My Craft Space Background

Alice Boll
Alice Boll

I have been lucky to always have a space to use as a craft room. When I first started stamping, back before marriage and kids, I shared the second bedroom of our two bedroom apartment with my husband. We used it as an office/craft/game space, and I had a small desk with a couple small Iris carts for stamp and paper storage. When we moved into our first house, I took over the smallest bedroom, bought more Iris carts and wire shelving, and filled the space with crafty goodness. As our family grew, and our needs changed, my craft space moved from room to room, but I always had a dedicated room.

The reason I bring this up is that having this space on a continuous basis has allowed me to really figure out what I need from my craft space. When I had my supplies in our sunroom, I found that I loved having enough room for my kids to create with me. The bright sunny room was wonderful, but the sun fade on my paper stash was awful. And it was too far away from everyone in the house. I couldn’t hear if the kids were getting into some kind of trouble, and when they were little that was a big issue. It was also right off my bedroom, which meant no late night crafting.

When I took over one of the two living rooms with the idea of being able to hold classes without having to cart materials all over the house, I loved the extra elbow room, but disliked not being able to just close the door when I was done crafting. It was neat, but too messy to be part of my main living space.

When I was using the small office downstairs, I loved the central location and the door, but I didn’t have room to keep my sewing machine or die-cutters out all the time, let alone craft with my kids.

Believe it or not, this is the only photo I can find that is relatively neat.

The point I’m getting at is that I have figured out what I want to be able to do in my craft space, and that’s the next thing to think about when designing a craft space. Do you have a space you can dedicate to your crafts? What tasks do you want to be able to accomplish in your space? If it’s a shared space, do you want to keep your supplies centrally located, or do you want your supplies to be mobile so you can craft in front of the TV one day, and at the kitchen table the next?

Basically, before you buy a single item or move a single piece of furniture, think about what you want, and start to make a plan. It doesn’t have to be a detailed plan, with fully drawn out floor plan and elevations (which I have done on occasion-LOL), but knowing your goals will help you get to them. In my case I know I want a room with lots of storage space and room for multiple people to craft at the same time, where I can leave my sewing machine and die cut machines out so I can easily access them and hopefully use them more.

As far as the new craft room goes, I have gotten the painting done. I chose the middle color, which is venus teal by Behr if you’re interested. Everyone in my family loves it. Wait till you see it with the cranes!

If you are playing along at home, keep gathering inspiration sources, and make a list of exactly what you want to be able to do in your craft room. You can even start roughing out a floor plan if you’ve got a room to call your own. If you don’t have a room of your own, decide which corner of the house will be yours, and start thinking about how you want to use it.

I’ll see you next week!

–Heather

 

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