My craft space

I LOVE peeking into other people's crafty spaces, don't you? I figured that now that it's relatively tidy and I've just recently rearranged the furniture, perhaps it's my turn to share my scrap room with you. :)

Whilst I love pinning gorgeous craft rooms on Pinterest with their perfectly matched storage and huge vintage tables and all the pretty trimmings and thinking 'Yeah, I'll totally have that one day', and styling it all in my head, and picking out paint colours at Bunnings, the other half of my brain (the REALIST half) knows that I'm lucky to have a dedicated craft space at all, and perhaps I should shut the hell up and be happy with half an office that's painted a nasty bright pink.

Rather than painting (coz I hate house painting!) I figured I'd try and work with the nasty pink, and added aqua, white and a bit of dark pink to try and make it work together. So, heres my little space...

I've had my craft table for YEARS (like since high school) and it's kinda ugly but very well loved, just a cheapo pre-loved dining table that I don't mind getting paint on. The blue table is a new addition. Well, new to me anyway - my mum has owned it since she was a little girl and learnt to sew at this table, so when she said she was chucking it out I had to save it.

The unfortunate grilles on the windows are there because the room looks out onto the pool, which is nice, but I do wish we didn't need those bars! I will make some curtains eventually.

Underneath mum's table I have some storage; my stepdad Jimmy's old work suitcase, and his mother's old bread bins which are now my waste paper bins.

I love having my sewing machine out as opposed to packed away under the desk where it was previously - expect to see lots more sewing on layouts! The little Ikea chest of drawers is empty at the moment and might not stay in the room if I don't find a use for it - I've had the thing for probably 15 years; and I'm sure I can find a use for it elsewhere in our home. Otherwise it will get painted and covered in pretty paper. :) 

Over on my desk, I have a birdcage full of doilies (because occasionally I sew garlands with them),  my heat gun at the ready because I use it a LOT, and a jar for random scraps, as well as an old whisky crate I found in my Pa's garage and a small drawer from the Junkyard that I cleaned up and lined with pretty paper. There's just my bucket list in there at the moment, but I'm planning to fill it with more mini books. :)

In Pa's old crate is an old (and seriously heavy) Department of Education microscope which is a bookend for my bills and things, my homemade pincushion (teacup + fabric + stuffing + stones to weigh it down) and my camera USB cable because I use it nearly every day! On top is an antique spool and an antique baby's hairbrush I bought for Holly when she was born.

On my wall, I thought I'd make a little feature with washi tape instead of having a pinboard - mine fell apart (another homemade job, made from a big padded post bag covered with fabric) and although I'll be keeping an eye out for one of these vintage cake racks, my washi tape grid looks kinda pretty for now. And surprisingly it hasn't peeled off the wall yet, after 8 weeks.

On the wall you can see my layouts from Lou's class, my 'create' canvas (thanks to the lovely Miss Lisa Oxley) and the old sign is a reproduction one from Typo (ten bucks - bargain!).

I have been trying to convince Richard that he doesn't really need to be in the office anymore, considering he uses his computer maybe once a week now that he has an iPad, and maybe he could donate that space to me for storage, however despite my best efforts he was not to be swayed.

Instead he helped me put some shelves in the built in wardrobe to store all my crap, which was very nice of him, considering we were kid-free that day and he could easily have parked his arse on the lounge and watched the baseball instead.

Note the little pile of baby clothes to sell on ebay that I haven't quite got around to listing yet - too busy crafting  :)

On the wall is my washi tape shadow box and a bird mobile I made, and the wardrobe is chock-full of craft stuff.

Beautifully styled, isn't it? LOL. I love seeing how people store their stuff though, that's why I'm sharing my clutter pics! Right up the top of the cupboard is a paper trimmer I never use because it's bent (I use scissors for EVERYTHING), and a giant bag of fabric, and a giant box of fabric as well (maybe I should do some more sewing soon?).

Down the left hand side I have photos, notebooks (I have a notebook problem!) and my camera gear in the top boxes, then ribbon in the wicker boxes. I store my ribbon in big zip-lock bags by colour.

Under that is stock for the RaineCloud shop, under that is an assortment of sewing things, cards, paper, patterns, textas (I had a Tria marker addiction when I was studying fashion design - they're kind of like Copics), and right down the bottom is a storage tub full of gift wrapping stuff.

On the right hand side, everything that's 12x12 size is on the top shelf, including my alpahs and stickers in lever arch files, and underneath are a few Sistema containers from Woolies full of bling, inks and paints, one for flowers, one for random mixed media bits and one for stamps (zoom in... look at how I store my stamps, shocking isn't it?! They're all bent and just chucked in there willy nilly, bent and squashed... the horror!).  :)

The little red tin lunch box holds my chipboard bits and the alphabet print box is full of DL size envelopes which are filled with all my little miscellaneous bits and pieces - one for vintage playing cards, one for shipping tags, one for metal charms, one for tickets, and whatever else doesn't fit into any other spot.

Under that lot is two big black boxes of doilies and vintage linens, my big Artbin which I keep empty for taking my gear to scrap nights, a bit of random junk and a storage tub full of stationery.

So, that's about it! I hope you've enjoyed this little peek into my creative space.

It ain't that pretty, it's certainly not magazine-worthy (or Pinterest-worthy for that matter), but it's mine and I *love* having a little space to call my own amongst the whirlwind of mess in the rest of the house... and it's a damn sight better than my craft space in our old house!

Feel free to share your inspiring craft room (or depressing horror story?) in the comments...

But really, all craft spaces are beautiful because that's where we CREATE, right?! xo