Friday, December 27, 2013

Mixed-media Craft room organization and tips/tricks

Hello all,

Very few of us are wealthy enough to have the ideal craft space with all the wonderful organizational gadgets.  Most of us have developed systems over time as we collect, gather, buy, trade, swap and expand our craft to include other styles/types, and have carved out some space in the house for the crafting.

I bead, do paper craft (scrap-booking and cards mostly), sew, and mixed media art (combining multiple forms together)

Before my daughter moved out I had claimed an open side to the great room, closed it off and created this space:


It became impossible to work mainly because my paper craft started to take over the floor space and ended up with very little room to work.  When I wanted to do paper craft - I oozed out like lava into the kitchen and took over the kitchen table area.
 

When my daughter moved out I figured now is the chance to really organize and make this work.  Here's my current room (one half for beads, one half for paper craft)




 What I am finding out is paper craft is a very different organizational need than bead craft.  I need to see objects when doing paper craft so I can create, which ends up opening boxes, containers, hunting for the right piece to be added to whatever it is I am working on - most likely a card.  I never see the finished design in my head, but feel it is complete in my heart when - it is complete.

For example here's my work table in the midst of several cards and how chaotic it became.

Where with bead craft, I tend to do focused items with specific beads - and rarely do I need to go hunting for a specific item - given I tend to see the finish piece when I start a design.  I might tweak the design slightly or add a bit of color to make a design pop, but for the most part, it is quite self contained.  In fact I got so used to working in a much smaller space for my bead work.

I've looked at Pintrest and some other blogs but haven't found a good way to make use of this space.  My Sewing sits in the closet behind to the right of the bead shelves.  And any container designers out here - design for specific brands so not everything fits in the same containers. For example my ink containers - are for Stamping up, but I have 5 plastic containers filled with inks that do not fit in the Stamping up containers.  Similar goes for my embossing folders and dies for my Cuttlebug.





Thursday, December 26, 2013

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and here's to a prosperous New Year.

It has been two months since I posted and I realized that this should be part of my day to day marketing task.

I have been enjoying the fun of making all kinds of different Holiday Cards and beaded presents this year for the family.  I have also watched a growing trend to buy home made/hand made/ created craft.  This is awesome.

Here are a few of the custom designs I have done for others this year.