12/27/11

It's a Magical, Mystical Tour - Part 2!

Hey everyone!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, got what was on their wish list, ate lots of good food & is all set to welcome in a brand new year!  We had a fantastic time with our family this year;  Santa was plenty generous, my waistline is suffering because of all the delicious food I've consumed, & I'm enjoying this week of putting away the decorations, cleaning up and reorganizing for the start of the new year.  I think it's really fun when some of our "party hosts" do a "best of" or "anything goes" kind of blog party, because it gives everyone a chance to take a breath and regain their footing after all the holiday chaos.  For me, in looking through my posts, I discovered one that I never finished so that's what I'll be sharing.

Back in mid-October,  I did a tour of my new "Studio," which you can see HERE.  At the time, I shared that I would be doing a follow-up or Part 2, where I would do more details on how I store my various supplies.  This will truly be "photo overload," so if you wish to skip Part 2, I totally understand.....lol.  If you are game, here we go.  I will be duplicating some of the photos from Part 1 for continuity-sake.....just so ya know!

As you enter the room from the hallway, you see my old kitchen island, which is now my new crafting island & cutting table.


Then straight ahead are 9 Jetmax units that I purchased at 50% off at Michael's.  I put all of them together myself, except for 2.  The Man helped me out!  As you can see, my wireless printer fits perfectly here, & my label maker is always plugged in.....lol!

I purchased several different configurations, drawers, slots, etc. to give myself more options.  I am so impressed with this product.  They are easy to put together using an electric screwdriver, and they are super-sturdy.  They have little pegs that go into the tops of each cube to affix the next cube, so they won't slip around.  I reconfigured the layout twice before I was satisfied with where the
drawers were situated.


There are 2 drawers in this unit, & they have horizontal dividers, making it perfect for storing and sorting my cards & envelopes.  
I made labels for everything using chalkboard paper & writing on it with a white water color pencil.  

To the left of this cube is one that has a magazine rack and 2 small open cubes.  The mag section holds all my household letter & mailing envelopes & labels.

The cube above that has an open area for my printer paper & a drawer for my printer ink & other misc.         
                         office-type supplies. 

This 4-drawer unit is perfect for my painting supplies.  These are the craft paints that Michael's has on sale fairly often, & I use these on lots of projects.  When I get new ones, I use a Q-tip to dab a spot of the paint on the lid, so I can reach in and grab just what I need.

One of the other drawers holds sponges, Q-tips, etc., & another one has all my little pudding/applesauce  containers that I save & use for small painting projects.

Most of the slotted cubes are holding some of my scrap booking, card making & quilting magazines.  I do weed through these periodically & save what I want to keep in a couple of 3-ring binders.  I love my magazines and refer to them often -- you can see all my little sticky tabs.....lol!


This drawer holds some floral supplies, popsicle sticks, pipecleaners, etc.

Another drawer holds all the power cords & extra components for electrical stuff--this "stuff" seems to multiply like rabbits....lol!

Now we will check out my island.
I'm so glad I have space for this.  And...you will never see it this clean again!

This top drawer hold glues, tape, mod podge, etc.

The second drawer is great for my glue guns & extra glue sticks & my electric knife (used for cutting foam).  The 3rd drawer is holding photo frames that I am currently working on.  The cupboard area is simply not ready for viewing yet!

These end hooks are perfect for my quilting stencils and large rulers.


This is my main scrapbooking/cardmaking area.
The Expedit (IKEA) holds my wood stamps, themed scrapbook paper/cardstock, & page protectors.  On top is where I store photo boxes (for all those pre-digital photos), memory boxes, & just some misc. 

The Man & I share a memory box (some things from our wedding, etc.) & each of our children have a box with baby shoes, handprints, etc.  Some of these things will eventually go into some shadow boxes that I picked up a couple of months ago that I plan to use in our guest room.  More on those later.

My patterned cardstock & paper is all divided either by themes or design (polka dots, geometric, floral, etc.) into these holders that are all labeled.  

I created some tiered shelving within this cubby so I can see all my rubber stamps.  I rarely buy wood mounted rubber stamps any more, preferring the acrylic clear stamps -- they take up much less room.

On top of the desk is where I keep my most often used supplies.  I bought these little 3-drawer units at Walmart several years ago & they have been reconfigured many times to hold various supplies.  Now they are holding flowers.

I didn't label these because they are pretty see-through.

Got these clear plastic jars at Walmart for sorting ribbons & other embellishments.  

I need a few more of the above jars for some of these ribbons.....lol!  I like to roll my ribbon onto wooden clothespins & secure with a straight pin (sharp point concealed, of course!).

This drawer unit (IKEA) holds a ton of my supplies.

All my inks, refills & stamp rollers.

Got these towel rods (IKEA again) & hang my most-often used punches here.  The bright pink plastic containers (where else - IKEA) hold decorative scissors, some edge punches, & my glue glider.

Moving on to the right of the scrapbook area is my corner desk which I love!  This is my favorite place to Blog, but I also do some of the fine-tuning of pages & cards here.  The cutting mat is an extra that I had & thought it was perfect for protecting my desk top.

I did use this Pampered Chef kitchen tool caddy for that purpose for a few years, but re-purposed it to my craft room awhile back.  It's perfect for holding all my pens, pencils, cutting blades & rulers.


These are some latte mugs from Princess House & they work perfectly for these little stamp pads.
I just love repurposing everyday items to fill the need of something different.

Moving on to the right of my window, I have my divided tool box that holds brads, eyelits, squiggly eyes, etc.  This was super cheap at Lowes, but was an ugly gray color -- spray paint to the rescue!

I haven't finished the labeling process on these, but it's pretty easy to see what's located in each drawer.

This 2-tier wire thing was from Walmart last year.  It holds my button stash.  The jars on top originally held some scrapbook flowers.  My feeling is that you can never have too many buttons, so I use a small apothecary jar to hold a bunch of misc. ones.

This bowl belonged to my Great, great-grandmother, & I think it might be Carnival glass.  I decided to use it to hold my most-often used wood stamps & my black ink.  I love seeing the bowl & thinking of the history that it holds.

These little white shelves were in my previous craft room.



I almost never meet a jar I don't like, so I saved these peanut butter jars, painted the lids, added chalk contact paper labels & some ribbon.  They hold various sewing supplies -- velcro, zipper components, elastic & all those extra buttons that come with new garments!

Just another one of those IKEA towel bars holding misc. items that I use often.

These little tin buckets are from the $ section of Target -- long, long time ago!

This was a super easy-peasy project.  I bought the plain white clock a gazillion years ago & decided it needed a face-lift.  I just glued on some of my flower embellishments with some bling for the centers.  Cute, right?

Tucked under the corner desk is a multi-drawer unit with various sewing projects "in process."

Each drawer is labeled, & comes with an attached lid so nothing falls out when I move it.



The Man made these shadow box shelves for me several years ago for my wood stamps, but I had outgrown the space for that, so now it's working for my spools of thread.

This is an identical IKEA desk & drawer unit to the one in my scrapbooking area.  This, obviously, is my sewing center.

I like having my scissors & cutters behind my sewing machine & a bit out of the way from little hands that sometimes come here to visit.

Plenty of drawer space for supplies and tools.

I had all these baskets in my previous craft room & they all came from the $Store.

I really like having everything sorted and divided within the drawers -- so much easier to find things.

Directly to the left of my door is this large Ikea expedit with lots of room for many albums, tools, & boxes of supplies & files.  Before attaching to the wall, I ran an extension cord up to the top for a lamp, a Scentsy burner or anything else I might want plugged in.

It doesn't look like it, but there is ample moving around space between all the pieces of furniture and the island.  I made sure of that before I made my purchases.  I didn't want to be claustrophobic in here!

I really like having the top of the expedit for display purposes.

 
This basket is holding Sizzlet dies & texture plates.  To the left is my Cuddlebug.

This is my large Sizzex, the Sidekick & dies.  I don't have many dies, but like to use what I have.

Here I have a plastic box that holds items I'm saving for repurposing projects.  The basket on top holds my mini scrapbooks.


Another plastic box (got several of these a few years ago at Walmart -- dirt cheap) that holds my alphas.

We used to drink a lot of those Crystal Light drinks that came in the sturdy plastic tubes.  I just couldn't throw them away & eventually found several good uses for them.  I simply cut them down to fit inside this box & have my fiberboard alphas sorted.  





The stacked drawer units were also in my previous craft room & work very well here.  I store a lot of my scrapbook supplies, divided by months & themes.

You can see I've used more of those Crystal Light tubes cut down to fit in these drawers to sort some smaller items.

This is the majority of my clear stamps.  They just stand up in this basket & I can simply thumb through them to pick out what I need.

There are a couple of areas I have obviously left out -- the large inside area of the island & the closet.  Both areas are still in the planning stage for optimizing the spaces, so definitely not ready for viewing.  Seriously, I think you must be on picture overload at this point anyway!  Right?  Anyway, I really do love this room and continue to have fun working in here and doing some rearranging here and there.  I enjoyed sharing this space and my organizing ideas.  I'm certainly no expert, but I do enjoy trying new ideas.  If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to that, too!
Thanks for stopping by and please come again soon!
CAS

I'm happily linking to:

Courtney at A Thoughtful Place for Small Space Storage



Thistlewood Farm






24 comments:

  1. OH my goodness CAS...it's a bloggers/crafters paradise!!!...you are a lucky lady...:)...Mariaelena

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  2. I am in awww right now. I need this room NOW. Happy New year Cas!

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  3. Please come help me, please! It all looks so wonderful! Happy New Year, almost!
    Debbie

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  4. Wow CAS! Your studio is fabulous! Don't you just love having a space for everything and it's all so pretty. Lucky you. :) Glad you had a great Christmas.

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  5. Hi Cas! I know my Christmas greetings is late. :-) In effect, I would like to wish you a prosperous 2012.

    Your studio is a proof that with a great organization, everything will eventually look so beautiful and fabulous.

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  6. Love... your craft space! I've been working on moving and revamping mine the last 2 weeks.

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  7. I am so envious of your neat and tidy and super organized space, it's ridiculous. I feel like if my space could be that organized, I would be able to be the most creative human being on the planet! I got through sorting my fabric by colors and hanging them in one of those hanging sweater organizers for a closet, but it stops there!! This makes me want to go straighten out my mess right now!

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  8. ALL of us would give anything for a room like this!!!! My jaw is on the floor, excuse me while I get it back in position:) And, it is all SO organized. I am in the midst of cleaning out closets because our daughter and SIL are MOVING IN HERE on 2/1 while they build their new home. WITH their 2 dogs. I am trying to get organized FAST!!!! Thanks for some GREAT ideas, especially the repurposing of household items! XO, Pinky

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  9. Love what you have done. I am so going to start on my craft room this year. First I have to boot my poor husband from it since he works graveyard and sleeps in there since it is the only room in the house with only one window. Got to buy black out shades for our bedroom and then he can move back into that and give me the guest room for my craft room!! Yippee. I will use some of your great ideas. Thanks for sharing.

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  10. You are so organized!! It's amazing!!! This room is great.

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  11. Hi lovely lady.
    I would love a room like the one you have so Organized !!! I would like to thank you so much for your sweet comments on my Christmas Tree.
    I hope you have a Happy New Year with your family.
    XXOO Diane

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  12. Hey everyone, thank you for all the sweet comments, just in case I forgot to do so individually. I am so very lucky, I know, to have this dedicated space for my projects.

    You are all the best. Happy New Year!
    xoxo, CAS

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  13. Oh, CAS, you are truly ready for the new year. Everything is so organized and beautifully placed.
    I love it all!
    Feel free to show it off at our linky party. We'd love to have you.
    Happy New Year!
    Hugs,
    Patti

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  14. Oh, wow. This looks like a personal playground. I want one just like it. I am your newest follower. :)

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  15. Cas, What a fabulous craft room! Everything is so neat and organized. It must be a really fun room to work in. Thanks for linking to the Open House Party and have a Happy New Year!
    xo,
    Sherry

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  16. Oh my goodness - I am so envious of your awesome craft room!!! You did a great job of organizing everything. I was trying to clean up my drapery workroom today (which is a disaster!)and moaning to myself how much I need to figure out better storage for all the itty bitty stuff. You knocked it out of the park!

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  17. I always knew your were sweet, talented, and crafty, but boy are you organized! WOW, is all I know to say. I am so impressed with your oh so organized room!
    Wishing you and your loved ones a safe and happy new year, Cas, and I am looking forward to blogging with you in 2012!

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  18. I just love this space. It's so well organized and inspiring. I am super jealous!

    Meredith From A Mother Seeking Come find me on my blog, A Mother Seeking...

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  19. Such impressive organization!

    Thank you for for sharing at Potpourri Friday. I wish you a healthy, prosperous and sparkling New Year!

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  20. WOW! WOW! WOW!!! LOVE your craft room. Let your imagination run wild and create to your heart's content! Happy New Year!

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  21. Wow!! I am just in love with your organized work room!! I can't even post pictures of mine since it is a real embarrassment!! I am working on organizing and love some of the ideas in your post...maybe someday mine will be presentable!

    Thanks for your inspiration!
    Darlene

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I truly love to hear from you and try to respond to each and everyone. If you have "no reply blogger," I will respond in my comments section and then visit your blog as soon as I can.

Make this a great day!
Carol