Welcome To My New Craft Room!

Welcome to my new craft room!

I am working on a video with lots of details about each area, but I just couldn’t wait to share pictures and details of my new crafty space with you.

My new craft room actually has several functions.  This room is my office, a spare bedroom, cleaning equipment storage, and my craft room/YouTube film studio.

That’s a lot to ask of a 10 x 12′ room!

I’m excited about this because for the first time ever, my craft room has a DOOR!  I’ve never had a room that I could close the door and not have my husband come walking through to get to another part of the house.

In our little cottage up north, he has to walk through my room to get to his.  His office was a true hidden gem in our house.  It’s like a secret room and we love it.  However, it’s hard to make a video when he’s moving in and out of the space you’re working in.

In the house before this one, I worked in the basement and he was always in and out to get things from his corner of the basement.

This time…the space is all mine. (Until company comes!)

This post is very photo heavy!

I feel like a 10 x 12″ space is so big.  I’m so happy that I also have a window in my space for a change.  I’m usually in the basement, so this is really nice.  I’m also excited because the laundry room is across the hall and it has a utility sink that I added just for crafting.

My husband and I bought this tiny property in Florida 12 years ago as our retirement plan.  Last January, we made the decision to retire at the end of 2019, so we started the house building process in February.  The house was supposed to be done in the fall, but it was not completed until mid-January!  It’s a small house that has everything we need and nothing that we don’t need.

That laundry room also functions as my husband’s office and the entry to the house.  My space is more generous than his space, but his turned out to be exactly what he needed and he can walk out the door from his desk to his shed full of fishing stuff a few feet outside the door.

Win-win for both of us.

The picture above is the main storage piece and the table that is my crafting space.  I LOVE that storage piece.  I found it on Facebook Marketplace for $150.  It is ridiculously heavy and it is the only furniture piece we moved here with us.  I brought only 4 bins of craft items and picked up a few things when I got here.

The table is from Office Depot and it came with a small 3 drawer piece that is meant to go under the desk.  This was called a student desk and the two pieces cost less than $100.  I decided that they were small enough to get 2 sets so that I could have one dedicated to my computer and office space.  They can both be easily pushed in front of the wardrobe to pull out the queen sized futon I got for guests should we need it.  It serves as a wonderfully comfy sofa in the meantime.

As you can see, the walls are a nice neutral light gray and there is really pretty crown molding and trim around the room.  I added the Altenew Decals to decorate the wall above the futon and the wall next to it.  I have one of the quilts my mother made over the back of the futon.  This is a queen sized quilt that she made for us years ago.  I actually picked the futon cover to match the quilt.  This is a good sturdy futon with an 8″ thick mattress.  The pretty pillow is from Lowe’s.

I put the drawer units that came with the tables on each side of the wardrobe.  This one holds my stamp sets and the drawers have camera equipment and computer cords and chargers.  (That’s my exercise equipment underneath.  So far that has not moved from that spot.  Just sayin’.  Ever hopeful.)

On the other side, I have my sewing machine and the few sewing supplies I know I’ll be needing to take in all those clothes as I get toned using all that exercise equipment.

I got a nice little singer sewing machine that came with a set of sewing tools at Joanne Fabrics when I got here.  It was on sale and what a deal!  It’s nice and light so I can easily move it to one of the tables when I need it.  It has a few stitches to choose from and a drop arm.  A nice simple machine.  I like to make pillows and placemats, along with holiday décor items and this little machine will serve me well.

Above that, I have a nice wire and wood shelf that holds all the pretty colored mousses and pastes that I have.  I also hung all the wonderful plaques and proclamations given to me when I retired.  My wonderful colleagues made the one above the sewing machine.  The proclamation from the Board of Education was so touching.  Each teacher gets one tailored to their career and mine has some of the beautiful observations that my principals have made over the years that genuinely summed up what a wonderful career I had and the lives I know that I touched as a result.

This room has a delightfully good sized closet.  It extends the length of the wall with the door to the room, so it is at least 8 feet long.  I have office supplies organized on one end on shelves that I added and the other end has the vacuum, broom, mop and room for guests to hang clothes should they need to.  It has a nice shelf to store all the bedding for the futon and some extra craft storage pieces.

This is my cutting station that I have tucked into the closet.  This wheels easily out to sit next to my table and tucks away nicely.  You can see that I’ve added a wire basket above it in the closet to hold my sticky sheets and the paper scraps that a die cutting station inevitably generates.

The drawers in this cart hold my card stock, my cross stitch, my We R Memory Keepers tools for mixed media, my acrylic painting supplies, all my die cutting supplies, and my label maker.  It holds a ridiculous amount of stuff, but it wobbles when you move it.  It was less than $50 on Amazon, so I can live with the wobble.  It is serving exactly the purpose I needed it to and it looks nice.

Absolutely I have a Totally Tiffany Paper Cart!  I love the other one I have so much and it is so functional, that I had to get one for this room.  All the 12 x 12″ stuff is on the bottom along with my paper pads (in Tiffany’s Paper Sorter storage pieces).  The top shelf holds all my big tools that I use every single time I craft.  I also have her hot glue gun holder on the top there as well.

This is a big THANK YOU to my Science Department colleagues for the extremely generous gift certificate that they gave me to Totally Tiffany’s shop.  All of the Totally Tiffany organizing stuff that you see in my room came from them.  They were very generous and I LOVE the goodies that I selected.  I think of them every time I use them.  (Mostly because I don’t have to work anymore and they do.  I love them and miss them, but boy the weather is nice in Florida in the winter!)  This cart neatly tucks in between the sewing machine and my computer desk.  It wheels beautifully and most of the time it sits right next to my craft table.

Let’s talk about my craft table.  It’s not a very big space. It’s only 22″ deep and 4″ long.  You can see that I have the pen and ink palace from Totally Tiffany that I use for my clear blocks, black ink pad and my Altenew Artist Markers and other pens.  I have my stamp shammy and stamp scrubber there as well.  You can also see my Totally Tiffany embossing station with my new WOW heat tool.  LOVE  these organizers and tools.

Here I have the Totally Tiffany Die, Stamp and Supply organizer.  Another LOVE item.  It’s adjustable and holds everything I use right there next to me.  You can also see the pretty new blending brushes I got from Taylored Expressions.  That was a total splurge.  I’m not going to lie.  I have the Picket Fence brushes and I love them.  But these are so pretty on my desk and they made the little holder for them.  It spins.  I splurged.  (I know!  I’m retired now and I’m on a much smaller crafty budget. Shame on me!)

I just got those brushes yesterday, along with that new self healing mat from Altenew.  I always put self healing mats on my work tables.  The tables have a texture to them and I tend to forget and cut things on the table tops.  This saves them.

These are my latest projects.  I spent what felt like days (because it was), swatching and organizing my ink pads.  I also played with some new supplies…but alas, I will share details of those goodies on another day.

On to the wardrobe storage!  I wanted to get a Dream Box, but the $3000 price take and potential 5 month waiting period made me look for an alternate solution and I love what I ended up with for a fraction of the cost.

The wardrobe has 3 sections and they all have shelves and drawers. The side sections have mirrors on the doors.  I kept this one a mirror because it is nice to have at least one full length mirror somewhere in the house.  This section holds my crafting books and journaling notebooks on the top shelf. I have my alcohol markers on the next two shelves.  The 4 drawers hold my alcohol ink supplies, washi tapes and embossing powders, embellishments, and extra adhesives and consumable tools.

The center section has my ink pads and reinkers.  I have two ink pad holders from Stamp-n-Storage and a marker holder from them as well.  I chose to purchase (on sale plus a coupon) a set of Catherine Pooler inks and Distress Oxide inks to have here.  I couldn’t justify the cost of the Altenew set.  They have so many colors and I use them all, that it was just cost prohibitive to purchase them.  I waited until their mini ink collection went on sale and I had a 20% off coupon as well, so I got the mini ink cubes for my Altenew inks. They are neatly organized in some Totally Tiffany Punch 1″ stamp and punch store and go organizers.

I got the Stamp-n-Storage 120 Slim ink pad organizer for the Catherine Pooler and specialty ink pads that I have.  I have room for my ink collection to grow here.  My plan was to put the Distress Oxides in this also, but they do not fit in the slim pad organizer. I had to get the Distress Ink pad organizer as well.  The maker storage piece holds my mini die cutter and my Tim Holtz blending tools and foams.  You can see my reinkers, NUVO drops and Altenew Ink Sprays on the top as well.

Below this there are shelves and drawers which hold my electronic die cutter and the supplies for that, along with my Altenew mini cubes and scrapbooking supplies.

Finally!  The last section of the wardrobe holds all of my stencils, 6 x6″ and 8 x 8″ patterned paper stacks in the Totally Tiffany Fab Files.  I also have a bin of photos, my swatch books, and my smaller stamp sets on the shelves.  The drawers below hold watercoloring supplies, embossing and blending supplies, foams and distress crayons, and die cuts, chipboards and alphabets for scrapbooking in the bottom drawer.  I added adhesive magnetic sheets to this mirror to hold my Mega Alphabet dies and a magnetic ruler.  One mirror is enough!

Everything has a place and each drawer and shelf is organized.  I even have room to grow although slowly. (Small crafty budget!)

I angled my craft table so the chair can easily be wheeled between my two tables and out of the way of the doors on the wardrobe.

I truly love this space.  I left a couple of wall to create some of my own art.

I will try to get the video finished tomorrow and I have details about my inks I want to share. I have some printables that I will try to get scanned so that I can share them as well.  I have had a lot of questions about how I organize my inks and I’d like to share that first.

I will also share some links to products tomorrow as well.  There is just so much great stuff and I really have found organizing systems that are working for me.  I will share more detailed videos on each section with you over the next few weeks!

Thank you for stopping by!  Have a wonderful day.