Hi there! Noelle here with a tour of my own Studio space today, I hope you like it. Not a big shocker that the walls are blue, I bet! Lately I’ve been thinking of repainting more of a robin’s egg blue, though. I just don’t want to deal with the mess of clearing it out so I can paint!  It’s my happy place, my own little corner of the world where I can get lost in my latest creative venture. Of course, like all crafters, I have a wish list a mile long! I wish it was bigger, that I could have custom built-ins, and that I had a room all to myself.  Also, a door to close would be nice for when I get into a creative frenzy. But I’m sure that many of you have similar issues that you are struggling with. Maybe I can help you with some of that, so come along with me to check it out!

This next shot is taken from the OUTSIDE of my craft room. That blue door on the right is actually my front door, so you can see how very much in plain sight my space sits. You can also maybe tell that there is no window to the outside in it (which means no natural light). It’s a very open space that everyone who comes over to my home can see. Budget has definitely been a consideration with this room in every configuration it’s seen since we bought this house nearly 7 years ago. Many of the containers I use are from the Dollar Spot at Target. I have a lot of open shelving, and that is great for being able to store all kinds of supplies, as well as change containers to suit my latest needs.

 

Here’s another challenge: see that GINORMOUS computer desk on the left hand side of this wall? That’s the computer my kids use, and our home office filing has to fit in this tiny room as well (I believe the dimensions of the room are 11’ square, pretty small for a room that serves so many purposes). The open shelving on the right was put up by hubby for me when we bought this house. They are just particle board shelves painted black and trimmed out with some decorative trim. The baskets with the little chalkboards are from Lowe’s. And I love that generally you can’t see what’s inside, so if what’s in the basket is a mess, no one will know! Since it’s Christmas time you are getting a peek at a few of my snowman collection on top of the desk.

Here’s my desk where I do all my projects. It’s not huge, so I usually have to clean up between every project so I can find everything and it doesn’t get buried. I have some problems with my back, and hubby bought me this nice ergonomic office chair to sit in for my birthday last year…. Shhh, don’t tell him that I thought it was ugly, though he does know I recently slipcovered it! It is very comfortable though. That black shelf that sits on the desk along that far wall is a piece of an old bookcase wall unit I took from my Gramma’s house years ago. I just painted it black and it fits right in, while providing more shelving. It’s very shallow so it doesn’t suck up too much precious flat space. On that shelf I keep my punches that can fold flat, my most-used tools, and all my supplies for embossing and glittering things.

My desk has 3 shallow drawers where I store most of my embellishments in clear compartmentalized boxes.

On my desk you can see this cool vintage train case that I use to store all my stamp pads. It cost me less than 20$ at an antiques place. It’s smaller and holds a lot more pads than my old inkpad organizer did. The pads on the right are current colors, the pads on the left with the red dots are retired colors, though I think I may have a few more I need to mark. The little drawer in this case is perfect to hold my Copics and Memento inkpads. On top there is a mini loaf pan holding a few things that I never used, and an old candy dish that I store all my fancy pins in. Both the candy dish and the loaf pan cost less than a dollar at the local thrift store. The blue tin holds my one set of Stampin’ Spots (tiny 1″ stamp pads).

Also on my desk the tiered organizer I recently showed you how to make.  I sure have LOVED having all these things out in plain sight (thanks again for this great tip, Valerie Mangan!) I have used a lot more of these bits and pieces since I have been able to see them!

This tall skinny shelf is where aaaaaalllllllllll of my stamps live. This used to be two shelves in our old house. There was never really a good home for them in this house, so I had hubby cut the curved top off one of them and attach them together in the back with metal plates. This has been such a great place to store my stamps, right in reach of my desk. It’s also relatively shallow, and I love that it doesn’t suck up too much floor real estate in the room. All the big oval silver buckets that hold my clear and cling stamps are from the Target Dollar Spot. I even managed to make a wee bit of room for my collection of “N’s,” my washi tape and watercolor pencils. I also have a few vintage metal drawers on the top shelf where I keep all my Inkadinkado stamps. I have a lot more of those than other brands since I won a lot of prizes from the Spotted Canary. The decorative stack of boxes on the floor to the right of the shelf hold some more, less used Stampin’ Up! sets.

There are cool little drawers in this shelf, too. They hold all my other pens and some of my smaller tools.

You can see on the left side of that same shelf I have attached some Command Adhesive hooks, and hung some more mini Dollar Spot pails. These hold all my gems and spritzes.

This is my die cutting area, under that window type opening that overlooks the living room. I have this rolling cart that my Cricut sits on. I love that I can roll it over to my desk so I can hook the machine up to my laptop, and for the times I use those BIG 12”x24” mats that need a lot of clearance in the back of the machine. In the box directly underneath the Cricut there is my Cuttlebug, and all the Cuttlebug pads. The polka dot bag on the floor to the left of the rolling cart holds all my cartridges, overlays, and booklets. There is a cup hook behind the rolling cart. On there I hook all my mats, and a current list of cartridges, so I don’t have to rifle through the bag every time I want to cut something. The black and white tins with lids on the bottom shelf are where I store my embossing folders.

This cool filing cabinet was given to me by a friend. The top three drawers hold all my 8 ½” x 11” Stampin’ Up cardstock, here’s a pic to show you how I organize that. The bottom drawer holds empty tins, boxes, things I might like to give a makeover too, and other craft supplies. You can also spy my cutesy apron hanging there that I use when I go to sell my wares at craft shows.

On a recent post, I showed you my hanging bar where I store these bags of themed items. It’s actually a curtain rod that was mounted upside down underneath this shelf. There is a giant Hefty slider bag for every theme, and also I have a bag for each of my 3 sons to store their report cards, school photos and other keepsakes that I like to scrapbook. This makes scrapbooking really fast when I’m working on a lot of Christmas pages, I just pull the Christmas bag. Some other themes I have bags for are: School, Sports, Animals, Autumn, Halloween, Boys/Brothers, and Alphabet Stickers. They are big enough to hold 12″ papers and sticker sheets. I use pant hangers to hang the bags from.

Under the hanging bars are the old suitcases I took from my grandparents home, they are the same color as all my favorite things, blue. They are another great place for those “extra” items like extra pant hangers for my hanging bags, cookie sheets that I like to make into message boards and more random things.

I store all my wafer thin-dies on these magnetic knife bars from Ikea. I have one down lower, by that die cut center/rolling cart, where I keep the dies I’m currently using and the rest go up here above the filing cabinet. I only have 2 dies that are not this thin metal kind, so this pretty much covers it. I like how I can see all the dies at once.

These are my Itso cubes from Target. They sit on the end of my desk facing the doorway. (Gee I bet you can’t tell I buy almost everything at Target, can you? LOL). I mentioned here on my own blog that I had to cut my old Cropper Hopper paper pouches down a little bit to make them fit in here, but it worked fine. The paper has plenty of room, as you can see.

No space could possibly be wasted in my teeny room, even under the desk some things are stashed, my tool kit, my sewing machine and my vintage egg basket that I use to store all my non-Stampin’ Up! scraps.

These decorative shelves above my desk are handy and I love that they are metal so I can use a magnet to stick things to them! The little metal rectangular boxes (also from the Dollar Spot, I know, I know….) hold all my 6” paper pads nicely.

I also have this cool old milk crate that I use as sort of an extra shelf. On it you can see one of the vintage muffin tins that I use to store some of my favorite buttons, embellishments, and other goodies. It sure is nice having older kids now, that I can keep something like this within reach!

I have no closet in my room, but there is a little coat closet in the wall right outside my space. On the inside of that door, I have all my “old-school” chunky punches in a clear shoe container. I love that I can see them all at a glance.

Well, that is all for me today! I hope you like my space. Have a wonderful weekend!