Live More With Less: Week 4 (Office/Craft room)
Welcome back to another installment of “Heather Goes Crazy And Throws Stuff Out. And Organizes Other Stuff. And Makes Stuff Generally Awesome.”
So far, I’ve tackled:
… and this week it was all about my home office/craft room. This rarely-seen spot in our home is tucked away in the basement, and it was promptly painted a fresh pink (thanks, Darling Husband) after moving in more than a year ago. Since then, it has often gotten neglected in favour of the more “public” rooms of our house.
It was a jumble of stuff from other rooms, but the main problem was that I’d be careless about putting away crafting supplies — and it would wind up taking over the tiny room.
Here’s how I neatened up the space, added a ton of labels (labels!!!), and generally made it easier for me to keep it tidy …
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| Yuck, right? TOO MUCH STUFF! Not enough organization. |
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| My thread has been a huge pain in the butt for years, because it always gets tangled together. So I decided to create a better storage system … |
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| I drew a grid on a piece of scrap wood, hammered in some nails … |
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… and, uh, had Darling Husband hammer the REST of the nails. That stuff gets old quickly. (He also spraypainted the finished product white because he thinks I’m messy with spraypaint and didn’t want his golf clubs sprayed because he loves me. Thanks, Darling Husband!) |
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| A thing of beauty! |
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| A welcome addition to my craft closet! |
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| I also wanted to create a new piece of art for my room, so I grabbed this 50-cent shadowbox I’d picked up at Goodwill … |
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| … convinced Darling Husband to take it apart (it was mega-sealed, guys) … |
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| Painted it grey, added new white paper as a background … |
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| … and hung it with some very special art. Can you guess what it is? |
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| THREAD! A lovely jumble I pulled from the bin where I used to store my bobbins. How cute is that? |
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| I love my messy little thread ball. |
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| Moving right along, I went through my crafty storage bins in the closet, and made new labels for everything (to make sure I don’t have any excuse for not putting things back in the proper spot). |
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| It’s not showing up well in this photo, but these drawers are labeled “Cards/Envelopes,” “Scrapbook Embellishments,” and “Paper Crafting Supplies.” |
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| The handy little basket is full of paint swatches, fabric samples, and my “house design” notes and sketches. |
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| Sewing kit, button box, bobbin box, and my cupcake-shaped pincushion — all with their own spot! |
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| The back corner of the closet isn’t very pretty, but it serves a purpose. The bottom bin stores ceramic/glass project supplies, the middle one stores wood (signs, shapes, etc. to be painted), and the top bin is my “To be scrapbooked” bin. This is where I toss printed photos, birthday invites, cards, and anything else I want to scrapbook. Someday (WHEN EXACTLY?) when I have time, I’ll get caught up on my scrapbooking. It’s only been, like, 10 months. No biggie. |
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| I love my label-maker. And yes, I have bins for stones and sand. For creative purposes that have not made themselves clear just yet. |
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| Yup, a bin for newspaper. Handy for covering the table, or for paper mache projects. |
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| Hard to see the labels here (because they’re clear) but I finally made labels for all my bins of scrapbook paper. |
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| These are my go-to bins, located at the front of the closet: my gluegun, my paint brushes, and my tarps (garbage bags). |
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| You can see the floor! That’s progress! |
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| It still looks very crowded, but it’s an improvement! Trust me! |
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| Once my craft closet was under control, I turned my attention to the “office-y” shelves above my art desk. They definitely needed labels, because I was the only one who knew what was inside each one. |
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| Nice new pink labels! Much better! |
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| Blank CDs and DVDs aren’t used too often these days, but here we are anyway. |
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| Notebooks. Love ’em. (I am a reporter, albeit a freelance one) |
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| Darling Husband never knew where I’d stuck the external drive, so now it’s nice and clear. |
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More labels. I have a little label problem. |
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| We keep our thumb drives in this cute old mug, so it finally got a label, too. |
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| Oh, and this is my desk. Hi! This is where I’m sitting now, as I type this. |
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| Like my shadowboxes? I have a thing for shadowboxes, too. The Jennifer Aniston one represents an ENORMOUS bin of magazines and newspaper articles I used to keep about her. I’m a mega-fan, but I decided to “mature” and condense my collection down to whatever could fit into a shadowbox, and that was probably a good decision. |
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| This shadowbox represents my first car, Trixie. I had the entire interior painted, and redid the exterior to be black with a bright pink racing stripe. She was the best car in the world, and I miss her. |
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| This box represents my time as an Entertainment Reporter with The Daily News, back in my younger days (22-24) — which you can read more about on my worky-work site, if you’re so inclined. It was an amazing job, I worked with really special people, and I’ll always remember those days fondly. |
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| Here’s the view from my desk. |
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| What’s on my desk? My headseat, a very cute lamp (gift from Best Friend years ago), and my trusty phone. |
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| This is my favourite part of my office — my high school photo of Darling Husband, the adorable rugby player. xoxoxo |
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| This is the other “view” from my desk. My closet does have a door — it’s just rarely shut. |
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| I decided the only way to keep my closet from overflowing with tossed-in stuff was to make a bin for “Projects in progress.” Currently in this bin is a Build-a-Bear that needs to be restuffed and resewn. Thanks, D. |
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| Another bookshelf shot. Lots of books, and this is AFTER I donated a bunch a few months ago. |
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| Who doesn’t love a before and after? |
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| Organizing makes everything better. |
Thanks for stopping by to check out my office/craft room organizationand I hope you also check out what Emily at Imperfect and everyone else have overhauled this week.
Make sure to come back next Wednesday, when I’ll reveal my updated main floor organization.
Happy Organizing!
xoxo
Heather's Handmade Life 
Your label maker is putting me to shame! Awesome work – it's so nice when everything truly does have a place!
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Thanks, Emily! I ran out of cartridges at the very end, so I'll have to stock up on more. It's been very useful these last couple of weeks!
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