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11 Magnolia Lane

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A Place to Create–My Teeny-Tiny Craft Area

January 14, 2012 By Christy 9 Comments

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small craft sewing area


Right before Christmas, I decided that I was sick to death of hiding my sewing machine in the guest room closet every time I was done using it.  Surely (if I moved around several incredibly heavy pieces of furniture), surely there was room to carve out a craft corner.  I already had an old sewing machine table I’d found at Goodwill years ago and painted white…I abandoned all plans of cooking dinner, which is what I was supposed to be doing (sorry honey!), and started moving furniture.

I painted the old sewing table and a thrift store chair in robin’s egg blue.  In hindsight, I probably should have used a blue chalk paint so they’d be a little more muted (I used spray paint for immediate gratification), but it’s safe to say that they’ll be painted again one of these days, so I’m not going to stress over it.  I covered the chair TWICE before my third try made me happy–Amy Butler’s Love Bliss fabric.  The teal and aqua colors match my old mason jars.

Old chair recovered with Amy Butler's Love Bliss fabric in teal.

Old chair recovered with Amy Butler’s Love Bliss fabric in teal.

I already had the two white shelves with fancy scrolled corbels.  My dad made them with me years ago (one of my first DIY projects!) to hang on either side of my recessed bathtub area in another house.  I just hadn’t figured out where to put them in this house yet.  They’re perfect above the sewing machine to hold notions and other crafting goodies.

craft area shelves

I made the banner–it was my first attempt at such things!  The flags need to be twice as long as they are wide, so just cut them any size you want based on those guidelines.  I used tiny clothespins to clip them to the ribbon, which I thought was very crafty (LOL).

Let me give some credit where credit is due here:  the “Get Excited and Make Things” printable can be found HERE and the cute number tags can be found at HERE.

I love old spice jars–the apothecary-style ones–and I picked up this spice rack at the thrift store.  It holds my tri-beads, organized by color.

spice rack (with spice bottles) to organize beads and small craft items

Why do I have so many tri-beads, you ask?  I have one crafty-type thing that I can do, and that’s crochet bead socks for all the little girls in my life.  Here’s an old pair of Annabelle’s to show you what I’m talking about:

Because I do sew things from time to time, I thought it would be fun and different to mount a yardstick on the wall to make measuring easier.  I had an old one from my grandmother’s house in Michigan, and I love that it says “Big Rapids” (her town) on it.  I secured it on the wall using 3M’s command tape (just no hooks this time).

wood dowel to organize craft ribbonDo you like my ribbon organizer/dispenser?  I love those things, but I didn’t want to go out and buy one (not that there’s anything wrong with you if you do!).  I had a wooden curtain rod in my garage, not being used, and when I played around with it, I realized that it was small enough to hold ribbon and small enough to go through the scrolled corbels of my lower shelf.  I just cut it to fit and spray painted it blue (I’ll probably spray it white one of these days).  Not bad, huh?

wood dowel to organize craft ribbon

Yes, I do have more ribbon that just that.  The overflow is stored in the little green box on the first shelf (pictured below) and in the dresser I have in the closet.

On the opposite wall is that old entertainment center armoire that I painted green in this post.  It’s not being used for its true purpose in this house because we had to juggle the TVs around to make them work in this floor plan.  But it’s great for holding some of my family’s quilts and overflow craft supplies.

Closed–to hide the big mess inside!

Open–because I like letting it all hang out!

I’ve got one more thing to do.  The spice rack that’s currently living in the armoire needs to be mounted on the wall to the right of the sewing machine.  Spice racks are the perfect size to hold acrylic paint bottles, and they make a colorful display all on their own.  You can find an old spice rack at the thrift store almost any time you walk in there.

spice rack to organize acrylic paint bottles

My craft area is smaller than ten square feet, but it’s big enough to hold everything that I need, and I’m happy with the colorful and fun way that it turned out.

Update:  I mounted the spice rack on the wall.  All of my paints dried out in the move this summer, so while I work on re-building my collection, I put my vials of glitter on the rack instead.  The downside to this plan was that my daughter took the blue glitter and sprinkled it all over her desk and nightstand to “jazz up my room a little, Mommy.”  Yeah…glitter defeats even my Dyson!

spice rack to organize bottles of acrylic paint

Thanks for stopping by!

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Filed Under: Craft Rooms & Offices, Organization, Room Makeovers Tagged With: Craft, organization, redo, ribbon dispenser, sewing, storage

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lisa Hankins says

    January 14, 2012 at 10:52 am

    I think you did a fantastic job using what you had and made a LOVELY and functional craft area! Go you!!!

    Reply
  2. Ellie says

    January 14, 2012 at 5:18 pm

    What a sweet little area! Gotta do what works for you and your space. I’m currently trying to move my craft supplies into a closet so I can access them–better than boxes! Hope I can get my space as cute as yours!

    Reply
  3. Amy Shelton says

    January 14, 2012 at 9:18 pm

    Will have to show you my craft area one day! It is the entire upstairs loft. OH, MY! xoxoxoxo I love yours, it is precious, like you are to me.

    Reply
    • Christy says

      January 16, 2012 at 6:08 pm

      Jealous…but I love you too, Amy Kay!

      Reply
  4. Debbie Nelson says

    January 15, 2012 at 10:25 am

    Christy, you blow me away! It’s perfect! (:

    Reply
  5. Stephanie O. says

    January 18, 2012 at 5:40 pm

    I love that you used what you had and created this sweet space…You obviously have a good eye for detail…Thanks for sharing & inspiring me to make an effort to clean up my nightmare of a craft room…

    Reply
  6. Patricia says

    January 21, 2012 at 8:53 am

    Your space looks great. I love the color you painted the desk and chair. I also like how you repurposed things to use.

    Reply
  7. domestiCate says

    January 21, 2012 at 7:39 pm

    How lovely! It may be small, but it’s better than nothin! I’m resigned to dragging my machine out of the guestroom closet until we move to a bigger house. I love the way you’ve organized things. Just popping over from Serenity Now.

    Reply
  8. Heidi of Operation Organization says

    January 21, 2012 at 9:12 pm

    you’ve got some very clever solutions! well done!! 🙂

    Reply

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  • MEET CHRISTY & AMY
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288 shares
  • 7