I still haven’t worked out what to do when I grow up! I’m mainly a writer, an artist, and a fairytale dressmaker with various crafty hobbies! Here (and on YouTube) I share bits of my life, thoughts, and what I’m learning along the way. Let’s find magic and inspiration; join me for this creative living adventure!

 

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Craft storage solutions for organising and sorting out my crafting stash

craft storage solutions

Craft supplies multiply when you’re not looking, don’t they? Well mine certainly have, and they were taking up too much space in my sewing room. That’s mainly because my fabric stash is currently doing the same thing! However, I decided it was time to separate the business from the hobby, and relocate my crafty bits and bobs….

The only place there was room to do this, was the basement. It’s a fairly large basement and I think the previous owners of the house rented it out as a flat, and this particular bit that I’ve commandeered, was once the dining area. We actually have a dining table there, but I wanted to keep that for use as my crafting table. Also, the kids often have friends over and when they hang out in the den, which is also in the basement, it’s useful for them to have a table for the pizza and birthday cake!

Unfortunately the table just ended up being a huge pile of crafting stuff, occasionally pushed to one side to make space for the odd crafting session. The rest of it was piled on the floor around it. And of course, some of it was still upstairs in my sewing room. The whole thing just wasn’t working and when I grow up, I want to be organised. Time to buy some proper storage!

craft storage

So I look at beautiful old haberdashery shop cabinets and obviously pine for one of those, but can’t justify the thousand pound price tag that usually comes with it. Then I look at furniture from Argos or Amazon and the three hundred to five hundred pounds just doesn’t seem worth it for a bit of mdf that I have to put together myself! So instead, I decided to put a chest of drawers from upstairs that wasn’t being properly utilised, down in the basement. This was a wartime piece of furniture that belonged to my Dad as a child, and then passed onto me as a child, and then became my children’s chest of drawers as well! I painted it purple and decoupaged flower fairies onto it. They’ve now outgrown that sort-of thing, so I had it for general storage.

craft paper storage

Now it houses quite a lot of my scrapbooking and journal making paraphernalia – paper and lots and lots of embellishments. That wasn’t enough though, so I bought a wire rack, that I think is meant for vegetables in the kitchen! However it has worked perfectly for storing my A4 pads of paper, and I’ve been very impressed with how strong it is.

crafting paper storage rack

However, that still wasn’t enough, so I bought a plastic purple stack of crates to sit on top of the purple chest of drawers. This is great for various thingumyjigs such as hole punches, glue and more embellishments!

However, that still wasn’t enough! Progress on my clear-out and sort-out came to a halt while I kept my eye on Freecycle, ebay and Facebook groups for cheap furniture. In the end, a large cupboard and drawer unit came up for just £10 and only down the road. I had to have it because the sticky-back lining matched the stuff my Dad had put in the chest of drawers we had owned! What a coincidence! So it’s another sturdy cabinet (that admittedly did need a good wash first), that now houses all of my twelve inch square papers; partly made guestbooks and scrap books, and collections of card for junk journals, along with other random things I’ve collected along the way!

craft room inspo

The cupboard is bigger than I wanted really, but it has meant that I could bring down more craft things out of my sewing room and keep everything neatly tidied away. I also decided to put all my pyrography things in the basement with it all. This is brilliant because that had spread even further around the house with the boxes of finished items sitting in the guest room! I had a really good sort-out of all of that, and now all my wooden items that are waiting to be pyrographed are all neatly organised all together in one big plastic storage box. The jewellery boxes, keyrings and books that I’ve already made, are now all together in two wooden boxes stacked on top of the cupboard.

craft storage ideas

It all took a while, but I’m so happy that it’s done! Apart from the fact that this area in the basement is now about the neatest area in the whole house; it means that everything I need for my craft projects is all organised and at hand, which means I’m much more likely to actually spend time doing it! I’m on a mission to keep the table clear at all times, and make sure I put everything away when I’ve finished with it. I can’t wait to get back to crafting – I always miss it when it’s been a while.

If you’re interested in the sort of thing I make, please take a look at my shop, byHelenHobden. The jewellery boxes are currently sold out, but I hope to have a new batch ready before Christmas.

Obviously, I can’t link you to the wartime furniture, but here are the storage things I bought from Amazon:

And if you’d like to watch a video of the whole craft room declutter and storage organising, then it just so happens that I made one for my YouTube channel:

Art and Craft, Home,
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