This week I overhauled the closet in the studio. I've been on a mission to efficiently organize the huge amount of supplies my fiance and I have accumulated! After purging the things we don't need, we're now setting out to tame the ones we do. These are some of my favorite elements for keeping our studio manageable!
- Small shelves. I put them everywhere! They can be a decorative element as well, as this photo found on VisualizeUs demonstrates. In fact, I'm tempted to go tear all of the labels off of my acrylic paints and line them up right now! I think small shelves are done well when they're kept uniform (I know, I keep saying that) and put on a wall in a solid graphic way.
- Using large mason jars like these, seen on Tied Up With String, as storage for supplies gives them an air of specialness. I'm still insistent on uniform sizes and shape to give things a bit more order, but varying sizes and shapes can be fun, as well.
- Tinkerlab has hit the nail on the head here, as far as I'm concerned. Rachelle has a number of Ikea's Kassett boxes storing all of the random odds and ends that are typically in a craft room. I have begun converting my mis-matched storage boxes to Kassetts, but am about to shock my fiance, I'm sure, by bringing another large load of them home! Uniform and tidy looking boxes turn a closet full of otherwise chaotic supplies into a closet I'm not afraid to leave open once in a while.
- I love the storage options that an over the door shoe hanger can provide, and I love the idea of moving them into the studio! On Rol.vm, they've even allowed them to double as curtains. I love this!
- I love pencil cups. Right now, I especially love acrylic pencil cups. I am currently staring at six of them on my desk right now! I find that if I have colored pencils and pens out in front of me, I'm more prone to use them. This cup, from kikki.K is the perfect example of an unobtrusive and slick looking pencil holder.
- I inherited a vintage set of tiny drawers, like these ones on We Heart This, from my grandmother. She used to keep embroidery floss in it, but it serves me well holding all of the tiny tools that I use regularly. I have a drawer dedicated exclusively to cotton swabs, one to tweezers, one to glue, etc. I wasn't sure it would be useful until I actually got it set up. Now, it's sort of priceless to my work patterns at my desk!
- Home Made Simple does a good job of touting the wonders of the pegboard. They also do a good job of showing ways to make them look a little less utilitarian! I am looking for the perfect place for one in my studio.
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Cigar boxes are great for pens and pencils. Rum cake tins without the lids for paper clips, rubber bands, etc. Tall coffee tins and religious candles for rulers, scales, tracing paper, etc.
Jar shelving like this is great for art supplies or fastener (nails, screws) storage.
I have over the door shoe bags in the pantry, bathroom, kid's room and office- I like the clear pockets so you can see what is in them. I wasn't sure how well they would work, but after the first one, I was hooked! I love pegboard too, just covered a wall in my laundry/utility/storage room and was thinking about framing a scrap to put in the office.
love the jar of crayons
I don't think I'd put my kids stuff in glass jars! Just saying, beautiful AND practical is what we need.
I'm sure the crayons in a jar would look nice, but it seems really impractical to me. You'd have to dump out the whole jar to dig up the color you need, and I imagine the crayons would roll everywhere and make a mess. My husband uses crayons as well as colored pencils for sketching, and we keep them in regular old pencil cases. Less rummaging and mess that way.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the shoe hanger curtains--I put this on my shopping list before I even finished reading the post! The crayons in the glass jar are pretty...but once a child got into those...it would be such a mess (broken, torn papers, etc...), maybe not so pretty for an open display!
Ah, the disconnect between pretty and practical!
Narrow shelves only look nice if perfectly organized. If you stack jars of embossing powder (or whatever) and you need the bottom one, you have to move the others to get to it -- NOT useful. Also, klutzes like me would knock stuff off them reaching for something else. I vote no.
I craft in my dining room. (Polymer clay and bead jewelry, mostly.) I have a "credenza" made from IKEA Expedits with drawer and door inserts. I can use the top for buffet serving or whatever, and the rest stores most of my stuff out of sight. (OK, I confess, most of the time things migrate to the top surface, which I'm fine with, but if we need the dining room to function as a dining room, it's possible to disguise it's MAIN purpose!) I sawed out the divider between two of the square sections to fit my convection oven for baking the polymer clay. It's always visible, but since it's below "counter" height, not obtrusive. A dedicated craft studio is ideal, but we work with what we have...
Not to jump on the band wagon, but I totally agree with the above crayon comments. The crayons in the jars are so pretty, but so impractical for small children.....fun idea though!
Crayons in a jar would make a great design element, but as a storage option it's entirely impractical. Or as my friend said, "Sorry, sweetheart, you can't have the BLUE crayons. Mommy needs to maintain the gradient."
I am IN LOVE with number one. Now I know how to store my nail polish in my bathroom. I have close to a hundred bottles and because of a renegging (word?) of my original storage plan I have a nice blank space on the wall behind the door. Sweeeeet!
Storage curtains.
blink.
blink.
Storage curtains.
Fantastic -- that fixes two problems at one time on my back porch o' doom.
Is this post for adults or children? Frankly, none of them seem ideal for children. I've been scouring the internet for inspiration on organizing our art space so my four year old has independence with get out/put away.
My wish list would be to see ideas for an art space shared between young (crayon-eating) children, older (scissor-using!) kids, and adults. We're lucky enough to have a dedicated tiny art space, but the brass tacks of organizing is super tough! This post makes me wish for one I could really use!
I keep my stationary items in a wooden Victorian Cutlery tray with old Royal wedding Cups as pen holders. xx
I'm 100% in favor of the boxes. And the way that I keep the space kid friendly while maintaining adult sanity is to store the sharp or super messy stuff on higher shelves :)
I found a ton of great storage boxes in the Christmas Clearance stuff...now I know to keep my eyes peeled after holidays! Here's how I used boxes in
My Craft Closet
I dug out my sewing machine for the first time in my new apartment tonight.... gotta figure out a craft area in my 252 sq foot apartment. My current kitchen table is cute but too rickety to sew on. Luckily I have great-great-grandma's sewing machine table, but its too high to be an end table with my low sofa as I planned.... really shoehorning things in here. :)
I have about a million bottles of those acrylic craft paints and would love to shelve them that way, but for one crucial issue: where can I get shelves like that???
I've clearly been on AT so long I'm jaded. I'm finding it hard to get excited about products doing what they were meant to do, like in 3, 5, or 6. Some of these ideas need a little more omph...
And as a side note, those Ikea white bins get dirty super fast. I have some sad ones that need sprucing with fabric or paint or something!!! How about a post on ways to extend their life or beauty?
@p_capucine: I have a four-year-old and an eighteen-month-old, and I organized their craft stuff in well-labeled boxes. It's all on a shelf that the four-year-old can easily reach but her little brother can't, and that works for us. Here's a peek: K's craft supply storage
Oh, I just love how those narrow shelves look.. but they strike me as the least practical thing ever for actual storage. What about when you start using up your paint, and the white goes first, and you have to buy a big bottle from a different make? And how come nearly all the colours are soft and co-ordinated pastels?
t looks to me like something beautiful and un-used in a catalogue, not something functional. We need beautiful AND useful!