My Creative Space

Last week my friend Christine featured her scrappy space on her blog, and tagged me to do the same. I'm tagging my friend Lisa Wilkinson to share her creative space too. If you love seeing where others create, just follow along the blog tag for lots of inspiration.

I'll be honest, I love my space, but wouldn't normally have chosen to feature it for several reasons:

1. It usually always really really needs to be cleaned up.
I'm pretty organized,but I'm a messy creative. When I get on a role, things will get pulled out of every direction, box, bin, cabinet and drawer. Then there is the added chaos of trying to be creative with little ones around; always stopping mid creative streak, and never truly devoting enough time to cleaning up. I should also mention that my space is off of the kids playroom, conveniently sandwiched between it,and the bathroom/laundry room, allowing for trails of boy objects, clothing and toys to find their way in.

2. I have too much stuff.
Not only do I love scrapbooking and paper crafts, my room houses the tools and supplies for sewing, painting, drawing, beading, polymer clay, knitting, crochet and more. I love crafting, but I also love collecting supplies and tools. I also hate to get rid of anything!
 I'm sure there are many crafters out there with an even greater "collection" of supplies, but putting mine out on display makes me hyper aware of how much i really do own.

3. Time.
I haven't been able to make the time to blog for some time now. when moments do arise, I'd rather be spending them creating something or tidying up so that I can find the counters again.

Setting all that aside, I am really fortunate to have such a great space to work in, and I know that I really enjoy seeing others spaces, and organization. So here it goes:

This view is from the laundry room door looking ahead at my main scrap area where all the paper and embellishments live. I keep current papers and stickers in baskets right on my desk, where I'll think to use them.

Very shallow drawers, but perfect for Craftmates containers and 4x6 photo boxes full of baubles.

Over my workspace,  tackle boxes and photo box storage  hold felt, chipboard, brads and diecuts. I also keep a 12x12 clear box for scrap papers.

drawers on either side of my workspace hold punches and tools

and more punches ( there are 2 more, but you get the idea)

Im so happy that I also have these really deep drawers ( 6 of them total)
on this scrap side of the room, they hold 12 x12 paper and letter stickers hung by file folders.

From my main scrap desk toward the laundry room door.

I have a small table with folding leaves that the kids use for crafts, or computer time. It also gets pulled out for crops with friends. There's a fridge on the right under all those magnets, that are meant to occupy my littlest, but mainly just serve as exercise for me when I pick them up several times a day off the floor.

The buckets come off the rail easily when it's time for crafts. I keep crayons, pencil crayons and markers here, as well as glue sticks, scissors and rulers. above, rolls of washi tape and ribbon hang from dollarstore pant hangers. 

On the same wall as the fridge is a deeper counter and cabinets where I keep all my "wet" media such as stamps,inks, paint and messy fun stuff. I use Ikea trays and bins for storage, as well as empty Chinese food take out containers.

 Since I have very little wall space, I use the inside of the upper cabinet doors to keep colour charts and such.

Polymer and cling stamps live in 8.5x11 clam shell packs, where they are as easily accessible for mixed media as they are for cards and pages.

I kept a zone of drawers under my manual die cut machine to house dies (thick and thin) as well as embossing folders, and my trimmer. I keep it tucked away, and use it right in the drawer. This protects curious little hands, and catches all my little scraps.

Since I think i've only just skimmed the surface when it comes to showing how I store many of my things, Im thinking I might do another post targeting specific storage solutions. I know I'm still trying to find a way to store certain things more efficiently, and solutions really depend on the space you have and how you work. I'm curious to know what items you are trying to find solutions for?

...and just in case you have cleanliness envy, this is how it all looked only a couple of hours after the photos were taken :