Thursday, November 20, 2008

Challenge #1

**How about take pics of your stash without any neatening, cleaning, or organizing! I've seen lots of pictures of perfectly arranged sewing rooms and lovely stacks of fabric...I want to see if anyone has a mess that is WORSE than mine - LOL!**

OK so, even though my first thought was, "Well if I work really hard tonight, I can post pictures of my room clean and perfect looking tomorrow, and then people will think that I always have a clean craft room..." I resisted. The sad thing is I HAVE been cleaning in here. Well at least there was a week after Halloween and before I started to think about Christmas that I STARTED to clean/organize my room. It's like I have heard before- really creative people just have messy homes. I must be UBBER creative let me tell you!

So on to my stash. This is all stuff I have to work with- so if I were to make something from this it wouldnt cost me anything since I already have it!!



Paper storage under my computer desk. Left side has solid paper, middle has patterned and right has chipboard sheets, vellum, textured, 12 x 12 page protectors, holiday and seasonal paper, and unsorted paper as well.



Some paint, glitter, beads, and other goodies. These were originally flower boxes.



This is one of my favorite things my MIL ever gave me! My cart full of supplies. Drawers have 1- tools, 2- ink and chalk, 3- stamps and embossing patterns, 4- buttons, 5- adhesives, 6- punches, and the last has some textile medium, modge podge, felt glue, and embroidery thread.



Boxes full of fabric. Mostly jeans.



To the right (behind my monitor) is a wall mounted hardware drawer unit full of sewing notions (elastic, bias tape, snaps, etc.). The big white cart of drawers holds my bigger notions like zippers, my needles, tracing paper for when I alter or make up patterns, velcro, etc.



Cabinet full of things to alter. Plus empty mini albums that were so cute I couldnt resist buying them.



Full cabinet system. These are actually deeper than they look, and you cant really see things that are lurking behind, but most things are 2 deep. Right upper top has random fabric that I havent folded to put onto my bookshelf yet, and my batting, oh and some jewelry making supplies. The closed cabinet below holds all my office supplies and lots of empty formula containers to alter, plus most of my store bought sewing patterns. The closed cabinet in the top middle is the one from the previous picture. The open cabinet below it contains paper scraps sorted by color and pattern/solid. There are also embelishments in tackle box inserts and drawers. The bottom shelf is unfinished wood, mostly frames. The 2 cabinets on the left are full of idea books and things to scrapbook.



This is my sewing desk. You can see my sewing machine that I am constantly fighting with (and yes, I do yell at it- quite often in fact.) The built in filing cabinet is full of thread and bobbins. Clothing to be repurposed, and rolls of stuff I applique with. Ribbon on spools is shown. Loose ribbon is in containers sorted to color in the right cabinet. Unsorted ribbon, flowers, fraycheck, and hairclips are in the open cabinet. All my bow making supplies pretty much at this station.



This is my cutting scrapbooking table. It is an old kitchen island, but it has a granite countertop so it works great for pounding eyelets and cutting on. Plus it is just the perfect width for my big cutting mat.It has 2 drawers on the other side (that you cant see). One is full of pens, pencils, and markers. The other one holds all my tools that I use while I am at the table, (well the ones I use most often at least). In the cabinets are containers of fabric scraps, cutting/glueing/painting mats, a box of sewing notions that I still need to give back to my mom (I used it when I borrowed her machine in college- YIKES!), a bedazzler (Mom gave it to me, still havent cracked it out of the box yet, maybe I can come up with a project to use it on...), About 300 sponge paintbrushes that I ordered in when they were on sale for 5 cents each all in containers, and finally some unfinished IKEA wood drewer sets. There are containers in the front right of this picture that contain scrap fabric and scrap paper that hasnt been sorted yet. A couple of unfinished projects stacked on top. There is a mirror that needs to be hung on the wall behind my sewing machine, 2 magnetic chalkboards, 1 will go on the wall next to my monitor, the other one will be hung on the empty space on the left side of the cabinet in the picture. In the grocery bag are baking sheets for a project and silicone snowlake molds to make crayons in. On the table is the project I was working on today. Yes that is a disco ball. My husband has to hang it for me. I absolutely love when the sun hits it in the afternoon and throws light all over my ceiling and walls.



Pebboard with embellishments. In the metal containers are some of my paints, and my eyelets in the little round MM containers. Under the ironing board you can see part of the project I am working on now, as well as on the ironing board.



Bookshelf of mostly folded fabric. There are about 5 quilts in various stages of completion as well.



File cabinet. Bottom drawer has all my kids craft supplies. Top drawer has sorted embellishments. There is a bunch of random fabric piled on top. To the right (which you cant see is a cart full of felt and fabric scraps as well as a few Christmas presents waiting to be wrapped.

7 comments:

amber belmonte said...

i love your ribbon collection so much that i want to marry it. can't wait to see the AFTER pictures. i guarantee mine would be worse if it weren't all packed away in boxes ;)

Unknown said...

I am totally the same way with my room and closet! lol I feel like the cleaning never stops!

Mardi and Jeremey said...

You totally did this so I would have to take pictures of my "Monica Closet". Thanks a lot!

Unknown said...

What a great room! You should be able to pull off, Thrifty Under Zero with everything in there! Thank you for sharing!
Monica
TEAM CARLA!

me me me said...

Oh dont feel bad Mardi- you know my whole house is 10 times worse than your one monica closet. And I even have people that help me clean it...

Kim said...

WOW! What a great room! So fun to see these pics -- I'm so glad you're a part of our challenge!

Where did you get your cabinets? You said they weren't too expensive and I'd love to do something like that. Thanks!

Kim :)
Team Kim (who is checking out the competition! lol!) ;)

Kristina said...

Ha! Then I must be SUPER creative too!