My Little Craft Space

I love looking at other peoples studio space so I thought that I would take some photos of mine. Me, my husband, son, and fur baby all live in a small one bedroom apartment in the upstairs of a house so we don't have a lot of room for my crafts. I have also had to get inventive when it comes to storage and getting the most stuff I can in my space. My space is in a corner of the living room behind the couch :) It is kind of a mess but it is an organizational work in progress. Enjoy! I wanted to show some ways to make space for your crafts even if you don't have a big separate studio.

This is a magnetic white board that I decorated up in order to be more inspiring. It just took some hot glue and ribbon to make it prettier. I also decorated all of the containers that I use in order to hold my stuff from current projects. I can write notes on it and keep things attached. I just hung this up today. I am excited to start to use it.

My little labeled plastic containers. I can't find anything if there isn't a label on it.
My sewing machine. It is on an end table because there isn't enough room for a craft table. It works out for me. I like having the drawer right there.

DIY Magnetic Board for Organizing Your Odds and Ends

So I was reading through the bloggers that had to do with etsy.com. I saw a fellow blogger that had this link on her blog:

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/01/how-to_make_a_magnetic_organiz.html

I am so going to make one of these magnetic organizers.

It looks very simple and since my crafting area is TINY it would help out a lot I think. I will probably use it more for an inspiration board but not sure yet. I will hopefully get it finished in a week or so. I am not sure how much time I will have on my hands for now but it is definitely on my to do list.

Finished my light box

So I finished my lightbox. I really like it. I used this tutorial http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent . Thanks to the author of this tutorial. I like how it turned out but next time I will make it much bigger. I spent $10 total on making this box because I already had a box and I used an old white sheet. The only thing that I purchased was the light and a 100 watt bulb.

Here are my before and after pictures:

Before:

After:

There is a big difference in the looks. I do need to purchase 2 more lamps though to make it bright from the top and both sides.

I hit the Motherload

So, I am all about upcycling anything that I can use. I hate to see anything go to waste when there are so many things that ordinary items can be turned into. I have had several books of fabric samples and wall paper samples given to me by some of the local stores here. Big thanks to The Peddler and Bella Vista Fabrics in Murfreesboro, TN for the books. Between the two places this is how many fabric samples that I was able to save from the trash. I do still have to peel all of the paper from the backs of each piece of fabric. I will try to save as much fabric as possible but have found last night that some of the fabrics are just not savable from the paper so I just had to cut around them.

I don't know exactly what I will do with all of this fabric but I do have some ideas. I would love to make hang tags for my items out of them. I think they will be great sizes for that. Other than that, I am not sure what I will do with them. The sky is the limit though. Please feel free to comment if you have any suggestions on what to do with this fabric. Since it is mainly upholstery and drapery fabric, I am kind of limited since it is all spot wash only.

But the plan is to finish up taking off the paper and go from there. Wish me luck