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My craft area is a HUGE MESS! I'm totally embarrassed by this 9'x10' disaster area. But I'm posting here as an incentive to get it cleaned up. Here are all four walls, my "BEFORE" photos. I hope to come back the end of March with all new "AFTER" photos:
Anyone else want to join me in posting your BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER photos as we gather, purge and organize our craft areas?
This little room is my crafting area, my office/writing space, and my personal little "den" (left computer monitor is my Netflix screen). I really like having this room as my cozy little cave for everything. I wish it were big enough to add a love seat or a daybed, but 9'x10' is crowded enough with a table, desk and chair!
I have no money for new furniture, fancy storage or a room addition, though I could sure use all three! LOL I think I will splurge and buy some Bygel rails from Ikea so I can take my punches out of the shoe rack. My room won't be transformed into a beautiful new craft area. But I do hope to transform it into a place that will be a comfortable, organized, easy to access everything room.
__________________ Melissa59 ♥
Last edited by melissa59; 02-01-2012 at 10:25 PM..
Melissa, I actually like your room, lol. I say this all the time over here but it's really true. I have OCD. I can't do that. Oh my gosh I love looking at messes. I think it's because I can't make one. I find them inspiring. I really do. I think it would be so cozy and familiar. Plus everything would be a fun treasure hunt. I know most who make messes don't even feel one iota like that.
I have a friend who is a professional artist. I love going into his studio. It's a mess and I feel so creative and at home there. Then on the other hand he loves my room because he says it's all nice and neat. He feel like it's starting a fresh canvas.
No messes for me to show. Everything is nice and neat. Pretty boring!
LOL!! My room is a dead bore too. My brain freezes when I'm confronted with piles of clutter and disarray. Plus, I can't find anything unless it's in it's designated storage spot.
I used to have my crafting area in our formal living room for over 13 years. My son just moved out and I took over his bedroom. I am waiting for my husband to make a stand for my "best craft unit" so I can finish up with the organizing. I purged last year really drastically so I don't have much extras hanging around. My goal has been to buy what I will use right away and so far it has been going well. I will post pictures even though I am not organized and tidy.
Here is the start of 4 pics I just took.
I do not even have a room! I did purchase an used computer armoire last year and made that my craft home. As I am organized by nature, all must have a place for it. As a child I could not even play if the toys were all out laying around. I can say today that very few children are like that and my older certainly is not like that at all. I find it impossible for me to concentrate while knowing that there is a mess around me. Life is not easy around me...
Oh goodness! I just spent all day yesterday and today cleaning it. >< I totally should have taken before and after pictures too. But it looks better now!!! =D
All of last year I did my crafting at the dining room table and I never saw the table top for all of that time, except to clear enough space to put a plate down to eat. This year I want to reclaim my table, and share meals with others in my dining room. I cleared the stuff away for Christmas and tossed it all back in my craftroom. I've spent the past month focussing more on organizing the rest of the house, and doing a small amount in my craft room. I live by myself, and it's so easy to let myself go and use the whole house for stashing stuff. Not a good thing. I was much more organized when I had no craft room and mouths to feed.
The first photo shows what i've already got sorted and the second is the more feral side of the room . It's a work in progress and I don't expect to get it finished for months. I'm approaching my cleanup like a diet - it should be about changing habits - so I set myself small achieveable goals everyday.
Pia, your work space looks more like mine. BTW I've got a SIL called Pia
Theresa, your feral side of the room made me cringe. My table is still a mess but I worked at it tonight. It is so overwhelming to reorganize and try to get used to a new space.
Theresa, your feral side of the room made me cringe. My table is still a mess but I worked at it tonight. It is so overwhelming to reorganize and try to get used to a new space.
Lorri
Oh my, is my feral side that bad, LOL. Actually, I did show the worst spot in my room. :oops:
A lot of stuff was just tossed onto the table, so I could have clear dining room. I do a bit of organizing everyday. Sometimes it doesn't neccesarily mean anything more gets put away. It may just mean I get to group more things together, labelling or I may chart some of my supplies. It all takes time, but I don't have the time to do it over a weekend or several weeks, and I don't want to turn it into one big job, Everytime I go to town I buy a new storage container, usually a cane type basket, and I already have in my head what will go in it and where it will sit on my shelves.
There's no point to getting all this organized if I can't keep it organized while I'm working with my supplies. It's all about changing bad habits for good ones. My craft room looks a mess but at least it's all in one room now and not all over the house.
ikebana- I will take pics of my craft space this week. It's very clean. So, I am not taking pics late to clean it up, lol. I can't find my old pics on Photobucket. I need to take some new ones. I do love my craft room very much.
Thanks to everyone posting pics! I was afraid that I was the only person with a MESS to post. :-)
DeeAnn, my 24-year-old (who still lives at home), is a neat-nik. Oh how I wish I could be more like him!! He has books, movies, video games, CDs and they are all so nice and neat and organized. I think he could reach out and grab what he's looking for even if he was blindfolded. He jokes about about me getting lost in my craft room and how he'll have to call in Indiana Jones to find me. LOL
Lorri, you have a great area to turn into a craft room! Curious, do you use that hockey stick for rub-ons or is it a glitter spreading tool? ;-)
My crafting space is not messy per se. My tables are clear, everything is stored properly and put away. Unfinished projects are stowed in easy to reach and see folders and bins on shelves. My problem is the room itself.
I scrap in my basement (which during this time of year is freezing!). It is unfinished, and my tables face the outer walls, which are just studs (not the handsome kind, the wooden kind!), pink insulation, and vapour barrier. Plus, when my son was little, he used to take his slingshot and shoot marbles into the walls (unbeknownst to us, we found out much later!) so there are holes in the barrier and insulation, and the barrier is starting to fall down near the ceiling. Speaking of that, there is no ceiling - just the joists with insulation. All in all, it is a very depressing space, particularly when I see the spiders and centipedes periodically crawling around the walls. - ugh!
To top it all off, it isn't really a scrap room - it is just a corner of the basement, as the basement is completely wide open with no interior walls.
__________________ Elizabeth
---------------------------------------
Hand over the chocolate, and no one will get hurt!
My area is better, I had cabinets hung. My area is the back corner of my living room. I will get a picture of the renovation as soon as I am done organizing.
__________________ Pia 2024 Scrapbook goals April 16/10 layouts YTD 91/120 Check out my gallery
Lorri, you have a great area to turn into a craft room! Curious, do you use that hockey stick for rub-ons or is it a glitter spreading tool? ;-)[/QUOTE]
That hockey stick is my pride and joy and NO ONE touches it, lol. I used to do scrapbooks for our local BCHL hockey team and this stick belonged to a wonderful young man I watched play for two years and received two books from me. He went on to play in college and then was drafted by the Florida Panthers. I still keep in touch with him and he sent me the first pictures taken of him playing his first game in the NHL.
I am almost done with the sorting and putting away but I can see I am going to have to work at it to get it where I would like it. Ordered a small TV for the room as well so my stuff will stay in that room and not all over the house.
I love you for starting his thread and thanks to everyone who was brave enought to post their photos. Most of the scrap room pics I see ont he web are of rooms that are neat and tidy and perfectly organzied and they make me feel like such an under-achiever. I am glad to know that there are people like me for whom chaos is a normal state!
I am working on organizing my mess. I'm taking an organizing class to do it LOL. Day by day. I try to do a little each day, but what I really need to do is a BIG purge. I just can't make myself get rid of things! I'm a craft hoarder LOL
__________________ Sundry Dreams... For All Your Dreaming.
That big pile of stuff on my desk doesn't look so bad now. As I go thru my stuff I'm thinking how I can store it so my room is functional. It has to be easy to find and easy to put away. I could have put that mess away weeks ago, but it wouldn't have been organized really well. So I left it out while I started finding storage solutions for my more basic supplies.
Since Christmas, and in between having a life and reorganizing the rest of the house, I've recharted all my distress products, and labeled them and have them organized in a useful way. They are easy to access and easy to put away now. I've made an orderly arrangement for all my dies, regardless of type style or brand, in one place. I found the perfect set of drawers at a second hand shop for my storage needs. But first I spent a couple of days altering it with painting and distressing and stencilling. It holds my diminishing patterned paper collection and other art supplies. And I've purged three boxes of stuff from the room, two of them are for a craft garage sale, so I should get some money back to reinvest in my room.
I've settled on some storage solutions for some of the stuff scattered over the desk, (and the rest of the house) so I'm off to town to see if I can buy what I need to make it work for me. I've been taking pics along the way and I'll probably blog about it eventually.
hanging my head in shame as my MESS is worse than the others who have posted so far. Can't even bear to show my mess - perhaps in time. Glad to know I am not alone in the chaos.
I am also working on cleaning up my space. I have "before" photos, but can't post them for fear that the people from the "Hoarders" TV show will be hunting me down...
I am fortunate enough to have a spare bedroom for crafting, which has a huge closet. The issue is that it is very easy to accumulate too much stuff where there's always someplace to throw it.
Additionally, the room is my guest room, so when company stays over, all of the loose ends and random pieces get stuffed in a box and thrown in the closet. Repeatedly. When it got to the point I could barely open the closet door, I knew I had to go through everything. 5 years of accumulated craft things.
I've pulled everything out of the closet, and other misc tubs & boxes, and am slowly sorting through, grouping things together, and trying to put things back in the closet or on shelves in a organized enough manner that I'll actually be able to find things.
And on the plus side, I've been mojo-challenged for a while. But now that my room is currently un-usable, it makes me want to be able to get in there and make some cards!
__________________ Traci
Who needs tattoos? I already have ink in strange places...
DeeAnn, my 24-year-old (who still lives at home), is a neat-nik. Oh how I wish I could be more like him!! He has books, movies, video games, CDs and they are all so nice and neat and organized. I think he could reach out and grab what he's looking for even if he was blindfolded. He jokes about about me getting lost in my craft room and how he'll have to call in Indiana Jones to find me. LOL
That's my house, lol. I have everything color organized or alphabetical organized. I am trying to make little messes but it doesn't work. I like to clean up the little messes, lol. When I clean the living room I organize all my DH's games in alphabetical order. My poor hubby has to arrange them back again in the order he's playing them, lol. He's patient with me. I have gotten better about it.
I did not forget about pics everyone. I haven't been feeling good this week and last. I have lupus and my hands get shaky.
OMG I'm in love with this thread, I can't wait to get home and take pics of my craft room, and the spare room...oh and the living room...my husband says it looks like a Michaels store just vomited everywhere =)
__________________ I do not need another horse
I do not need another horse
I do not need another horse
OMG I'm in love with this thread, I can't wait to get home and take pics of my craft room, and the spare room...oh and the living room...my husband says it looks like a Michaels store just vomited everywhere =)
Most of my mess is packed in boxes in a detached garage. My stamp area will be in my basement once we get all the furniture together. I can take pictures of the small amount currently in my basement. I'll try to get out to the garage this weekend and at least take a picture of the boxes stored there. Not quite sure it will look like a mess, but it will give the scope of what I'm trying to organize.
__________________ Denise
"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron.�
― Spider Robinson
hanging my head in shame as my MESS is worse than the others who have posted so far. Can't even bear to show my mess - perhaps in time. Glad to know I am not alone in the chaos.
I am in Alberta and I would think that my MESS is worse than your is. I mean it is a small path in my room I have sooo many piles of stuffs that need 'homes'.. maybe some day I can post a pic. The room is narrow and hard to get a pic of a whole wall.
My crafting space is not messy per se. My tables are clear, everything is stored properly and put away. Unfinished projects are stowed in easy to reach and see folders and bins on shelves. My problem is the room itself.
I scrap in my basement (which during this time of year is freezing!). It is unfinished, and my tables face the outer walls, which are just studs (not the handsome kind, the wooden kind!), pink insulation, and vapour barrier. Plus, when my son was little, he used to take his slingshot and shoot marbles into the walls (unbeknownst to us, we found out much later!) so there are holes in the barrier and insulation, and the barrier is starting to fall down near the ceiling. Speaking of that, there is no ceiling - just the joists with insulation. All in all, it is a very depressing space, particularly when I see the spiders and centipedes periodically crawling around the walls. - ugh!
To top it all off, it isn't really a scrap room - it is just a corner of the basement, as the basement is completely wide open with no interior walls.
I would love to see photos of your basement "Craft Cave" as I too have a space in our unfinished basement. I made walls using sheets hanging from the rafters, big furniture and a folding screen. I have carpet remnants on the floor and although it isn't pretty it's relatively organized. My room is tucked in behind the furnace. It's a great space but very cold right now in our mild New England winter and it's dark. I have various lights plugged in and twinkly lights to help brighten up the place.
For those of you who are stamping in cold rooms, you might consider buying a portable heater. I picked up this ceramic heater from Target: Sunpentown SPT SH-1507 Mini-Tower Ceramic Heater : Target It does a GREAT job making my little 9'x10' room all warm and toasty!
That's the one I was looking at Melissa but I don't have the electrical support I'd need to plug anything else in. I'm working on multiple extension cords plugged into light strips. :shock:
It's been a week since I posted my pics. The desk has a lot less on it, but it still looks like a dumping ground, which of course it is at the moment. In the meantime, I've still been crafting away with the things I've already started to organize, and putting it away at the end of my session was really easy now I've designated these things a home.
This week I also started the bigger project of organizing my stamp collection. To the end I've created a stamp catalogue and I've wittled my first batch of stamps down to half. Now I just need to package up what I'm going to sell off, sort out what I'm going to give away and double check that my keepers are all in order, by labeliing them with a quick find system which I'm yet to devise. The solution to the last problem will present itself in time.
I've managed to remove the equivilant of a large box of stuff from my room this week. Progress.
You've inspired me. I did a massive reorganization and cleanup this weekend. I am no where near finished but I made a lot of progress and I am pleased with what I managed to accomplish. I cataloged stamps, put up some shelving, sorted purchases, and sorted tools and accesories. I am not purging yet but the stuff I do have is more orderly. Yay!
You've inspired me. I did a massive reorganization and cleanup this weekend. I am no where near finished but I made a lot of progress and I am pleased with what I managed to accomplish. I cataloged stamps, put up some shelving, sorted purchases, and sorted tools and accesories. I am not purging yet but the stuff I do have is more orderly. Yay!
You go girl!
I'm in the process of organizing my whole house. I give myself a small 10 min job to do each day. I find that is usually just the kick start I need to tidy up something else since I'm on the move. Somedays I'm just too busy with having a life, so 10 min is all I get done.
The hardest part I found with getting organized was getting started. Now that I'm on the move with it I've made it into my new hobby and I can get creative with it.
Today, I had my son move my desk from the West wall to the North wall. The idea is to keep my craft stuff together on one side of the room. I think it's going to work out well. But . . .
In moving my desk, I now realize a shelf and a large pegboard hanging on my walls also needs to be moved. That means patching a few holes, touch-up paint and making new holes. I think it will be worth it, though. Moving the pegboard will give me a larger area to store my punches, which means I can buy the long Ikea Bygel rails.
Hey, folks. This thread is a fun idea and I think it could provide a lot of motivation for many of us to get into organizational mode. My own crafting room is in a constant state of what I call organized chaos, LOL!
(Putting on moderator hat now)
The Stamping Spaces section of the SCS gallery was created with the intention of allowing SCSers to show helpful ways of organizing their crafting spaces. It's also OK to put similar photos in an album within your member gallery.
The other gallery moderators and I respectfully request that if you're going to share photos of the messiness, that you add them to a post on this thread (like Theresa did in post #9) rather than upload them to the gallery.
I deleted my photo from the gallery, but I can't figure out how to attach photo thumbnails to the post. I tried in another thread using the photo icon in the advanced posting option, it came out to be a big photo right in the post. Anyone know how to do this? I couldn't find any info on the subject. I did see this thread, but I still can't figure it out: Posting pictures vs thumbnails in threads by Circe at Splitcoaststampers When I tried to attach the photos using the paperclip and previewed it, all it showed was links.
I deleted my photo from the gallery, but I can't figure out how to attach photo thumbnails to the post. I tried in another thread using the photo icon in the advanced posting option, it came out to be a big photo right in the post. Anyone know how to do this? I couldn't find any info on the subject. I did see this thread, but I still can't figure it out: Posting pictures vs thumbnails in threads by Circe at Splitcoaststampers When I tried to attach the photos using the paperclip and previewed it, all it showed was links.
I was confused when I first saw a lot of 'stuff' in the attachment pop-up too. I resize all my photo for upload as a matter of course. In the pop-up window I just go straight to 'Browse', select my pic from the computer, and hit 'Upload'. I then close that window, and select Preview Message at the bottom of the message box. You should see a thumbnail of the pic you just uploaded just as you would see it in the thread. HTH.
Theresa, THANK YOU!
I was trying to use the wrong paperclip icon. I was trying to use the one with a world on it, which didn't have a browse option. I went back to look for it and lo and behold, another paperclip that works just like you said. This is going to come in very hand in the future.
Theresa, THANK YOU!
I was trying to use the wrong paperclip icon. I was trying to use the one with a world on it, which didn't have a browse option. I went back to look for it and lo and behold, another paperclip that works just like you said. This is going to come in very hand in the future.
You're welcome. I only figured it out a couple of months ago. Love it when I unlock another piece of the computer puzzle for myself.
Show us your MESS! Here's mine!
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