Saturday, January 30, 2010

Creative Space

So its time to unveil my totally reorganized scrap space.. As a side note- this room is actually a multi-purpose space crammed into a 9.5 x 12 foot room. It serves as our home office, my craft room, my hubby’s computer building space and my dressing room. This little room does it all!! And with the help of Wookiemouses challenge it now is totally functional. Yes there is still a to-do list of things to accomplish.. But I feel I am in control of the space now.

I hemmed and hawed in the first few weeks of the challenge—buy new furniture or not? In a perfect world I would have bitten the bullet—but I embraced the fact of repurposing what I already have. The layout of the furniture did not change. (I spent a lot time with a tape measure in hand thinking I could at the very least move the furniture around. JoEllen and I traded emails throwing ideas around but in the end... This “galley” style worked the best.) I still use a dining room buffet with the glass taken out of it as shelving and storage, my Dad’s old (huge) desk is still home to the computer, my old dresser top is still my workspace with an old TV stand holding up one end and paper storage cubes that my husband built for me holding up the other side. And above that is the hutch from my daughter’s college dorm room.

Here is an overview – This is what you see when you walk in... And truthfully it’s the whole room hahaha. and the back of the room --- ahhh clean!! Like I said this is a multifunctional room—so the storage in the desk is for primarily for home office stuff—bill paying, files etc. But in this drawer I have secretly stored the scanner—you can see in the above photo the empty floor space to the left of the desk is really unusable… so hubby stashes his extra monitors over there and I have the printer conveniently perched on the safe. Moving around the room—the workspace!! This is the repurposed dresser top and the space where all play happens. You can see my trimmer sits on a cropping companion 2 drawer set. One side holds pictures sorted via the LOM system and the other drawer has dividers in it to hold left over chipboard letters. And on the work surface I have to fiskars mats to contain the glue and paint.
This is what sits in front of me… it may look alittle chaotic but in reality it is perfectly organized for my brain. Working left to right- Ikea drawers (painted and paper drawer fronts- the exterior waiting for sunshine to paint the box) that hold 1) adhesive 2) stars 3) hearts, 4)dymo labeler and tape,5) playing cards 6) EMPTY on top of that is a cute metal container that holds MM rubon letters, journaling spots and label holders.

To the right is another Ikea holder—its got larger journaling spots, chalks, scissors and other random stuff I grab daily. Then next to that in a metal tin are packs of mats and where the ATG sits. And than farther to the right next to the trimmer is my makeshift little shelves held up with wood blocks... it’s a temporary solution but very effective. I have cigar boxes (repurposed!!) that hold little word stickers and little letter stickers on one shelf. And other go to items on the other shelves.

Above this space are my new shelves—Totally love the repurposed items from Amanda’s wedding! A silver bowl holds regular inks and the cute blue mason jars holding buttons, bling, stamps…
The other end of the work space is an odd corner space both above and below the counter. I did my best to make it a workable space.
Sterlite drawers hold chipboard shapes- Baskets hold clear stamps and more ink- shoebox holds foam stamps (divided in old checkboxes) Stamping up containers hold stamping up stamps sorted by themes….
Below the counterspace are the cubes that my husband built me!! They hold not only all my papers but also my storage boxes... new items, ongoing projects, memorabilia, pages in progress.
And the odd corner space (underside) ?? It looks scary but in reality it is finally functional! Its an old distressed wooden TV Stand. The two shelves hold all the stuff I don’t use often but needed a home. Top shelf- Full size chipboard sheets, Page protectors, Canvas’s and then Ziploc bags with pages from classes that need photos.. (each of those are in the Get it done jar) Bottom shelf- new albums- in shoe boxes new mini-albums and new mini album papers and protectors (still need to decorate or replace the shoeboxes) Next to that TV stand is my new basket with my generations envelopes—Sorted by theme all those flat embellishments, stickers etc. Some of theme envelopes also hold papers... ie the travel and pets, holidays. Those actually rotate in and out of the basket depending on what I am using. Its genius I tell you! And I love love love it!!

Next to that is a standard 4 drawer sterlite container… eyelets, brads and two drawers of misc stuff—nicely sorted though!!

On the other side of the room is the repurposed china buffet... like I mentioned earlier I took out the glass doors to make the upper part storage shelves. The bottom storage area is mainly computer parts and office papers etc… With the exception of one drawer of photo papers…

I have embellishments sorted by color here... I really would like to upgrade to larger drawers but haven’t found them yet.
A basket of punches—Containers of paints, tags, metal embellishments, embossing powders and some tools.

I also have a bookshelf—that holds albums in progress- idea books and binders... above it I have new chipboard sets... once they are opened they get stored in my drawers and one of my stamp shelves.. This book case is also home to my camera chargers, heat tool and rulers. So that’s pretty much my room—I can’t thank Wookiemouse enough for pushing me for 29 weeks and all my online buddies who I forced me to stay with it—good friends were made and organization was achieved.


2 comments:

Hobbyaholic said...

You Go Girl!!! Awesome. That before photo isn't even of the same space, right?? You should be proud of yourself for all of the hard work you put into this challenge.

Bree said...

Vicky - Yay! Your space looks fabulous. Love all the black/white touches (not sure if they're new - maybe I couldn't seem them "before"). Also, I am SO jealous of your mid-century modern china cabinet. That's getting pretty trendy these days so you could probably sell it for $$$ if its not your style.