Hello Lockdown buddies,
I was going to say we are now at day… and realised that it sounded too much like the Geordie narrator from Big Brother, and also that I have no clue what day it is in the Big Brother Lockdown. We have reached that stage where time and days have no meaning and I really can’t tell the difference between one day and the next – is it Friday? Tuesday? midday? midnight? who knows!
So hopefully we are all staying home staying safe and as sane as possible, and getting our craft on. My stash is considerable so I am good for craft supplies for the foreseeable future and don’t plan to spend any money on anything except “essentials”. I keep telling myself that there is a difference between needing and wanting something. There are many new products that I would WANT but in reality, there are no new products that I NEED. This is especially important when your craft space looks like this:
This photo is slightly blurry – don’t worry it’s not your eyes! – I guess it was the horror of that sight that was making my hand shake lol. This is an IKEA kitchen unit that I brought with me from the previous house but it wasn’t needed in this house so it got shunted upstairs to this room. It’s actually great for a craft space, big wide drawers, shelves underneath and a big table top to work on. I have it set up with a 150cm metal ruler along the front as I use it for measuring fabric also, but it does mean that I have to stand up to work at it. I have tried using a stool but it feels wrong. So that’s all good, the problem is I have a foot injury so standing for hours is not fun and so then crafting isn’t fun, so that was really the initial reason for this reorganisation. In the background there is an IKEA table which is so piled up with stuff that it is unusable, but if I could clear it, I could use it and SIT DOWN.
Technically, I could have cleared it off and been able to sit at it without having to move anything, but because of the set up of the rest of the room, there is no room for a chair there and I would be sitting under the sloping ceiling and would be constantly banging my head!
First things first, clear everything off this table! Wow it’s so big underneath all that clutter haha. The kittens were very excited about this activity!
I’ve never been here before! Woohoo!
Next step is to dismantle the table and get it out of the way so I could move the kitchen unit there.
If I could afford it I would totally overhaul this room, repaint it and replace the carpet with laminate flooring, as it came with the house and it’s not my style, but I can’t. BTW this table is the one I picked up from an art shop that went out of business a few years ago. It’s an IKEA table but I got it really cheap along with a few other things and some art supplies. I should also say that nothing in this room has been specially bought for a craft space, I really don’t have money to splash out on shiny new furniture and I hate waste, so I am happy with what I have even if none of it matches. It’s functional and does the job I need it to do.
OK so now the table was out of the way, it was time for a quick vacuum, before moving the kitchen unit into position, and I already moved the white desk that was in front of the window 90 degrees, and backed the brown drawer unit up to it so they were back to back.
Next it was time to bring the table back in and put it in position, with the metal drawers underneath and look – a chair! (and a curious kitty)
I think the kitties are confused over whose table this is! This view also shows the two desks back to back in front of the window. The white desk is now close enough to the bench to use that to sit on. The dark drawer unit has always had my big shots and laminator etc on it but that might change now.
Pretty much finished and sans kitty. I moved all the big shots, guillotine etc onto the kitchen unit, along with all my Tim Holtz stamps, and I moved my writing and calligraphy supplies onto the writing desk (makes sense duh). To the far right of the photo, is all my coloured cardstock and scrapbook papers.
This area didn’t change at all really, except being able to fit the framed butterfly on the wall down on the left. Everything else is on IKEA picture ledges.
The opposite wall looks like this. I did have to reposition some of the picture ledges as I had room to fit more in, and still trying to find places to store stuff but at this point I was pretty much finished and was able to get to work on some DT projects.
However… after living with it like this for nearly two weeks, I managed to liberate another Expedit unit from another room so I reshuffled the contents of these units so it now looks like this. A little neater and more under control, with a little bit more space. By the way, the two red Soap and Glory boxes you see below were rescued from the local recycling centre – I nearly fell in a concrete bay full of cardboard trying to fish them out lol. I use them to store stamps and dies by brand. To the right is another storage box that also contains stamps and dies. Underneath those, are more stamps (smaller) in the gold wire baskets, chipboards and glues.
Of course, what happens now that everything has been moved, the contents of every drawer and cupboard and shelf have been changed and swapped, is that I will probably not be able to find anything because everything now has a new home! So far so good though and it is nice (but strange) to be able to sit down and work and not be in pain which really starts to affect your mood after a while.
How do you organise your craft space? I’d love to see it! Please let me know below.
PROJECT RECIPE:
From Stash: everything!
I started something new for April:
Since we are all stuck inside and can’t leave the house, I thought I would try and do two things:
1. use this time to finish any unfinished projects
2. use as much recycled materials as possible (I do this a lot anyway) but also not to buy new stuff!
So, with that in mind, I will note the above on any posts, if applicable.
UNFINISHED PROJECT – NO! i TOTALLY FINISHED IT!
RECYCLED MATERIALS – Furniture from other parts of the house, large gift boxes liberated from the recycling centre,
Thanks for visiting today. Your comment is really appreciated.