Christmas Notebook

I started this blog post to tell you about a few more ways I store embellishments near my craft desk. I got a little off track talking about the room itself and how it’s set up. Bear with me and I’ll get to the point eventually… You may want to read

the top of my desk where the crafting happens (part one of the tour)

craft desk tour part two ~ drawers

Most of you have probably seen my craft room. It’s a great room with lots of storage space. Cabinets, drawers, a big counter. And it has a great view over our back yard.

This is a usual winter view from the craft room. We haven’t had snow yet this year, though.

Springtime

Autumn

It’s a wonderful room, but, due to recurring health issues, I am not taking the long trek up the stairs right now. Not even to craft. But, as I explained before, I am crafting downstairs at a desk DH set up for me. It’s been great to have my own space downstairs. Today I thought I’d show you what I’m using for extra storage space. The room itself doesn’t offer much in the way of storage. It’s an odd room, in that it has a door in each wall and windows in two walls. The room is 15’x15′ with little space to place shelves. We call it the “music room” but only because it’s where the piano is. It’s not really what you might think of when visualizing a music room.

This is the west wall. The door goes down two steps into the 1960 addition. That’s were the downstairs bedroom is. Also a bathroom and the laundry room. The spot the green dresser is in, is where my desk now sets. The door on the right goes into the library / family room.

North wall. Just to the left of this picture is the doorway into the library.

The east wall…not much going on here…

You may note Clark in his currently favorite box. The door to the left is the door to the front hall. The green door you can see through the doorway is the coat closet door. The white door is to the kitchen. Behind the white door is a heavy duty folding table that I can set up when my BFF comes to craft with me.

Here’s a picture of the south wall. At least, most of it. The doorway goes into the kitchen. This picture was taken in 2011. DH is painting the big chalkboard on the wall. To the right of the window is just enough space to put a small bookshelf which holds a lot of my Christmas books and a few garden binders. And maybe a genealogy binder or two…

Just because I like this so much, I want to tell you about the door to the addition. This door came from the house DH grew up in. His paternal grandparents built the house. This was the front door. Now it opens into the addition where the downstairs bedroom is at the end of the hall. It looks like an odd angle because the addition is two steps down from the original house. The house has 12′ ceilings and the addition has 8′ ceilings.

Funny thing…in the attic, the door we use between the finished part of the attic and the unfinished part was the back door of the house I grew up in. It also has a window about the size of this one. Well, I have gotten sidetracked…back to storage, now that you have the lay of the land.

I have a rolling cabinet that I keep next to the desk.

If I need it, I can swing it around the edge of the desk.

The top drawer has embellishments for Christmas crafting that are too large to keep in my organizers. Back row: soldered ornaments that are finished, mini bottle brush trees, larger bottle brush trees, nativity bits and pieces, glitter and another neat light bulb. Front row: larger pieces of ivory colored embellishments, wired string (great for use as neck scarves on tiny snowmen, wreaths, bells, miscellaneous animals and two gnomes. Up against the right side of the drawer is my clear acrylic ruler.

The middle drawer keeps extra clothespins at hand, extra mini ornaments, and a range of pipe cleaners.

When I spread the pipe cleaners out for a picture, I realized I am out of red tinsel pipe cleaners. Time to order some.

The bottom drawer is actually a file drawer. Here I where I keep roping, yarn and other embellishments that take up some room. It’s deep enough to store a bottle of glass cleaner which I use when cleaning finished soldered ornaments.

I have a rolling utility cart that I use for storing bulky items. Having them on a wheeled cart makes it easy to roll them out of the way if I have company. Usually this sits right behind me when I’m at my desk. The top shelf holds some of the boxes of Christmas cards I’ve collected. I have more upstairs in the craft room. The middle shelf has the drawers for my floral embellishments plus one more card box. The bottom shelf holds four bead boxes and two embellishment boxes.

The cardboard boxes are labeled with the colors they contain. On the drawers, I placed bits of Christmas cards to help me remember what each drawer holds. Left side: top drawer is red, middle drawer is greenery with snow/white, bottom drawer is silver. Right side: top drawer is red berries, middle drawer is greenery with ice, and the bottom drawer is plain greenery.

And finally, last but not least, are my Bead Storage Solutions trays. DH gave me three for Christmas and I ordered three more after I realized how many beads I actually have. I use four trays for beads. The general catagories are pearls, miscellaneous, metal and seed beads.

I use two trays for Christmas embellishments. One for those I use more often…

… and the other for items I don’t use as much.

These are great storage trays for small items. Everything can be seen at once. Nothing mixes with anything else. If the tray upturns, no problem. Instead of thousands of beads on the floor, you have the boxes to pick up. The individual boxes have indentions so they are easy to lift out with your fingertips. The trays also have clear lids that cover the boxes, yet still allow you to see what’s inside.

The individual boxes come in four sizes. You can buy a tray of assorted sizes, a tray of the smallest size, or empty trays. You can buy boxes in a pack to fill one of the six rows in the tray. That way, you can assemble just what you want by mixing the kinds of boxes you buy.

The individual boxes have flip open lids. Easy to use.

The storage trays are pricey, but worth every penny if you are a serious crafter. The best price I found was on amazon.com. Jo-Ann Fabrics (check online for store coupons) and Wal-Mart have them, as do other craft supply stores. Check around for prices. They range widely. Wal-Mart was nearly the same price as Amazon. Most other stores were much higher.

It took a while to write this post. And I meandered a bit. But now it’s done. I hope you find it helpful. Or at least, fun to read. 🙂

~~Rhonda

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned how I use plastic drawer stacks to store some of the floral embellishments I use on the Christmas shadow boxes. Today I thought I would write the first of a couple of posts to show you how I’m storing all the embellishments I’m currently using.

First of all, I’m not in my craft room. The staircase to the second floor has 22 steps (140 year old house, big staircase). That’s a long way on a bad knee. So a few months before Christmas my sweet husband moved some furniture, set up a desk for me in the music room, and brought down craft supplies as needed. Much easier on my knees. I do hope that I can get back upstairs to my wonderful craft room before too long. But for now, I’m working downstairs.

Here’s a picture of the desk right after it was moved into place in September.

The desk is a vintage office desk that we acquired when my nephew and his wife were redecorating their home office. The desk is huge, made of solid wood, with a Formica wood-grain top. It’s in very good condition. The top measures 75″ x 40″ and this beast is a work horse. I love it!

I do have a vintage wooden L-shaped teacher’s desk of my own, but Youngest Daughter has been using it in her room for a few years. We also used it as her school desk when I home-schooled her through seventh and eighth grades. Love, love my old desk. She’ll be going off to college in the fall. When she does, I may put my old desk back in the craft room (where this picture was taken) for more room to craft with friends.

On the left side of the desk I am currently using is my Pampered Chef Tool-go-Round. That thing must be nearly twenty years old. I see it’s now called a Tool Turn-About. Am I misremembering “Tool-go-Round?” I actually have three of them. Two I use for crafting tools and one keeps my favorite decorative scissors in order. The tool-go-round is a wonderful way to keep my most used crafting tools at my fingertips.

On the left side of the desk is also my paper towel holder. It’s a lovely vintage wooden holder that an online friend sent me. I love it! It keeps paper towels right at hand and that’s a must when I’m crafting!

The elf and boot are waiting for me to find some time to spend with them. I plan to decorate a larger, cream-colored bottle brush tree to display in the boot. So cute! My sister Genny found that at a thrift store for me. The pictured bottle brush tree is one of two that my grand-daughter gave me for Christmas. She knows what Ma likes!

The printer is also on this end of the desk. Toward the back. Behind the lamp. The printer is a must-have. The desk is so large that the printer is not in my way, yet so handy. And, by the way, I love that desk lamp. The lighting in this room is not the best. The lamp makes the close work much easier to handle.

To the back of the desk, and a bit to the left, I keep a space for my computer. I can slide it back there when I’m watching Netflix and still have more than enough room to work at the desk.

To the right side of my desk, I have a mug with colored Sharpies which I keep close at hand because they are so pretty! All those bright yummy colors right next to each other. Love it! Next is a holding container for my wire cutter, pliers, etc. And next to that is a storage box for holding small projects I am currently working on.

Next is a desk organizer. It’s big enough to hold 12×12 cardstock on the two shelves below and it has six divided sections on top for standing binders, papers, magazines, etc.

I bought five vinyl file folders and use them to keep some items together. The purple one on the right (above) has my square acrylic rulers and some cardboard. The green one has some magazines I want to peruse. The blue one has copies of letters I haven’t filed away yet. The yellow one has memorabilia in it. The folders are legal size and expandable and enclosed so nothing falls out. Very handy.

The last item on the desk are some stack-able plastic drawers. Not the ones with my embellishments in them. These hold some tools, punches, and beads I need to sort and put away.

First drawer (top drawer): I cut down some boxes to help me corral some of the things in the drawers. This drawer is currently holding extra glue guns and a roll of duct tape. You never know when that will come in handy, so keep some nearby.

Second drawer: little LED lights for my Putz houses. And hand-held punches.

Third drawer: These are the beads I need to put in the organizer trays. They are sorted by color, type, size, etc. The little boxes I use to sort them are made from Christmas cards.

Fourth drawer: Zippered plastic bags with cards that I have set aside for particular future projects. In the back is a small glass bowl with a few small gifts Youngest Daughter gave me when she was little. The handkerchief in the bowl is one I carried when DH and I were married. It has a tatted lace edging that my grandmother made for me. She also tatted lace for the collar and cuffs of my wedding dress. (My brain wanders from one thing to the next…I hope you don’t mind.)

Fifth drawer: Ornaments I made a few days ago that need a touch of solder on the dangle jump ring so the bead and/or charm doesn’t fall off. The drawer also holds my small bit of very fine glitter which I like to use on the ornaments I make. This drawer holds my favorite glue gun, too. It doesn’t leak as it sits. It’s small and easy to handle. It has an on/off switch. And on the back, just under the hole that you feed glue sticks into, is a light. It’s a good reminder that the glue gun is ON. Be aware! Be safe!

Sixth drawer: Clamps. Big ones in the back. Smaller ones up front. And clothespins in their own little Christmas card box. Clothespins make great crafting clamps.

And that concludes the tour of the top of my desk. Who knew this post would be so long. And maybe no one is interested, but my kids may be some day. They can look at my blog after I’m gone and say “remember when??” I would give a lot to have some kind of record of my great-great-great grandparents’ every day lives. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful treasure to have?

I will give you a tour of the desk drawers and other storage options I use for crafting downstairs. But that’s another post. I hope you have a special place to call your own, where you can keep your tools and supplies and work to your heart’s content on your crafts / art / scrapbooking, etc.!

~~Rhonda