Huda Thoughts: April 2012

This blog is all about my messy craft room. It is for B'sue Boutiques blog hop. I will have a listing of other blogs to hop to that are all about messy craft rooms.
I have added notes on the photos to guide you through the mess. Hopefully you won't get lost!
Here is the opening shot of my craft room. As you can see it is very messy and crowded. I have shelves and shelves of stuff.

This is one corner of my craft room. I found that if I take the wheels off the stacking drawers I can stack them up. I can't move them, but there really isn't anywhere for them to go. They are filled with craft supplies, sewing thread and scrapbook paper. My shelves are mostly taken up with scrapbook paper and supplies.

I had to put shelves up this fall to hold more things. I saved the sugar and flour bins from my grandmother and also found one at a thrift store. The boxes that look like books have the die cut pieces for my Sissix machine. They fit pretty nicely inside them. I inherited tons of ribbon and braid from my grandmother and mom and they are stored in drawer bins all over the top of things.

This is what is under the shelves. I have a small folding table under the shelves. I want to use it for scrapbooking, but right now it is stacked with stuff. I have more storage drawers on each side of the table and some under the table. I keep everything from blank journal books to my printer ink in the drawers. The 3 tiered piece Cliff got me to take to shows to help display my jewelry on. My sign says "I am a material girl. Want to see my fabric collection?" My fabric is stored in 2 hallway closets outside of this room. I inherited my fabric from my mom and grandmother. I have my Dracula memorabilia hanging on my wall. Some friends of my parents brought them back from their trip to Romania. My gargoyle collection is finally in the living room where it should be. My ex hated my gargoyles and made me keep them out of the living room. I have lots of extras of everything, because when my mom and grandmother passed away I got double and triple of everything.

As you can see I am not only a jewelry maker, but I love scrapbooking. That has taken a sideline for a bit while I make jewelry but I can't seem to stop buying paper. What I usually do is buy the big pads of paper and split it with my daughter and daugher-in-law so all three of us get to have some of the paper and I don't need 3 copies of each pattern!

I ran out of shelf space of course. I do plan to purge and clean this summer. My favorite thing in my craft room are my new wireless speakers that Cliff gave me for Christmas. I plug in a device in the living room and my music is wirelessly broadcast back to my speakers in the craft room. This way I don't have to tune up my stereo in the living room and blast out the neighbors. I need to stack and re-stack some of the things in front of my shelves. I have about 3 or 4 regular sewing machines and 2 sergers. I inherited them from gram and my mom. I also have tons of photos to scrapbook. Cliff also bought me a negative scanner so that I can scan my old negatives and print the photos to scrapbook.

I finally found something that works for my finished jewelry. I bought the peg boards at Michael's at 50% off and I hang my finished products on them. This way I can see them at a glance and they aren't just laying around somewhere. I do have a lot of stock. I plan to reorganize some of the drawers this summer so that they are more efficient.

Now for my jewelry making stuff! This is all between the 2 tables that I use. I have a rolling chair that I use that sits in this area. Unfortunately there is carpet in this room so I put down those plastic office mats. They help some, but want to have wood floors eventually. I found these large bins in Joann's on sale and put more of my scrapbook paper in them and stack them against the wall. Cliff gave me some tupperware containers for some of my jewelry supplies. I separated my different colors of chain and put them each in bins that I got very cheap at Walmart.
This is my working area on my table. I got a large acrylic cutting board to do my jewelry work on. You can find them used at the thrift store and then throw them away when they get trashed. I also find large ceramic floor tiles at the thrift store for 50 cents and I solder on them and do some gluing on them as well. I love the thrift store and get teacups and sugar/creamer pieces that are vintage pieces and put things in them on my table. They are handy, pretty and usually cost 50 cents there. I got the white lazy susan at Michael's on sale and I keep my scissors and things in it on my table. T. S. Eliot has decided that I work best while he lays on his blanket on my table. The only thing I hate is the cat hair.

More of my table:
I have my heat tool and dremel tool on my table all the time ready to use. I also re-purposed an old spice holder and containers from Tupperware. The lazy susan has all the containers neatly contained on it and they are semi transparent. They are great and can probably be found at yard sales and thrift stores. I found some pretty glass bottles that were missing the tops at Real Deals one day. They were 75% off and I put my paint brushes in them.

My "extra" table that I planned to do scrapbooking on. Right now is piled with boxes of jewelry making stuff. I buy the pretty boxes at Michaels when they are 60% off and put small containers inside them to store my beads and findings. A note about Michael's They offer a discount for teachers that is for your entire purchase. Teachers just have to show some sort of ID. Joann's does an educator discount as well as Barnes and Noble. I also bought a small suitcase at Real Deals with a coupon and use it to take my jewelry to shows. I decorated the outside and when not in use at the show I use it for containing some of the jewelry I'm selling. I turn it up on end so it looks like a steamer trunk and hang necklaces down from the end of the suitcase. This is one of the areas I plan to redo and make more accessible in the future. I used to have my sewing machine cabinet here, but it was way too hard to sew there.

Here are my current favs for listening to while I work. I'm pretty much a rebel without a clue and I love hard rock. Ozzy is my favorite singer. That is why I have to have the wireless speakers, the neighbors would complain if I had to tune them up to hear my music in the back of the house. :)

And here is my constant companion Mr. T. S. Eliot. He is my big black cat (with orange toes). He thinks he is such a help. The gets bored and will reach over and knock things off the table. So far he has not been scared off by the heat tool running nor the Dremel tool. The vacuum cleaner is another story. He hisses at it and runs. He also takes up a lot of room when he lays down on the table and stretches out.

Crafts Are Cheaper Than Therapy!

This is my collection area. I collect Ozzy Osbourne stuff. So I have one shelf just for that stuff. I also Love the pictures of Lady of Shallot and that is why she is on my business cards and my Etsy page. My daughter Rachel gave me this print of the Lady one year for Christmas. The drawers all have beads in them separated by color. I keep my resin and inks in the brown drawers in little baskets to pull out when I need them.

This is a cabinet/shelf that I found at a yard sale last summer. I LOVE it. I put it at the end of my table and it fit perfectly. I also have old bottles that I have found over time. I have mason jars of old wooden spools of thread that my grandmother and mom had. This is also where I use teacups and sugar bowls for odds and ends. My pencils are on the window sill in cups and other containers. I found the little suitcase at the thrift store and decoupaged over the outside and have my shipping/packaging supplies in it.

I got these three drawer things at Office Max on sale. I put my beads in them sorted by color. Some of the beads are in baggies some are in containers.

This is my Super Uber fancy resin station. It is an old cookie sheet with wax paper over it. It is sitting on top of my 3 drawer bead holder. Not fancy but cheap! The cookie sheets can be purchased at the dollar store and than recycled!

I found these big containers on sale at Office Max. They had matching little boxes that fit inside the bigger boxes. I put a lot of my metal findings and specific pieces in the little boxes with labels on top. For example one containers has sun, stars, moons. One has keys, etc. The little square ones have transparent covers on them. The big boxes stack really well on top of each other.

The square containers are pretty handy. I can move them around and stack them up on each other. They were not expensive at Office Max and I used a coupon to buy them.
Some of the containers inside are Tupperware, some are bought at the dollar store and others are from the same company that the big boxes are from. They snap closed and the lids lock on very nicely.

I store a lot of stuff under this table. It is against the wall and I have crates with my magazines and books in them. I have one shelf in the closet that has books on it. It is full. I bought some closet hangers that hang on the rods and put them in the closet. They are like mini shelves inside the closet. Now, if I could get the closet doors opened......
The little rolling cart can be pulled out (on a good day) and it has my glass tiles, scrabble tiles, stamp pads, microscope slides etc. in the drawers. I have my stamps in a bag on the floor for the time being. I need to re-arrange and find somewhere else to store them.

I bought one of these white see into drawers at Michael's when they had their storage stuff on sale. They are really easy to put together and store a lot. They have see into fronts and are deep drawers. I bought several different types of little containers to store beads in. These are all beads in these 2 drawers.

This is another set of drawers that stack that are from Michael's. I have my glitter, resin and Alcohol inks in these drawers. There is a shelf at the top of the first one and it has some paints and other things on it.

I found the magnetic strips things at the dollar store and hung them on the wall. I went to Cost Plus and found the spice holders with magnetic pieces on the bottom. They work great as long as I don't knock them off the wall. The silver ones are from Michael's, again on sale. The are divided into 4 parts and hold on the strips as well.