Crafty Monday: Art Room Organizers

Good Monday morning! I try to stay cheerful about Mondays. They get a bad rap most of the time. But I always believe that without Mondays, we would not have the rest of the week to look forward to! Since we do have a Monday, and we show you some pretty cool crafty stuff on Mondays, let's say happy Monday and start on our Crafty Monday project.

Collaged Storage Box 

Along with trying to expand a tiny closet in our bedroom, we're also trying to refurbish a sunroom at the front of the house that is the kids' playroom. They have toys everywhere in there, and I still haven't come up with good storage solutions for all of the toys. It is also exposed to everything because we have giant windows (non-insulated mind you. What WERE they thinking?) and it faces the front of the house. While the geography of the sunroom is completely wrong (faces North with a west and east sidelong glance, should face south) there are a few things we can do with it. Mainly, I've been wanting to change it into an art room capable of doing double duty as a playroom. Art and play go together in my mind!

Right now my kids don't have a centralized place to express their creativity. We use the dining room table, the coffee table, floors, and whatever other space they can find. The same with the art supplies. They're in various places around the house and to actually do a project we have to hunt things down. So I've been organizing some thoughts on a Pinterest board for this project and came across one the other day that was simple, fun, and with a few tweaks could prove awesome.

Follow Freckle Dots (Tammy Lyons)'s board Building a craft room on Pinterest.

Of course, we're going to put up some curtains in this room, which I'll probably hand paint because I'm totally hooked and hubby bought me paints and brushes for Valentine's Day. But we also need storage in there.



This simple organizer was made using paper towel tubes and a shoe box. Her shoe box was very pretty on its own, but I didn't actually have a shoe box available. I had a juice drink box. I also didn't have very many paper towel or t.p. rolls because my husband found my stash and they hit the trash bin. (Bad husband. Bad.) Still, we were having an "ice day" here in the south, the power was out, and the kids were bouncing off the walls.

Supplies

I gathered up the box that I had and scrounged around for containers. I'm always saving back plastic containers of some sort. I also grabbed the Mod Podge, some brushes, old magazines, scrapbook paper, an old calendar, fabric scraps and the kids.

Scrap Supplies

I had to make my box work a little better for our purposes. It had a rather large hole in the bottom of it where the flaps came together. To "fix" it all I did was cut off the top flaps with a box cutter and fill in the hole with one of the flaps. I hot glued it down and I had a sealed bottom.

box

flaps cut off

flap that fit

glued that sucker in there

Scrapbook paper went on first

More collage

And more

And more

Collaged container with fabric, magazine pictures, etc. 

Collaged container

Beginnings of the organizer! 

We spent the afternoon cutting, pasting, collaging, and having a great time. In the end, we had a very unique pen/pencil/marking utensil organizer. We didn't do anything extravagant, but it was fun and we expanded on an idea that someone else had. You could decorate your box with all kinds of great things, even just plain fabric and paints. Hot glue or white glue could be used in place of Mod Podge. It's an awesome way to recycle and create a piece of art - for art. 

A step in the right direction

When I really began crocheting in earnest, I started collecting yarn and patterns. At first, it was an innocent hobby. I discovered new yarns that weren't available in my local store. I had to have them, touch them, use them. I went yarn crazy. The patterns became organized on CDs and in filing cabinets. Then the pamphlets required binders with clear pockets to keep them organized. Eventually I had enough of these and books to fill up a bookcase. That was just the beginning.

Being a dedicated Eclectic, I found interest in other crafts. Knitting still required yarn, but new notions, needles, patterns, and books were also in order. Then came some sewing projects. These required fabrics. Yummy, delicious, colorful materials in solids, prints, and patterns that just needed one or two other matching fabrics. And of course, there are ribbons, rick-rack, pins, needles, bobbins, thread...books... you see where this is going.

Quilting required even more books and fabrics and a recent acquisition of said products from another crazy quilter left me with boxes filled and no place to put these wonderful treasures. Of course, I also didn't want to get rid of any of it. This is a sickness that crafters share, creating an idyllic world where they have all supplies on hand so they may continue to craft until they drop.

Our recent move not only lifted my heart and spirits, but it also gave me a craft area separate from my sleeping area. An entire room, dedicated to what I love. So after putting away the requisite things in the kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom, I got to unpack my sewing room. And I decided that now was the time to organize! It's been more than a week, and I'm almost done. But the rewards are decidedly worth the time and effort. Here is a sample of the fabric shelves:

I have also sorted through all of my sewing notions, eliminated two of the peg boards that were major eyesores, replacing them with storage containers in a cleaned out sewing desk. I do still have one peg board, but that has gone down from the 3 that I previously had that never really worked. 

The sewing machine, jewelry desk (yes, another obsession), and cutting table all have their little areas. I even have room to add a quilting rack if I ever decide that I want to hand quilt. 

I can't wait to get in and finish a couple of quilts and work on some other projects. I haven't even been to my local Hobby Lobby in the last few weeks; probably because of the move, the unpacking, and organizing, but it still counts. Of course, I have the garden coming up in a couple of months, and I'm collecting for that, so I may need some more bookshelves for the books. But we'll take this one step at  a time. :)