Crafty Crease #4: Craft Room Stage 2

I cannot believe how long its taken me to organise my space.  Of course, in my defense, I have a new blog to distract me!

I reckon that I am about 70% of the way there now.  Everything has a place, even if its temporary, and I can now actually do craft work because there is now room to do it....YAY!

I think that this is going to be a 5 stage project and I'm only at Stage 2!

Stage 3 is a simple stage - probably born out of my need for organisational things to all be the same.  This will end a final decision about which containers I need to use and can live with in about 2 weeks.

Stage 4 runs during Stage 3 but will probably take 4-6 weeks to complete.  Sometimes you just have to spend some time working with things to decide if it will work for you.  Stage 4 is all about the arrangement of equipment, deciding which tools are vital and need to be near to hand.  It also helps me to identify what other other aspects I may have forgotten.

Stage 5 is bringing it all together, putting labels on things and everything in its right place!!

I know you're all laughing at me, but you know this makes sense don't you!!

Anyway, here are my Stage 2 photos and comments......

Stage 2 overall look

I have several types of containers here to test.  The silver ones are aluminium roasting dishes - cheap - but I am not sure if they will be durable enough.  There is one row of sistema cake containers, solid and clear but expensive.  The bottom row are just random containers.  All this modge podge of containers will drive me crazy, but I don't want to spend a fortune on containers!




These mini drawers are left over from my classroom.  Because they are on discreet shelves I think I could probably live with the fact that there are several types of containers!







This is an idea I got from another blog.  I taped strips of magnetic sheeting to some MDF boards and stuck my thin metal dies to them.  It's an easier way to use and keep them...taking them in and out of packaging was a pain.  Vaughan tells me he will attach them to the wall for me later on.

This is the part of the craft room that I am particularly happy with.  All of the containers used are the same except for one.  However, since I use stamps and inks all the time I need them to be close at hand.  These draws are particularly good for holding all the different types of inks. I put them in upside down so that the ink is always at the top of the pad.  I use a make up sponge to swipe a sample of the ink colour on the back so I don't have to turn every pad over to find the colour I need.

This is my new craft caddy.  It holds all my "Must Have On Hand" essentials.  It holds 5 jars.  Each jar has its on use: scissors, rulers & bone folders, punches, pens & pencils, craft knives & eye settlers.  In the container, but not in jars, are glue sticks, tape and hammer.  My two corner rounder punches slot into the square holes on the outside.  It has become an indispensable kit!




The jars are all the same.  I just used a bit of leftover scrapbooking paper and tape to give them a little more zing!!

I even have enough desk space for my precious computer!!

 One area I need to work on is the wall to the left of my computer.  Although I may put a rail or two up, I think it needs a bit more than that.  But other than that, I'm still at a blank.

The blue basket is currently how I store all my paper.  It works but I am not sure I like it where it currently is.  However, it does need to be in a place that is easily accessible.  This is a stage 4 problem so I've got a few weeks to sort it out.