A Room With A View

Happy Bank Holiday Monday to you all :)  I hope the day continues to be as beautiful as it is now, it's been an early start for me today and the sun is shining brightly, the sky is blue, the birds are tweeting, the sheep and lambs are still sleeping at the bottom of the garden and I am sat in my tidy and organised craft room with my first cup of coffee of the day.  

Over the last two weeks I have spent the time that I would normally be crafting having mega tidying and organising sessions, this all started when Katy at work (Samuel Taylors) introduced me to the wonderful world of Michelle Short and her fabulous blog The Card Grotto.  Michelle's craft room is so clean and simple and everything has a place.  I don't think I could ever have mine so sleek as I do like to have things around me that I enjoy looking at and that reflect my personality but just going on the tour of her room inspired me to organise mine.  I am not going to give you a video tour of my room as Michelle does but thought you might like to have a photo trip around :)

Here is my PC and the desk where I sit and browse the world of Blogs and Facebook.  I also craft on this desk.

Here you can see the two new Papermania storage files that I have organised all my dies into, they are so much easier to look through now and handily stored on my desk instead of half of them in their packaging and half on magnetic sheets mixed up in a box on the floor. You can also see my mini tote that has all the tools and equipment that I need on a regular basis for my crafting. 

These shelves hold my inkpads which I have labeled and some of my jars of buttons, paper flowers, embellishments and card candi.  I also have the Crafter's Companion pen storage system, which I love, to store my Copic markers.  My Cricut machine pulls out easily when I want to use it.

The pen caddy you can see here, along with the acrylic drawers are new purchases for storage.  I found them both at TK Maxx .  The white wooden caddy is on a turntable and holds my gel pens, pencils and paint brushes.  The clear drawers hold my Micron pens, white gel pens and my Atyou Spica glitter pens.  The small shelf holds little jars of buttons.

This picture shows the inside of my top desk drawer.  I used to keep all my ribbons in a tin on the floor under the desk and I found it difficult to crawl under my desk and get the tin out and route through it to find the colour of ribbon I wanted.  I also have some small punches, my binding tool kit, silent setter and my beloved labeling machine :) 

These are also new storage packets that I bought from WH Smiths to organise my gems and pearls.  I am so pleased with this as it keeps them really tidy and I don't have to spend ages looking for the ones I want to use.  I have labelled them and they are stored in the purple tote that you can see in the photo below.

This is the top of one of my cupboards, it  does look a little cluttered but it's all accessible.  The small drawers in the middle hold my acrylic blocks and ATC blanks.  The medium drawers hold my promarkers, flex markers and doubled up Copics.  The larger drawers have Stamps organised into manufacturers e.g. Little Claire, Paper Smooches and Crafty Individuals.  The jar on top holds my novelty pencils :)

Inside the cupboard.  These containers hold my 6 x 6 pads.  I got these from Tesco, I haven't over filled them so that I can flip through them to find the pad I need.  I still have the bottom shelf to tidy, my paints and wood mounted stamps are also in this cupboard.

These are the drawers underneath my desk.  The metal drawers hold things like envelopes, coloured paper, my Cricut mats and glues/double sided tapes etc.  The plastic drawers store my score boards, stamping mat, pan pastels, Epiphany Studio epoxy sticker punches, embossing folders and embellishments.

This is the other side of my craft room.  I have a filing cabinet that stores all my paperwork (sad that I can't use it for craft storage but we all need somewhere to keep bills, bank statements, you know, the general day to day real life stuff!)

On top I have my new magazine holders that I keep my craft books and my copies of Craft Stamper.  I also have my Cricut cartridges and my craft Cds on top of the filing cabinet.  The set of pink Decopatched drawers contain all my Washi tape, this is something else I have bought and not used...yet! :)

The set of drawers above are my stamp storage.  I have sorted them all out into manufacturers  and as you can see from the photo below I have listed the manufacturers and stuck it on my wall so I know what is in each drawer.

List of stamp manufacturers 

and what drawer my stamps are in.

This cupboard top has my card storage and a small set of drawers that has bits and bobs in.  The A4 card holder is an MDF system that I got from Samuel Taylors, I painted it and covered it with papers.  The American Crafts 12 x 12 cardstock was a great find at TK Maxx a couple of months ago, I think I now have enough black cardstock to last me a lifetime!

And Finally...This is the view from my window, I can see the sheep and lambs in the field at the bottom of the garden and I can also see the narrow boats sailing up and down on the canal.  

Well I hope you have enjoyed the tour around my craft room and I hope you are not too bored :)  Hoping to actually do some crafting now that I have organised everything.  Take care and enjoy the Bank Holiday.

Dawn x