Showing posts with label Stampcave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stampcave. Show all posts

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Reclaiming my craft space

It always happens. You organize your crafting space and it looks beautiful, and then reality sets in and it gets MESSY! Well the above picture is the labor of the last 3 weeks of planning, cleaning, purging, and re-organizing. Finally, I have reclaimed my craft area and made it "live able" again. I say "live able" because I don't have a craft room, this is just a section of my bedroom. We have all heard the studies about how chaos in your bedroom makes it hard to sleep. Well I think that is really true. It made me so anxious to have everything in my room all messy. Below is what had become of the desk I made out of Jetmax cubes. This was after cleaning it up. I couldn't bear to take a picture of the real mess. It got to the point where I didn't want to stamp, scrap, nothing!



Enter the Jetmax cube with drawer. I decided the only option was to go vertical. I added another cube, removed a few of the shelves on the right and got a Sterilite 3 drawer cart to catch the overflow from the desk and to house my BigShot and dies.AFTER!
This is my TV tray where I make my cards. It has all my everyday tools. It sits next to my nightstand where my Copics are right at hand. It is a good spot because of the natural light from the sliding glass doors. The basket under the desk is balanced on my binders (sketches and Copic info) holds products I am using at the moment and scraps so they stay off the workspace. The basket on top of the desk has stamps that need to be cleaned or have just been cleaned and need to be put away.






I love that all my punches fit in the Jetmax cube with drawer and they are put away so I don't have to worry about dusting them. My Martha Stewart Score Board even fits in the cubby at the top with all of my
Martha punches. Storing cardstock and 12x12 papers upright left me so much extra room, I was able to stack my 6x6 paper pads and unmounted stamps. Baskets with extra ribbon and adhesive sit on top of a locker rack under the desk.


My BigShot now has a permanent home on top of this cart and the regular size dies fit in one of the drawers. I no longer have to take it down to use it. I keep inkpads and stickles, and adhesives in the top drawer. The bottom drawer has embossing supplies. The Isis cases are so easy and hold embellishments: trim, ribbon, flowers, buttons, etc. I also have travel organizer next to the desk to hold pearls, rhinestones, cotton swabs and balls and other small items that tend to get lost in the shuffle. It fits neatly in the 1 inch space between the desk and my bureau. Finally I have wood mounted stamps in the big bin on the bottom.




I love my new re-organized space...it is so functional now. Hope you like it! Now if I can just clean up the rest of the house.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Stampcave is operational

Some of you may have seen me post comments about my Stampcave. This is my fun way of embracing change and the fact that I had to move all my stampin stuff down to the basement. I call it the Stampcave because it is very dark down there. But there are some unique benefits to me being in the basement:

#1- It is nice and cool (it was a sauna upstairs even with AC because we have vaulted ceilings)


#2- I can be as messy as I want (can leave my projects lying around in progress and no one sees the clutter)


#3- I can blast my music (tunes make me more creative)


I spent all last weekend and about 4 hours this weekend trying to get it organized and operational and I am thrilled with the results. It may not be the snaziest workspace I have seen, but it is working out great. I don't have to get up out of my seat to reach anything important that I use frequently. I used to have to hunt and search for everything before, and that was very tiring after a long day at work. Here is a tour of the cave!
The hanging sweater organizer holds my retired stamp sets. The drawer cart has all of my tools and embellishments.
To the far left is my Big Shot. The dies are in the storage box underneath. In the center are tidy trays for embossing. On the right is my Michaels storage cube, inside are my favorite retired stamps, circle cutter, and in color paper.
On top of the storage cube is my card bar where I keep envelopes and different pre folded color card bases, ribbon, and a cute Generations picture organizer where I store completed cards only $3 at Lot Less. The giant pink clothes pin holds my favorite card. This one has Bambi and Thumper on it. I adore those cute little 'animules' from the Forrest Friends stamp set.
Under the table are my rolling scrapbooking totes. (And the sombrero that I got from Chevy's for my 31st birthday!)
The center table is my workspace. Here are my inks, markers, and most used tools all in arms reach. I just got this little Ottlite. It is really great, provides natural lighting for my main workspace so I can really see what I am making. Got those great tan faux leather trays for $3 each at my fav store to scavenger hunt in- Lot Less.

I made this cute sign with vinyl lettering to inspire me.


To the right of the desk is a large storage shelf. In front of the shelf is a mail tub filled with scraps and alterable items like journals, metal tags, and planners. The scraps are filed in filed in hanging file folders by color family. My punches are hung in a shoe organizer. Storage tubs hold misc. To the far right are more crafting supplies, my bind it all supplies, and my publications (Stampin Success, Scrapbooking mags, and books) are in a basket on top.The middle shelf holds all my current stamp sets in baskets. Under that is my paper collection. The 8 1/2 x 11 paper is filed in rainbow order in a basket, wheels are in front, and 12 x 12 is in a cropper hopper holder on the right. The bottom shelf holds business supplies and misc. tools. More tools, ink pads, sprays, and misc items are on the top shelves.

Thanks for taking the tour!

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