FaveCrafts

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Design Your Own Craft Room – It’s Easier Than You Think

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This post is brought to you by Aimee Claire.

Scrapbooking and paper crafting require a crafting environment that combines organization and plenty of workspace.  The amount and variety of materials and supplies needed for scrapbooking can quickly become overwhelming if the work environment is not taken in hand right from the beginning.  The best way to do this is to have a dedicated paper craft room, complete with comfortable and functional furniture, a spacious work area, good quality lighting and plenty of shelving and storage for all those valuable supplies and equipment.

If you’re not sure where to start or need a little inspiration from  top craft bloggers, check out our eBook, How to Organize Your Craft Room: 15 Room Tours and DIY Organization Ideas from Your Favorite Bloggers. Download your copy today – it’s free!

 

 

 

Decorating and Furnishing Your Paper Craft Room

When decorating a paper craft room, creating the maximum inspiration potential is the key.  Employ calmer, more neutral background colors for the walls and floor, and tap into brighter, bolder colors for the accents.  Hang inspirational pictures and clippings on the walls. You can create your own wall hangings and save money on home decor – simply use materials you have to create projects like Garden Inspired Wall Art.

Furnishing a paper craft room means choosing functional pieces with an eye towards design and comfort.  Shelving is, of course, a necessity, whether that shelving is open, hidden behind cabinet doors, or a combination of open and closed space.  Open shelving is especially accessible and attractive, particularly when bins and baskets are used for supply storage.  Closed storage units are a good choice for paper craft rooms that pull double duty as guest rooms or if the crafting area is in a community room, such as a dining room. A Floral Mosaic Shelf is a pretty and practical option you can work on at home.

Another furniture piece that is a necessity for a paper craft room is a sturdy and spacious work surface.  Whether that surface is an installed counter or some extended dining tables positioned at a 90-degree angle, the goal is to have plenty of workspace.

Lighting is also very important.  A variety of lighting sources should be used, including overhead lighting, targeted lighting aimed at the work space, and work lamps that may be positioned and used as needed, then put away.

 

Tips for Organizing Your Craft Room

After designing the perfect paper craft room, keeping supplies and tools organized and easy to find becomes the new goal.  Storage options may seem as if they would be limited, but actually there is a lot of room for individuality when choosing shelving and other storage pieces.

Open shelving with colorful fabric bins as the main storage system is one option.  Various sizes and styles of baskets may also be used to hold supplies.  Plastic storage units with multiple drawers are good for storing bits and pieces used when scrapbooking, as well as paper punches, scissors and other tools. Make storage and organization more fun by crafting your own boxes and jars. Fancy and Fabulous Storage Containers don’t take long to make but can add so much to a drab space.

Small pieces of paper, tiny buttons and other accouterments may be perfectly stored in the tiny jars and drawers of an old spice cabinet.

Modular storage systems, which feature drawers, shelves and bins in combination, are good flexible choices for scrapbooking rooms where the storage needs of the crafter constantly change.  Modular units offer the option of altering the formation of storage options, as well as adding on to the unit to expand storage as needed.  Other storage suggestions include: using vertical magazine boxes for storing papers; using canning or jelly jars to store ribbons and buttons, adding a decorative touch to the room as they hold important supplies; and using a pegboard for storage and display purposes.

Need a little help in the organization department? Check out our 5 Craft Room Storage Tips You Can Use – each idea is more practical than the next.

5 Crafty Tips For Organizing Your Creative Space

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This post comes from our friend Lindsay Conner of CraftFoxes.

If you haven’t noticed, a clean and organized craft room can help get your creative juices flowing like nothing else. When you have a place for everything for fabric, scissors, glitter to glue, you learn how to maximize the space in your craft room. Here are some of our favorite tips for keeping your crafts in order and making the most of your creative space.

Get Inspired with Furniture

You may not have thousands of dollars to spend on new cabinets to organize your craft supplies, but finding a one or two great piece of furniture can make all the difference. Check out big-box stores and vintage furniture dealers for cabinets and dressers that you can repurpose as craft room storage. We love this repurposed shutter storage closet for a shabby chic craft room. An armoire can become a scrapbooker’s dream closet, while inexpensive cube shelves can be stacked to keep your craft supplies hidden under a DIY workstation.

Check out these craft rooms for inspiration!

Choose the Perfect Table and Chairs

For a craft room that’s functional as well as pretty, you’ll need a comfortable chair and sturdy worktable. If you’re crafting with kids, find a table that’s a little lower to the ground, or try a high-top and bar stools for supplies you’d like to keep out of little hands. Decoupage a table with old book pages for a custom look. A folding card table and chair makes a great craft table to pull out for additional workspace when a friend comes by to join the party.

Craft Beautiful Containers

When it comes to organizing your craft supplies, a little bit of imagination goes a long way. You can turn old glass pickle jars into cute craft supply jars to hold paper clips, buttons and beads. A teapot makes a very creative yarn organizer, and dowel rods can be used to keep ribbon untangled.

Check out these crafty uses for everyday items to learn more tips for organizing your craft room.

Label It

Once you have your space defined, it’s time to label your craft supplies for easy access. If you have a label maker, colored stickers or some other method for maintaining the mess, it’s helpful to have some method for sorting your stash. We love these chalkboard clothespin labels for clipping to boxes and bins of craft supplies.

Dress Up Your Space

Repaint a vintage mirror and hang it on the wall of your craft room to reflect light in the space and make the room seem bigger. You can finish off your craft room with some pretty details, like easy-to-make curtains with this tutorial from Jennifer Paganelli. Choose light-colored fabric to make sure the room feels light and bright, or darker drapes to keep out the sun.

Need some more ideas? Check out our top 10 craft rooms for tips on organizing your own creative space.

How to Organize Your Craft Room: 6 DIY Projects

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You’ve got five minutes to make a card for your niece’s birthday party and your “Happy Birthday” stamp is no where to be found. You need to patch your son’s jeans but your thread has gone into hiding. You’re almost finished knitting a scarf but you can’t remember where you put that extra yarn.

We’ve all been victims of messy craft room scenarios like these, but here at FaveCrafts we’ve decided that it’s time to stop the suffering!

However, when it comes to crafting staying organized is actually a huge benefit. If you know where everything is you won’t have to waste time searching and you’ll have more time to create. Instead of spending an hour looking for your favorite fabric or pair of scissors you can actually use that time to finish that new skirt pattern.Organization often falls to the wayside when inspiration strikes. Putting your supplies back in the right place is the last thing on your mind when you’re in the middle of a creating a cute scrapbook page. Unfortunately, that leaves us with a great finished craft but a disaster of a craft room.

The key to staying organized is making sure that all your supplies have a “home.” Drawers and baskets can do wonders at reducing clutter, especially when they are clearly labeled. Since you are already crafty you can use your skills to make your own organizers. These simple tutorials will show you how to make these craft organizers yourself.

Sewing CaddyThis Sewing Caddy is great for any crafting supplies, not just sewing. It has handles that make it easy to transport and handy pockets for scissors, glue guns, needles and anything else you need. If you are sick of your ribbon getting tangled and unraveled then this Ribbon Organizer is a quick fix. All you need is a shoe box and a couple dowels to end your ribbon woes. Speaking of unraveling, keep all your yarn in one place with this Yarn Storage Box. Not only is it a great space to keep your yarn but the decoupaged sides of this box will liven up your craft room decor.

A bulletin board is a great way to keep all your project ideas and inspiration in one place. Pin up those patterns and pictures on this Pottery Barn-inspired Wall Organizer. You and your wallet will love the rustic burlap design that you were able to make at a fraction of the cost.

Baskets are a huge help when it comes to organizing your craft room. It’s so easy to just put all your fabric scraps or paintbrushes in one container. Do you have some outgrown jeans laying around? This Denim Fabric Basket is a great way to give that old denim new life. It’s an up-cycling project that can be made in a variety of sizes to store anything from tape measures to knitting needles.

If you are short on counter space these Hanging Fabric Baskets are sure to help. You can hang these baskets on the wall to store paper, magazines and photographs.

It’s never too late to get your craft room organized. Once you are done you’ll love spending time in your neat work space. All it takes is a little effort and creativity to transform your cluttered room into a creative oasis!

How do you stay organized? We’d love it if you shared some tips!

Craft Rooms Exposed Series: Debra Quartermain

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Welcome to the fifth issue of the FaveCrafts Craft Rooms Exposed series! As promised in our monthly craft question post, every day this week we’ll be featuring the inside of a famous craft designer’s craft room. Get inside tips from some of our favorite bloggers and designers and find out how they turn their craft rooms into lean, mean crafting machines! And now without further ado, let’s explore our first featured craft room.

Today’s featured designer: Debra Quartermain, DebraQuartermain.com

Craft Room Tips and Tricks:
I like using pretty boxes to hold like items. When crafting I can just bring over a box to my counter containing trims or buttons or ribbons etc to choose what works well with my current project. Decorative boxes and baskets stack and take up less space. I keep felt and bulky fabrics in large stacked baskets organized by fabric type and color. Smaller baskets hold cottons each one holding a color family. I keep scissors in a divided basket separating fabric and paper scissors. I like my space to be pretty even in the midst of a crafting, sewing flurry when things get wildly creative and messy!

 

 

 

 

Crochet

Jewelry

Knitting

Paper

Sewing

Thrifty