Author Archives: apieceoflifespie

So I have a confession to make…  my craft room has been a disaster that was masked by quasi organization ever since we took ownership of this house.   When we first moved, our house was pretty much ripped apart down to its studs and we physically remodeled this house top to bottom with a 12 week old baby and a 20 month old.   Yes, we are a bit insane.    I will have to say the hubs and I never bickered or let some of the endless challenges of having our “Money Pit” experience ever get the best of us.  When we dated and were first married we did a lot of extreme outdoor adventure (climbing MT. Whitney, Half Dome, 56 mile backpacking trips, 120 mile mountain bike trips in Canyon Lands, Utah), so I think that was God setting us up for how to deal with challenges and relying on each other in  extreme settings.  A full remodel with a baby and a toddler would equate for an extreme sport in my book. We had only 1/2 of a bath, NO kitchen, no flooring, and lived in drywall dust for about 8 weeks.

I totally digressed… the once office/craft room (now only craft room with a desk and file cabinet) was the catch-all room during most of the remodel and when I started to transform the catch-all to a craft room, I did a lot of shoving into the closet and half reorganizing so I could just set up the room and craft.

Well that finally caught up with me over this holiday season while doing all my projects, I was finally forced to face the music of my avoidance of the situation.  So last weekend I rolled up my sleeves and spent TWO whole days doing what I should have done 2 years ago.  Sadly, when reorganizing and purging it gets worse before it gets better.  I wanted to throw up my hands and yell UNCLE at one point. Even the hubs came in at one point and nearly had a heart attack on how similar my room looked to an episode of Hoarders, Buried Alive he had once seen.   However, I powered through and now have the craft room and storage for my mini Michaels store I have been needing and wanting!

Before- in the throws of reorg insanity:

After:  YAY!

This closet was the biggest victory.  On the side you don’t see holds my main printer, camera gear, office supplies and a few totes.  On the side you do see holds most of my everyday embellishments,  paint, specialty ribbon and twine, my design team products, extra supplies, makers, pens, a couple totes that host a quit I am working on and gift bags, etc…

The shelving unit hosts scrapbooks, my Cuttlebug and Cinch It, all my paper stackers and my 8.5×11 solid stock paper. Next is my sewing station that the hubs built for me and it serves as a ribbon holder as well.  I have a big tool cabinet above this station that I inherited from the hubs and that is hosts all my stamp ink, more embellishments, supplies, Stickles, etc…   The red tool box hosts all my sewing tools.

I decided to organize my loose paper in 13×13 plastic storage bins and store those under my main work space.  The top drawer holds all my scrap paper and then I organized the rest of the drawers by pattern, solid, Christmas, Halloween, novelty/designer paper and small stacks. This should help keep me more on track on what I have and what I need.  The hub built the main craft table, the peg board, and the table that holds my Cricut, Silhouette and color printer.  In the wood drawers under my craft table hosts my heat gun, stamps, stickers, and punches.

So there you have it.  I have managed to successfully knock out one of my New Year’s Resolutions before the end of January!  I have to say I have already done some projects and it is WONDERFUL to be working in a truly organized room!

Thanks for sharing a piece of ” happiness is being organized” pie with me.