Craft Room

There's a whole history of my craft room here - you can see how my set up has changed over the years!

September 2021 update

January 1, 2020 Update

Video: (photos below)

2017 Update

I've done this a couple of times before (see the page 'Craft Room' at the top of my page) so I thought I'd just show you a few things I've changed since last time.

The photo above gives you a view of my main workspace. All through my crafting life, I have wanted all my supplies visible and within reach. I didn't want to forget that I had anything! I don't know why, but lately I've been feeling claustrophobic and have been working to get stuff either put away or sold.

The cubby that sits in front of me on my desk has my black inks, blocks, coloured inks, copics, scissors, glues - things that I reach for almost every time I make a card.

I have also taken my laptop off my desk - it takes up space and I find it distracting. 

On my desk is now only one stack of small drawers - from top to bottom - masking supplies, stamp positioning, distress inks (see below) and pre-cut Gina K 120 lb square card bases. Next to that is an old paper organizer with un-cut Gina K cardstock. My MISTI and foam tape are to the right. The bin of stamps and dies on top of the paper organizer is all my Paper Smooches products - handy for my October Guest Designer posts!

The distress inks fit perfectly in this drawer and that makes it easy to take a long when we get together on our stamping days.

 The other major change I've made is to move all my coloured cardstock (I know, it's embarrassing - I'm not buying any more for a long, long time!) under my desk. It gets it out of the direct light and frees up shelf space.

UPDATE - APRIL 2015

It's time for a craft room update (see original from 2013 below). A few months ago, we had the great 'domino effect' furniture move. My son needed a desk, so we moved the IKEA workstation from my craft room to his room. I ended up with an old dresser in its place and ever since then, I've been moving things around, trying to find the 'right' place for everything. I think I've finally settled on an arrangement and here it is!

View from the door. Including new green chair from the 'as-is' section of Crate & Barrel. Most of my wooden stamps in IKEA Alex drawers to the left, clear stamps in sleeves in the clear drawers between the desk and the drawers of wooden stamps. Patterned paper on top.

Drawers of wooden stamps in the IKEA Alex drawers. Yes, I break up sets and store by theme. I only keep the stamps I love - I sell the rest.

Plastic drawers of clear stamps in sleeves. These ones I don't break up. When I'm ready, I sell the whole set.

Clear stamps filed by colour-coded theme (green for sentiments,  pink for floral, yellow for background, red for Christmas) and then by manufacturer. I use the Evernote app to keep track of all of them, and to find what I want quickly!

Cutlery drawer organizers on top of my cubbies for my favourite wooden sentiment stamps and some inks, Crate & Barrel canister for Distress Markers 

My cubbies - all my ink within reach! 

Black ink, blocks, glue runners and scissors in a make up organizer. 

MISTI has her own little space behind my computer, between the cubbies and the drawers.

Little drawers for tools and embellishments I use more often (stampamajig, masking supplies, etc).

Cutting station - Big Shot, embossing folders and dies stored on magnetic sheets by theme. Cart for heat embossing to the right.

Directly behind my desk - clear stamps in Stampendous clear boxes (thin), finished cards and 'photo studio'! (see my previous tour for explanation of the clear stamps I store here by scrolling down to my 'original' craft room tour posted in 2013).

Copics and old clear stamps in CD cases that I can't bring myself to get rid of. And other 'stuff'. Spray glimmer mists in the brown shoe box. Also cardstock storage (in progress).

Cardstock storage using Stampendous clear boxes (thick) for paper and scraps  - everything in one enclosed space!

Finally, the closet - still needs some work - mostly things I don't use often (except for the chocolate!!!). But at least it's all in there now - close the door and out of sight, out of mind!

ORIGINAL - 2013

I don't know about you, but I love seeing other crafters' work spaces! I'm always looking for good organizing ideas and tips and maybe I'm a little nosy, too!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some photos of mine. I have done a minor clean up but I find that it's really an ongoing process and I'm constantly making little changes and I figured I'll never actually be DONE.

My craft space is a little room (probably 10x10) with a beautiful big arched window. In the summer, I keep the blind up, but during winter evenings, I put it down so my neighbours don't have to watch me getting inky! The window faces north, so I don't get direct sunlight and it's generally a lovely, bright place to work. Except that it's the furthest room from the furnace/air conditioner, so it's not always the most comfortable place to be. But I digress....

Here's the view from the door. IKEA desk and bookshelves. Pottery Barn Kids 'nooks' on top of the short bookshelves. Cheap Staples chair. To the right, the door of the closet is off its hinges and has some of my punches hanging on it in a clear shoe hanger.

View from the closet. More IKEA products (2 sets of drawers, stacked in the far corner) and just the edge of a 'workstation desk' visible. In the right hand bookshelf, you can see my Copics and my Stickles (hanging upside down by velcro dots) as well as my unmounted stamp storage on the shelf at the right hand side.

My most-used inks. Mostly Stampin' Up, but some Memento and Hero Arts as well. My 'less-used' inks are in a box on the bottom shelf of this same bookshelf.

You can see some of my DVD Stampin' Up unmounted stamps and some of my CD cases of clear stamps. Ah, clear stamps and their storage - it's my constant challenge. Some are in CD cases (mostly alphabets).

Many of my older stamps are in these clear storage containers from Stampendous. Back in the days when it didn't matter what manufacturer I was using (because I wasn't posting), I organized them all by theme. For example:

This is my container with my favourite Happy Birthday sentiments. When I'm making a birthday card, I pull this out and see which one works best (as well as checking my wooden stamps - see below).  Or if I need a pumpkin (or an animal, or a shape), I can see them all in one place and choose the best one. It saves me flipping through every set I own, every time. But it means I often don't remember who the manufacturer is.

So I started this system, as demonstrated by Jennifer McGuire.  These are my newer sets, stored in  Avery Elle storage pockets, with a piece of Michael's white cardstock inside. I colour code them (with a stripe of Copic colour) - green is sentiments, yellow is backgrounds/elements, pink is floral, plain is other, red is Christmas. On the left side of the bin, I have all my dies also in pockets, on magnet sheets. I'm loving this for the dies, but I do feel like I'm flipping through all my clear sets all the time to see if I can find a suitable sentiment. Not 100% sold on this system, although it does allow me to give credit where credit is due!

Here's a better view of the workstation desk. On the upper shelf, and under the drawers (and in the spot where one would sit if they were sitting at this desk), I have stacks of drawers that keep things like tools, small punches, glitter, bling, ribbon scraps and supplies. Having this workstation leaves me a nice big clear space so I can leave my Cuttlebug out (the drawer under the Cuttlebug has all my plates and embossing pads, as well as sandwich instructions). See below for what's in the left hand drawer. Can you see my circle nestabilities hanging from 3M hooks on the side of the IKEA drawers? I got sick of taking them out of their storage every single day to use them. The boxes behind the Cuttlebug have finished and almost-finished cards in them. To the left  of the workstation is the edge of the monstrosity of a ribbon-keeper I bought in my 'have to own everything' stage. Fortunately, it's behind the door, so I can forget about it most of the time.

The left hand drawer of the workstation has all my embossing powders, my heat gun, my silicone 'grabber' (you can get these in kitchen stores) and my foil 'reflector'. I put the piece of cardstock I'm embossing against this foil-wrapped piece of chipboard to help reduce warping and burning. 

Inside the IKEA drawers, I use shallow bins to help keep my wooden stamps organized. They are organized by theme, for the reason above. It will horrify some of you to know that I do not keep my Stampin' Up stamps in sets. The ones I want to keep, I write the name of the set on the side, and I sell the rest in my LSS's semi-annual garage sale. BTW - wooden stamps are my favourite (except for those very small ones, then I prefer clear).

Finally, in the closet is my coloured paper storage. I was able to buy these used 12x12 clear stacking racks from my LSS at a great deal and I keep each colour in a 9x12 'ziploc' type bag - full sheets and scraps. It takes up a lot of space, but it's definitely easy to find  a colour when I need it! At the bottom is my mess of glitter, shimmer and patterned papers. To the very left, you can see the door with the punches hanging on it.

I think I've hit all the highlights - and more! I hope you've enjoyed this little 'tour'! Feel free to ask any questions or contribute any helpful tips!