Sunday, February 17, 2013

Conquering the Craft Space in Real Life

I'll just consider this a Lenten exercise in humility.  Here it is, my disaster of a sewing/craft area that I refer to as my "craft dump."

This space has been my nemesis since we moved here almost three years ago.  All I have right now are my "before" photos, what it looks like now.  There are a few things that I have done right, but I still believe that this can be a fully FUNctional space that I enjoy working in, even without a window.  If you look closely at the floor(what little is exposed) you'll see that it's outdoor carpeting.  That's right, my craft space is really an indoor putting green.  It also used to be painted a dreary gray and dark gold, which we changed to a nice blue and yellow.  I'll go with various shades of blue and yellow almost every time, because I just love sunshine and blue sky.

Here are some things that are going right:
1. I have (almost) enough tables so that there is(in theory) plenty of workspace at all times.


2. I organized my quilters cottons by color a few months back.

3. I purchased some colored bins for sorting the yarn stash by color.  Now, I may switch this around, but first I plan to get all my yarn in this one place(I currently have yarn in several rooms of the house, and some of it is loose--GASP)

4. I have the craft books shelved, but they may not be in their final resting place.  (One shelf in photo)




5. I have this nifty new cabinet, and these waiting to be assembled, because I just needed to start somewhere.  Do I top the two door cabinet with another, or with some drawers, shelves, or cubbies?
 
6. My awesome thread organizer from my in-laws, the sewing thread is on the outside, the serger thread is on the inside.


Here are the struggles:
1. The scrapbooking stuff.  If I put up another table, I could either use it for kids's crafts, or I could have scrapbooking stuff set up all the time, so that when I have a free 15 minutes, I could do a page.  The stuff could either be corralled above, next to, or under the table.  Right now, it's just a mess.

2. Yarn.
3. Non-quilting fabric.
4. Homeless miscellaneous craft stuff.  One idea is to put a good portion of this stuff in a bin, give the kids the bin and a craft book, and have them assemble "kits" for things they'd like to make.

There it is.  It's not fun to post a "before" when you don't have an "after," but it's a good way to show some realistic, real-time progress.  I don't just want to motivate myself, but others who feel overwhelmed by all the "after" pictures on Pinterest, Facebook, and the various artsy-craftsy blogs(and don't forget HGTV).  Wish me luck, I hope to have some progress to post next weekend.