Craft Room Makeover Part 1

I wanted to do this post to share with you why I have not been posting as much lately. Because of family circumstances during 2020, I started crafting in our dining room. It's a space that doesn't get used a lot because we have a dinette table next to the kitchen where we have our meals.

I was keeping my favorite Distress Inks in tins on the dining table, and other inks, that were tumbling all over the place. I was changing out what I had on the table constantly - going back and forth to my craft room, which is one of the spare bedrooms. The dining room was a constant mess; it's also where I was doing all my paper cutting and die cutting, and it is a room very visible to the front door. It didn't really matter a lot, because no one is visiting during the pandemic, and I was getting a lot done, even though the space was pretty messy. At the start of 2021, I finally decided that the mess was not working for me. A friend inspired me with her office/craft space, and I decided that I could use my fairly large chunk of shared office space as a craft work space.

This is an after picture of my office space, which is now an office/craft workspace, and I love it. This picture was taken before I added my big shot to the empty space under the shelf, to the right. Baby Yoda is guarding/hiding the router. My husband made this shelf for me, and it doubles my space here. I also added a LOT of photos of my children and grandchildren on the wall under the shelf. I really love this space, and it's so nice to work in. I can move my laptop way to the back of the desk area and work on the mat in front. I kind of cringe to show you any before pictures, but I will show you the craft room. 

This is what used to be my craft work space. I used to think that if I didn't have everything out where I could see it, I would forget I have it. This is not entirely untrue, but it also means that I have too much stuff. I worked at a beautiful art stamp store for 7 years, and you can imagine that I did accumulate a lot. One of the things that my friend made me realize is that I should decide what is really important to have close at hand.

The desk in the picture above will be removed, and there will be no rolling carts. I plan to cover the wall where the desk is with an Ikea Kallax (whenever they get them back in stock at our Ikea), and some stacked drawer units. What doesn't fit will have to go! The Distress ink holders and Copics in the above photo have already been moved into my office, and I have done a lot of other clearing out of this space, but it still looks like a tornado hit it right now.

This is the other side of the craft room and it will not change a lot. I will get rid of some things though, and update how it looks (like maybe change the Amazon cardboard box to something a bit more attractive). There is also a closet that I'm going to go through and clean things out of. I plan to be as ruthless as possible. The dining room will be completely clear of any craft things, and this room will act as a craft storage space.

This I will save. These are all of the stamps I designed for Magenta over the years. I have them in cling as well, and I still use them on my cards.

I will post photos of the craft storage room once it's finished. It will be a much nicer looking space. This project is almost all I can think about right now. I had to stop because I had some April obligations and goals to get done. It was so hard to break away from this. It will be really nice to have a cleaned up dining room when it's time to invite people over for dinner again!

Here's one last picture for now, to give you a laugh. Between the kit that I would take to classes, my office desk, and my craft desk, with a large circular tool holder, these are all of the scissors I have accumulated over the years. Geez I honestly had no idea.

This doesn't count my scissors that are only for fabric, which are tucked away. It's really hard for me to get rid of scissors, can you tell? It will happen though!

One last thing to tell you: I have a large number of people who subscribe to my blog. I have been notified that this gadget (run by feedburner) will no longer be supported as of July. I hope all of you will continue to check up on my blog and see what I'm working on.