My Craft Room is Almost Done!

Aloha, all!

     I've mentioned a couple of times that I've been working this year on finally getting my craft room in the shape that I want it to be to allow me to be a lot more efficient in my paper crafting.  What a bummer it is when I decide to make a particular project and (1) I can't find something that I KNOW that I have or (2) I have to keep walking from one place to the other to get what I want.  Given that we've decided we can't make permanent changes to the basic structure of my craft room – no built ins outside of the closet – I may not be able to fix #2 completely. But #1 is under control and #2 is now no longer really that bad!

     There are two main walls and a closet in my craft room that have work space.  A third small wall just has a bookcase with scrapbook albums and magazines, and the 4th is pretty much taken up with sliding glass doors out onto our lanai.

     Today I'd like to share the first completed work area – my work table.  OK – I got a bit wordy with all the descriptions that follow. But I'm so psyched about getting this far in my work area!

     This takes up all of one wall in my craft room.  All of the wood storage are units that I bought from the Stamp-n-storage company.  I now have five of their units and I think I'm probably good with what I have.  Over to the left by the closet door are two units.  On the bottom is one that holds all my stamp pads as well as the Stampin' Write Markers and reinkers that go with each of them.  On top of that is a ribbon rack.  The ribbons just sit on the shelves in the rack, and have a slide that keeps them from falling over (not that I'd ever have enough room for MY ribbons to be falling over!)  If I decided to buy all the Stampin' Up! ribbons, I'd need a larger unit.  But this year I decided that I would have samples of all the ribbon styles, but just have all of the colors in the kinds of ribbon that I typically use.  I have enough room to handle any ribbons from the Holiday Catalog (how can there not be a Holiday Catalog without ribbon!), but that's about it.

     Over to the right, on the bottom I have a large punch storage unit.  Up until this week I made do with the smaller storage unit.  But I finally decided that stacking up the larger punches off to the side was just not working.  Boy do I love this new unit!  Even the wide punches fit, and the unit comes with small pieces of wood that I can put in the back of the slots in which I'm storing small punches.  On top of that towards the left is a standard shelf unit. I have some items on my computer desk (the other side of the room) that I'm going to move to this unit.  But that hasn't happened yet – soon, though!  Finally, over to the right at the end of the photo is a unit that holds my Blendabilities Markers.  I haven't talked about these much as they're not yet ready for purchase.  But I've been using them to practice up for when I'll be sharing projects, and the way they're organized work wonderfully for me.  If you look closely over to the far right, you'll see my Stack & Store Caddy.

     My work table is a folding table that I have at standing height.  I love to work on my craft projects while standing, and this table is perfect for that – just the right height!  Under that I have some plastic drawer units that I've had forever, and they have always been just right for how I use them.  That first drawer over to the right has all kinds of things such as Blender Pens, Aqua Painters, Paper Piercing Tools – that sort of thing.  I can reach down, open that drawer and almost be able to pick up what I want without even looking.  OK, with the paper piercing tool in there, I look – that thing's sharp!

     The larger drawer units have all of my 12" square papers and cardstock in them.  Each drawer is labeled, though by now I don't have to look at the labels to get what I want pretty quickly.

     On top of the drawer units, I have things that lie flat but that I don't want up on my work surface.  Some are stacked on each other.  But it's been this way for so long that I know where each items in almost without looking.  These are items such as the Simply Scores and its accessories; the Paper Trimmer; my acrylic blocks in the storage unit that's opened; the Stampin' Scrub; and Stampin' Pierce Mats.

     The basket storage units over to the right have products that are in boxes or other containers.  You might be able to see that the very top one closest to my work area is where I am storing my Project Life materials.  I am SO loving the Project Life products!

     One last "storage" area is up on the top of my desk to the left of the punch storage unit.  This is a Pampered Chef carousel tool holder.  All of my scissors of all sizes and shapes, rulers, bone folders, paint brushes and generally anything that stands up like that fit in there.  To the left of that is a desk organizer that has my adhesives, and some miscellaneous markers, pens and pencils.  All right at my finger tips. 

     With this work area, just about everything is at my finger tips.  Yay!  I have to take a few steps for my standard sized card stock and my stamps.  But everything else is RIGHT THERE!

     Do you know what the best thing about this is?  Because everything definitely has its own place, it's SOOOO easy to clean up after finishing a project!  I am just in crafters heaven with this!

     Once I get the other wall of my craft room done I'll share that with you, too.  I'll even share the repurposed small punch storage unit that I replaced with the large one just last weekend! 

     Hey, I should get going with some crafting!!

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