’m hoping to accomplish is to inspire us to think a little more outside of the box than what we might be use to in order to come up with some clever organizing solutions that don’t cost a lot of money.
So my find for today’s “How Many Uses?” game is this lovely holder originally designed for spools of thread:
It’s an excellent little organizing device that I also thought would make a great jewelry holder:
or a fabulous holder for my daughter’s growing collection of head bands (this is only a few of them for demonstration purposes):
Not bad for a $1.99!
Now it’s your turn?
How many uses can we come up with?
Organizing your craft room
My girlfriend Annie took pity on the fact that I didn’t have a craft room of my own to organize and allowed me to help organize her craft room instead. Isn’t she nice, I seriously have the best friends ever!
Annie had just recently painted her new craft room and hadn’t gotten around to pulling it all together yet. Take a look:
We started out with the first step in the PROCESS, the plan. I spent a couple of minutes asking her what types of things needed to be stored in this space, which things she uses most often, what could she remove from the room, etc. Read the complete list of questions to ask yourself BEFORE starting your project here.
What I found out was that Annie needed a place to store her Christmas gift collection, she needed to make room on her table for her sewing machines, she wanted to utilize the dresser for fabric, she didn’t need to store winter coats in this space so they could be removed, the furniture placement was working the way it was but just not being utilized to it’s fullest potential.
We only had a short time frame to get things done and as I looked around the room I wasn’t sure we’d be doing more than a small dent in the space. But we had a plan and knew that even if we only got a portion of the plan done it would still be better than if we didn’t start at all. So we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.
As you can see Annie has two small closets in this room (that are still missing their doors but these will go on soon) so we decided to allocate one of them for her Christmas collection and the other for out of season clothes and other things she doesn’t access regularly. We started by removing everything out of the closets into the middle of the room so that we could start with a fresh slate. Annie had an inexpensive shelving unit she wasn’t using in another part of the house that we were able to squeeze perfectly into the left hand closet to help maximize that space as much as possible. She also had those gorgeous fabric bins just sitting in her bathroom not being used so in they went as well. Then we moved around the room collecting all the Christmas loot that was here and there and everywhere and started loading it into the closet. Gift bags were corralled into a recycled bag and hung on a hanger. It all worked perfectly and having everything in one location will help her keep tabs on what she has already purchased saving her money in the long run.
Once we got going and were motivated by the closet completion the rest actually came together much quicker than we thought it would. I worked on clearing the floor of all the clutter next. Most of the bags on the floor were fabric that just needed to be put into their new home in the dresser. Her scrapbooking supplies were allocated to bins and drawers. Once I knew where I was going to put supplies (ie: beads, stickers, papers, etc) it was easy to just move things to where they needed to go. Due to our lack of time I didn’t worry about how organized the drawers were at this point. I knew those could easily be tackled later after I’d left. My goal for that day was to ensure that we had her floor space cleared along with the desk tops.
In just an hour and a half this is what we completed:
I think we were both surprised at how quickly it went but I find that’s usually the case for most organizing projects once you get on a roll like that. The trick is just to start.
Now I’ve left Annie with some homework of course. Her job will be to go through each of the drawers and sort like with like and purge anything that she doesn’t love or need. This shouldn’t take her too long and if she wants it would be nothing to just take or roll out her plastic drawer bins to the living room and organize them as she watches a movie.
Almost everything Annie used in this space she already owned and purchased very inexpensively from garage sales and friends with the exception of the fold up sewing machine table which I believe she purchased from Canadian Tire for $50.00. She also bought the paper sorter new and that was from Michaels. Please read this post I did on Making Do to further inspire you to not let $$ stand in your way from organizing right now.
A big shout out to Annie for sharing her space with me, thanks for the “fix” girl!
If you have any questions about what we did or the tools we used just ask away in the comments.
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