Craft Room: {scrappingklo}

Hello! Welcome to my latest craft room feature! This room has to be one of the most well-thought out, highly functional rooms I’ve come across! Scrapping Klo designed and had this room built to her specifications. I hope you’ll find it as inspiring as I do!

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Closet-turned-AWESOME- storage!

What an awesome transformation here, making the very most from the inset that is the closet in this room! But just wait – it gets even more amazing!

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Pull out drawers in cabinets make for concealed, yet handy, storage.

Those aren’t just cabinet doors, they are each carefully designed drawers, that accommodate everything imaginable!  Check out the photos here for more details.

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More storage

This is her storage adjacent to her computer work station. Once again, the use of slide out drawers and platforms makes using and storing her equipment and supplies quick and easy!

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Wall mounted work station

More ingenious, space-saving ideas – the wall mounted work station. Not only does it provide a great space to actually work on, it doubles as wall storage for all her paints and glitters, etc. Be sure to check out her blog to find out how you could have one of these for your very own!

There are just too many amazing ideas in this one craft space – you need to check it out for yourself! Just follow this link for a really great “tour” of Scrappin Klo’s craft room.

See you next time! ~ Doris

Doris

 

Contributor Team Studio/Space Tour: {Doris Weeaks}

Hello everyone, and welcome to my my little slice of heaven! I am very fortunate to have one of the spare rooms in our home to use for my crafty endeavors! Over the years, as my obsession with scrapbooking has grown, so has my collection of craft supplies. Like many of you, my first “major” scrapbook purchase was a Crop In Style wheeled tote. As you can guess, it didn’t take long at all to outgrow it and to start longing for my own little scrappy space. My first dedicated area was a corner desk in our tiny den. You can see that I made sure to make the most of every square inch of space!!!

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My very first craft area

Once my oldest son graduated and moved out, I was able to take over his bedroom and convert it to my craft room. We had allowed him to paint the walls a dark blue, and I decided to go with it, rather than repaint. I was too excited to have my own room to wait a second longer to get everything set up! Fortunately, I had white furniture, so it brightened things up a bit!

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My son’s former-bedroom-turned-mom’s-craft room

Over the next few years, this room was arranged and rearranged as my craft and scrapbook collection grew. As I’ve mentioned before, I have an addiction to all things storage, and I’ve tried just about every type of storage product that’s ever been created! Fortunately, some of the local scrapbook stores in my area started having “garage sales,” and I’ve been able to purge supplies and storage products along the way – otherwise, I would need my own scrapbook HOUSE!!!

Speaking of house, a little over a year ago, we moved to another home in our same area. We love our new place, especially because it has an amazing floor plan, one that allows my husband to have his own study/office, and I get to have my scrap room downstairs, and in an area of the house that is away from the main living areas. Knowing we were going to be moving gave me the perfect opportunity to be thinking about setting up a craft room “from the ground up.” I spent a lot of time, checking out craft spaces on CSI and Google, coming up with ideas that would work with my existing furniture. Even though it’s been tweaked a time or two since we first moved in, here is my (I think!) amazing craft room!

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View of current craft room from doorway

The photo above is taken from the doorway looking in. You can check out my posts on using the Jetmax/Recollections “cubes” and accessories from Michael’s, and for modifying their embellishment shelves to allow for extra stamp storage, to get more information on how most of my storage is set up. 

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Closer look at main craft area

Believe it or not, that’s still my original corner desk! A few months ago, I decided I wanted to raise the height of the desk, which I accomplished by purchasing two 3-shelf and 1 corner shelf closet organizers from Lowe’s and just sat the existing desk on top! Sometimes, I even amaze myself with my crafty ideas!!! Of course, that meant I had to get my hands on an office chair that would sit high enough to work with the “new” desk! Fortunately, I found one on Craig’s List, that I was able to cover with cute zebra print fabric from Hobby Lobby. LOVE IT!

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Large workspace with Silhouette Cameo electronic cutting machine

This is a close up of my latest revamp. Previously, my electronic cutter station was the Deluxe Craft Table from Michael’s (of course!). Because I am one of those crafters who has to have all their supplies visible and handy, much of my horizontal workspace is limited. I found myself moving things from place to place, even using my paper cutter in my lap, just to be able to work on a project. Obviously, this created more frustration than creative juices, so something had to give! I took drug my hubby with me to Home Depot, where the helpful men in the orange vests were willing to cut a piece of laminated MDF board down to 4 ft. by 6 ft. section for me. They also sell this stripping you “iron on” the cut edges, so you end up with a nice, finished piece of table top! I simply sat it on top of the Deluxe Craft Table, added the extras you see here, and I’m good to go! Ahhhhh! So nice to be able to spread out and CREATE! 

I love, love, LOVE my Silhouette Cameo! Now that I’ve gotten rid of all the “Bugs” in my craft room (wink, wink!), I have so much more space, especially when I can just set my laptop on the shelf above the Cameo, connect them to each other, and away I go! Which brings me to my latest obsession:

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Over-the-door shoe rack for storing vinyl collection

VINYL!!! Yep, this is my vinyl collection, neatly stored in this hanging storage rack from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I started out with the adhesive craft vinyl, which is on the left side, but decided to use some of the iron-on vinyl to make some baby “onesies” – yeah, big mistake! Now I have to have every color and pattern out there!!! I gotta say, I am having so much fun with it all, and the Cameo makes coming up with designs and cutting them a breeze!!!

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Sewing desk area

And, finally, here’s my sewing table. On the right are my mason jars filled with buttons. On the left are my containers and drawers with embellishments. The spinning rack on top is from Hobby Lobby and has most of my alphabet sticker sets and miscellaneous stickers clipped on it. The shelf above is my collection of silk flowers, separated by color. The top shelf holds my cork board and my flat screen television.

Well, that’s a “quick” tour of my happy place. Thanks for coming along for the tour! If you have any questions regarding more specific ways I store embellishments or other craft products, please let me know! You can comment on this post, or send me an email (@ djweeaks at att dot com). ~ Doris

Doris

 

 

Craft Room Feature {Soapbox Creations}

Today’s craft room was an unexpected, but very welcomed find! I was originally checking out this die, which combines the use of a card and a gift sack to make one awesome present for someone! Laurie of Soapbox Creations must be the brainchild behind the Card Hanger Die, and it’s so popular, it’s currently sold out! In any case, she has a lovely room that I want to share with you.

 

As you can see by the photo above, she has everything neatly stored and organized with her “go-to” supplies situated where they are nice and handy!

 

The ribbon shelf was made by her father, modifying instructions she found on Nichole Heady’s blog.

Another smaller table holds her stamp pads, Copic Markers, and her Big Shot cutter.

Be sure to check out her post on her craft space to see more photos. She also posts a link to her original craft room, which looked much different! Nice to know that my room is not the only one that is a “work in progress!”

Speaking of my craft room, looks like my next post will be featuring my “happy place.” I’ve recently be purging and doing a bit of reorganizing, so it’ s not photo-ready, at the moment, by any stretch of the imagination! I can’t wait to share it with you and give you the “grand tour!”

Doris

All About the Furniture: ScrapNcube

When I came across the site for ScrapNcube Simply Creative Furniture, I knew it would be a great product to feature to kick off our new “All About the Furniture” category. Especially when their description starts out like this: “Our scrapbook storage furniture is craft furniture you can believe in; it’s functional, practical and, most importantly it’ll grow with you.”

From their Wall Studios,

to their Craft Studio Stations,

to their Cubes and Drawers, these products have all kinds of potential for just about anyone’s craft room!

It should be noted that the ScrapNcube products are quite a bit more expensive than, say, what you can get at Michael’s Stores or IKEA. However, the quality of material and workmanship, along with the personalized services offered, make the money you spend on their products more of a long-term investment – one that comes with a lifetime guarantee!

Doris

Product Highlight: Sterlite Storage Products

Although I am obsessed with all things storage, a quick look at my craft room will tell you that a lot of what I use are  Sterlite Storage Products. Among my favorites are the 3-drawer and 5-drawer smaller units and the 3-drawer units that accommodate 8 1/2 x 11″ and 12 x 12″ papers.

If you look inside the closet in my craft room, you will find several of these 5-drawer and 7-drawer Basic Drawer Carts, which hold my ribbons, embellishments and scrap papers, filed by color families.

Not only are the products from Sterlite versatile, but they’re reasonably priced and sold in many stores; Walmart and Target, to name a couple. And, best of all, they’re made in the USA! Can’t get any better than that!!!

One last tip: if the simplicity of the design of the Sterlite storage containers isn’t to your liking, you can always add your own personal style to them. Decorative labels, patterned papers and shelf liner can dress up the containers/drawers to coordinate with your craft area, like I did in the photo below. I took some cute self-adhesive drawer liner I found at TJMaxx, stuck it to some poster board, and cut it to fit in the front of the drawer. Voila! Instant makeover!

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Do you have any of these awesome containers? We’d love to see all the ways you’re utilizing them!

Doris

 

Just 1 Tip: There’s An App For That!

Have you ever driven all the way to your favorite craft store, only to discover you’ve left your carefully clipped coupon at the house? Yeah, that’s happened to me more times than I care to remember. That’s why my tip today has to do with those handy “apps” for our smartphones.

Being able to download an application for my phone, that would allow me to access my coupons on the spot, was probably one of the biggest reasons I “upgraded” to a smartphone to begin with – well, that and being able to play Words With Friends! I’m pretty technologically challenged, but there’s no holding a crafter back when it comes to being able to save money on her obsession um, hobby!!! (Especially when most stores will allow you to use both your printed coupons and your electronic coupons, as long as the UPC codes are different!)

The “Big 3″ craft stores in my area are Michaels,

Joann Fabric and Craft,

And, my home-away-from-home, Hobby Lobby.

If you don’t already have these handy “apps” on your phone, be sure to check the craft stores in your area to see if they have one. Never be separated from your craft coupons again! Just remember to keep a phone charger in your car!

Happy shopping!  Doris

Craft Room {Blessed Serendipity}

DSC_0004I have always enjoyed seeing other people’s vintage-inspired craft rooms. I’m in awe of their ability to mix and match so many wonderful treasures into one area  - not something I would be able to pull off without it looking like a jumbled mess! Danielle of Blessed Serendipity, certainly has the knack!

 

Everywhere you look, there are adorable vignettes. Love this one with the tall jar with flowers.

Everywhere you look, there are adorable vignettes. I love the tall jar with all the vintage flowers!

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And how precious is this antique baby buggy with crochet thread?

DSC_0070Of course her craft table would also have to be filled with vintage goodness! What a clever use of an old door!

Be sure to check out Blessed Serendipity for even more amazing photos.

Doris

 

13 in 2013: Spreadsheet Organization

Sometimes organizing your craft room doesn’t mean just organizing your materials, it also includes organizing the files on your computer related to all things crafty.  Doris is here today to talk about saving hyperlinks, particularly those that you might need in addition to Pinterest.

You should know by now that I am quite the shopper/collector/organizer of all things crafty. As a result, I spend way too much a lot of time “surfing the net” for places to shop, ways to store and organize, and to inspire creativity. Before Pinterest came along, I was struggling with ways to keep up with all the websites, videos and blogs I was coming across. Even if I “bookmarked” them or wrote the URL down somewhere, I would usually forget why within the time it took to click off the page. Inspired by another lady’s spreadsheet, I set out to create one of my own. And, let me just say, while I may be proficient at shopping/collecting and organizing, I am not when it comes to Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and the like. So, what I’m going to be sharing with you is my {extremely} basic spreadsheet created in Microsoft Excel 2007.

As you can see, I have just 2 columns: (I told you it was basic!) Column A contains the “hyperlink” to the original location of what’s referenced in the Comments section in Column B. I know I’m probably the last person on the planet to learn how to insert a hyperlink, but, on the outside chance that you’re that person, here’s how I did it:

Since I knew I would need “screen shots” for this article, I did a Google search and found a tutorial. Once I followed the link to the website, I highlighted the URL (web address), right clicked on my mouse and selected “copy.”

Next, I went to my spreadsheet to enter my information.

Lastly, you will insert your Hyperlink into your spreadsheet entry.

This is what it will look like if the Hyperlink has been inserted correctly (another shortcut would be to use Control + V to insert the address). Now, if you were to click on Computer Tips, it would automatically take you to the page you want to find! The person who figured out a way for us to do this is a genius!!!

And that’s it! You just repeat that process for each hyperlink you want to insert.  Sometimes, it helps me to see how other people categorize their organization/storage, so I thought I would give you a list of the types of things I save to my spreadsheet.

Baby Ideas
Blogs
Bow Making
Candles
Card Making
Christmas
Craft Rooms
Cricut
Crochet
Cuttlebug
Flower Making
Frames
Gift Card Holders
Gift Ideas
Gift Wrapping
Inspiration
Jewelry
Kids Crafts
PDF Files
Project Tutorials
Recipes
Resources
Sewing
Silhouette
Sketches
Stamping
Storage
Vinyl

This process has really helped me so much in my quest to stay on top of all of the amazing ideas I come across. I can’t tell you how many times I refer to this list and add to it. I hope you’ll try your hand at setting up a similar system. If you have any questions, I will be happy to try to answer them – or find the answer for you. If you have any tips on how to make this whole process work even more efficiently, I hope you’ll share that with us!

Here’s to a Happy, Crafty, Organized New Year! ~ Doris

 

 

 

 

 

 

13 in 2013: Modifying an Existing Shelf

As your organization efforts continue in the new year, you might be sticking to a tight budget.  New furniture or fancy organizational tools may not be an option.  Doris has a fantastic idea for modifying an existing shelf to meet new needs!

Some crafters are like me, they need to have their supplies visible and easy to access. Such is the case with my wood-mounted stamps. No matter how I tried to store them, I could never seem to find the one I wanted when I wanted it! So, I thought I had found the answer when I bought the shallow hanging shelves from Michael’s. However, I found myself with too much wasted space and, when you’re a hoarder  collector like I am, you need every spare inch of storage you can get!

Necessity being the “Mother of Invention,” I decided a trip to The Container Store was in order. In my mind, I had envisioned drawer dividers being just the thing I would need to add more “shelves” to my existing ones. Sure enough, I found just what I was looking for!

I bought a couple of packages of these in 2″ and 4″ widths and headed home to get busy.

I used the same basic instructions given for using them in a drawer, just using them vertically.

Measure and score with a craft knife at desired length until the piece snaps apart.

Slide the connectors onto both ends of your cut pieces. Remove the paper from the adhesive strip on the connector and press into place on your shelf.

I also found it necessary to have a “brace” in the middle of the dividers (since they are not designed to be used vertically), so I followed the same steps to create the brace.

A couple of design changes had to be made, once I actually started placing my stamps of the new “shelves.” I removed the rod from the bottom section to use for more storage, rather than ribbon. I also ended up adding braces to the ends, because the adhesive just wasn’t strong enough to hold them in place (again, these were not meant to be used vertically). When I ran out of materials to make the additional braces, I decided to use pieces of foam board, rather than buy additional packages just for a few more inches. It was then a light bulb went off and it dawned on me that I could have used foam board for the whole project! DOH! In fact, I’ve even seen some very talented and creative people make amazing storage pieces entirely from foam board!  Rebecca featured some of those in this post, and I found some neat ideas here and here. I have to say, I wish I had thought of it before I used what I did – not that a trip to The Container Store is ever wasted! Fortunately, foam board can be found at just about any Walmart or craft store you have near you, it’s easier to cut and it’s not as costly. In any case, I’m glad I decided to add my new shelves to my existing ones because I love that I can easily see my stamps now.

I hope this inspires you to look at what you currently own and think of ways you could modify it to suit your needs in a better way! If you have any questions about my project, please let me know!

 

Craft Room {The 36th Avenue}

What a terrible job I have, searching through hundreds of photos of craft rooms to find to bring to you! Ha ha! Sometimes, I don’t know how I am able to narrow it down to just one! However, when I came across this pretty craft room from The 36th Avenue, I knew it as the one I would want to share with you today!

I just love the soft color palette of the beige’s and white’s, with the pops of red here and there.

This looks like a cozy spot to sit and sew up some fun projects, don’t you think? Especially with all your tools hanging right there on your cute pegboard!

And how about this idea for storing and displaying your Washi tape collection? Hmmm…now where did my old cup tree go???

This dresser-turned-storage-cabinet looks awesome against the adorable polka dot wall!

Just look at all the supplies it will hold!

Is this window topper not the cutest thing ever??? I love how it adds just the right amount of color and design, while still allowing the natural light to shine on in.

Here’s another little peek around the room. Be sure to go to The 36th Avenue to check out all of the photos that Desiree has posted about her craft room. Not only will you get to see even more amazing shots of her beautiful room, she even links you back to some of the projects she’s created so you can make them too!

I hope you enjoyed today’s craft room tour. The next room I’ll be featuring will be my own! I’m so excited to show it to you, but I have a lot (a LOT) of work to do on it between now and then! As this is my last post until January, I want to take this opportunity thank you for allowing me to have a small part in your crafty life, and to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

See you in 2013!