Where Bloggers Create 2015

I’m so excited to include my craft room in the Where Bloggers Create summer roundup. I’ve wanted to participate for several years, but things got in the way, so I jumped on it this year! Thank you, Karen, for letting all of us share our pages.

If you haven’t already, go check out her blog. This annual feature has a great collection of craft and sewing rooms, and the ideas are endless. I set aside a whole day each summer to browse and jot down ideas. Some of the rooms are too pretty to use!

If you followed the link, you are on the original post (and not here, so I’m not sure why I’m talking to you, lol), but in case you got here through some other way, I’m posting pictures again. I won’t waste too much time with comments because most people just want to see the pictures. If you have any questions, though, I am happy to answer them in the comments! I do want to say that my husband built all of the furniture for me and helped me design it so that it would be most usable. I know, right?! He’s perfect. Sometimes I just want to stare at him in amazement, but that’s for another post. Here we go . . .

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This is my room when you walk into the door. Complete with a fat cat.

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I couldn’t leave out Callie. She looks fat, but she’s just furry. This table is an old kitchen table that my wonderful, amazing husband refinished for me.

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This is the view from a different corner. The cart holds my paper, my Cricut and Silhouette, dies, stamps, and paper cutters. See the little wheels at the bottom? Yeah, my husband was smart enough to know we might need to move it to get something into the room, so he added wheels. The drawers are deep and sturdy. the cabinet next to it is storage for all kinds of things, mostly blanks and stabilizers for embroidery. The other cabinet holds fabric and polyfill, and the baskets hold glue, tape, paper bags, and other things.

The picture below shows the shelves on the cart, and I have lots of great things stored in baskets and bins. The inside of the cabinets, including the shelves, are left natural so that they will age and get a beautiful patina. He convinced me to paint the walls and trim white since the cabinets are painted in a wheat color, and I think it was a great decision because the room looks less busy.

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We didn’t want to do anything to cover the windows, so he built a window seat for me. He angled the bottom to allow the air vent to work properly.

This corner is my sewing corner. I have my Brother sewing machine and my Brother SE400 embroidery machine on my sewing table.  I made the curtains and the sewing machine cover. As you can see, my cats follow me everywhere. I’m including some closeup pictures so you can get an idea of some of my storage solutions.

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I made this little pin cushion from an egg cup I got at Pottery Barn. It is so much fun to use. You can also see the hole in the back of the cabinet for my sewing machine cords. It is really nice not to have to mess with them running down in front of the cabinet. 179

Around the other side, I have two window seats with storage underneath, and beside them is a shelf to hold mason jars. They are full of odds and ends that I use for crafting and home decor. It is amazing how much stuff you collect over the years, and these jars are stacked two deep! The cart is from Ikea and holds fabric I’m working on right now. The closet doors were old and heavy, like Thor’s hammer heavy, so we took them out, and I sewed a curtain to cover the closet. Next to that is a shelf for my fabric. I keep it folded on comic book boards, so he built it to dimension.

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This is the side by the door, which I painted with chalkboard paint that makes it a workable place to keep notes. The music cabinet holds plastic boxes with little bits for paper crafts, buttons, small tools, and other things. Underneath I keep large buckets of paint. The little rolling cart beside it holds wrapping paper.

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This is the corner behind the door where I have small paint and glitter along with dye new craft room 2 035and some rolls of Washi. I tried not to leave any space unused. I love Tim Holtz products for paper crafting.

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I love looking at how people arrange things, so I’m going to leave this post with a series of pictures.

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My last picture is one that my daughter made for me. She is the most creative person I know, and she loves tinkering with ideas. She made the little pink dump truck pin cushion for me. And then she made this lovely picture, which I think this is the most perfect exclamation point for my craft room.

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craft and sewing organization

I love looking at people’s organization ideas, don’t you? I have gotten so many great ideas from Pinterest and different blogs, and I can never get enough. When my sewing room is well-organized, I feel inspired to get in there and get something done.

I thought I would share some of my own organization ideas with you. I’m finalizing the cabinets and closet right now, so I’ll have a new post in a few days, but for now, I hope something in my room will inspire you!

097I like to store as much as I can in these mason jars because it is so much easier to find things this way. I have two rows, so I can put like things together, too. Much of my sewing odds and ends are in these jars, and I even have some electrical supplies for a project or two.

new craft room 2 044I keep my thread on a holder so that I can keep it untangled and also know what I have on hand. For current projects, the thread I need is in this little bucket.

new craft room 2 042This tray holds my sewing supplies, and the little dish holds pins. I got this at IKEA in Dallas and put a heavy duty magnet on the bottom. I also use the little rabbit pin cushion. It’s one of my all-time favorite things!

new craft room 2 035I store some small jars and rolls of washi tape in an old Coke box. The little jars are wedding favors from Walmart, and the little cream and sugar silver set is from an antique store on 6th Street in Amarillo, which is on the old Route 66.

new craft room 2 033I love these jam jars. If you ever get a chance to try Bonne Maman jelly, you should jump on it. It is wonderful jelly, and the jars are adorable. I’m not a paid spokesperson, but I should be because we buy tons of their jelly and use it in all kinds of pastries.

new craft room 2 031This is a behind-the-door solution to lots and lots of small bottles of things. I have everything from glitter to Mod Podge to Rit Dye stored here. I stacked the two units together that I got at Michael’s with a 40% coupon. I also have a paper towel holder on the paper cart. I think it’s important to have paper towels handy, especially for painting and working with other liquids.

208I have only a few books and some embroidery software, so I keep them handy. The vintage muffin tin holds sewing ods and ends, and the green and white picnic pail holds scissors and small embroidery hoops. The pink truck is a pin cushion my daughter made for me. I cherish it because she painted it and sewed the cushion just for me.

192163I keep ribbon and flowers that I want to use for specific projects in this jar to make sure I don’t mix them up with other supplies.

162This little bunny holds cotton balls, and the trophy behind him holds ric-rac. I keep my ribbon on large craft sticks so that I can see what I have at a glance.

157I got this twine-rope holder from Antique Farmhouse, and I can’t tell you how often I used it. I will have to get more of the rope one of these days.  That little camera in the forefront is from Anthropologie, and it holds washi tape.

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craft storage ideas

I’ve been lucky enough to have three different craft spaces, the last of which is a custom built space by my awesome, awesome husband. My first craft room taught me a whole lot about storage, and I thought I would share some of my storage ideas with you. I am working on getting my new craft room cleaned and reorganized to get some pictures together for a post, but in the meantime, maybe something I’ve done can help you organize your space. I love looking at pictures of people’s storage, so I hope you enjoy these.

This is a cabinet that my husband built me for sweaters. He built it around these baskets, but then we remodeled our master suite, and I had a great space for sweaters, so I used this for crafts. The first picture is the inside, and the second is the cabinet closed.

100_1451100_1377This is an old television cabinet that I used. It was great for paper storage, and I used to do mostly paper crafts, so I had lots to store! Now it is a cabinet for linens, and I’ve painted over the green.

100_1413Here is a closer view. This cabinet held so much, and it makes me realize I probably deserved a guest spot on Hoarders.

100_1409Since my craft room was in my daughter’s former bedroom, I was able to use the closet, so I filled it with more stuff.

100_1387I took my old containers for shoes after we built the new closet and made these little boxes out of cardboard. I was so proud and thought no one had ever done this, and then I saw that someone had actually made boxes of wood. Wooah! She is way better at this than I am.

100_1389I made a place for all of my letters. I first kept them by sets, but I was always running back looking for a missing letter. This worked out much better for me.

100_1402I bought this little library drawer at a thrift store in town, and it fit my cuttlebug folders and dies perfectly.

100_1456I put all of my eyelets and brads into these little wedding favors from Michaels. I got them with a coupon, so they were a pretty good price, and they are really cute. Now I use them for small bottles of glitter.

100_1432I found this shelf at a thrift store, too, and I used jars I already had. I made the tags from my Cuttlebug with a Tim Holtz die and folder.

100_1364One of my teacher friends found two printer trays for me at a quaint little town north of my hometown, and it stored distress inks and wooden stamps perfectly.

100_1414I have a music cabinet that these craft boxes fit into perfectly, and I still use it for the same purpose. It is full of these boxes, each in its little slot. It is dreamy for people who like to organize.

100_1406I have way, way more fabric now, so this little dresser got a paint job and now holds party supplies in my den. However, I still think these rolls of fabric look so cheery.

100_1443This is a storage shelf I got from Michaels with a coupon and my teacher discount. I love these and now have two of them.

100_1366I made this little box from a kit, and it held rubber bands, sewing needles, thimbles, and other little notions.

100_1386My last picture is of my yarn storage, and this was so cute when all the yarn was rolled into balls.

100_1393I hope you enjoyed this little tour. I know I love looking at other people’s craft storage because I always find a new idea that I can use.

Have a happy day!

Shannon

 

joy and a little tree branch

joy picture 1A while back, I made this wall hanging for my office. My daughter, who is extremely creative and gutsy in her crafting, and I spent a cold day over spring break crafting. We gathered up some tree branches from the elm tree in our front yard, and I used some 1.00 frames from the Dollar Tree.

joy picture 3I cut the letters with my Cricut from the Songbird cartridge using the shadow font and the regular font. The regular font is glittered with a homemade mix of Martha Stewart fine glitter in greens and blues. I used Tim Holtz distress ink in blue and browns to age the paper and then painted the frame and used similar distress inks.

joy picture 2I made this picture for the bottom to kind of weight the whole display a little because the branch shifted since I didn’t hang the pictures perfectly.

joy picture 4I used scraps from scrapbook paper that my daughter gave me. She ran them through a shredder, and then I started gluing and stacking until I had a nest. It takes some patience, but I used a glue gun and a whole lot of paper. Using the glue gun gave me a little forgiveness in time so I could shape the nest.

The egg is a plastic Easter egg that I covered in glitter. If you ever make a glittered egg, take it apart and do each piece separately. It makes it much easier to handle. I sprayed the egg with spray adhesive and used the same glitter as I used for the letters. I sprayed and glittered twice to make sure it was well covered. After I put the egg together, I tied a piece of crinkled ribbon to hide the seam and glued it into the nest with hot glue.

joy picture 5I took a scrap of paper to make a flag and then stamped on it. I folded it so it would be kind of 3D’ish. The ribbon I used to hang it all was from Martha Stewart. I bought it several years ago on super-duper clearance at Michael’s, and the quality is incredible.

I have this hanging right across from my office desk as a reminder that to find the joy in life. When I get overwhelmed, which is most of the time, I find comfort in these words, which I hear in my heart: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

I hope your week is filled with joy, and I hope you can be still when life seems to be too much. Just for a moment, just to catch your breath.

Have a happy day!

Shannon

a great idea for Christmas balls

I have cats. Cats who like balls. Cats who like to make balls out of anything that will roll.

I wanted some of those beautiful Christmas balls that are wrapped in dictionary pages or music pages, and I wanted some covered in glitter. But I didn’t want to pay for the glass balls, and I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night and step on one that the cats had left for me.

Then I found a really good solution.

bouncy ballsI got a package of these bouncy balls from Walmart. (These are not from Walmart because Walmart won’t let you save one of their pictures.) They were less than 20.00 for 100 balls. That made them cheaper than even the Christmas balls at the Dollar Tree.

I made a whole bunch of these:

328The glitter has come off of the ball in front because it’s the one the cats can reach, but it will be easy to fix. I just tore paper strips and used Mod Podge for the ones with music paper, and I used Mod Podge to glue glitter onto the glittered balls. The red balls are ping pong balls I put a sticker on then spray painted red and removed the sticker. I made those back when I first discovered blog land, so I really didn’t know about all of the cool stencils and pens people use.

It’s a very inexpensive solution. I don’t have any hangers on mine, but I did make one with some fishing line that I glued under the paper to make it easy to hang.

Thanks for stopping by, and if you make ornaments from these bouncy balls, please send me a link so I can check it out!

Have a great day!