Organizing - a Diva's guide to Home Improvements! *wink*

Hiya Crafters!

Do you ever wonder how your fellow crafters end up with such wonderful crafting spaces?  All neat and organized with a nook or cranny for every little thing and when they put them up on their blog you think of your own pile of mahem and just wonder how on earth it could ever look as neat and tidy as the pictures on their blogs?  Well, I have been wishing and wondering the same thing for a good long time and finally did something about it!  After a trip to Ikea to pick up less than $50.00 worth of supplies to help me "get organized"... I already had a couple of floating shelves from them already that had been sitting in the corner of my dinning room since we moved into this place.


When I told my Mom about my idea, she suggested that I move my craft zone out of my dinning room up into our spare bedroom upstairs, however, since I have open houses and stamp togethers with customers and friends more often then family dinners in my dinning room, I am sticking with my plan and I hope that after she sees how great it looks, will forgive me at the next family dinner! (love you Mom!)

Have a look at what I am starting with ... please note that I did make some effort to try and put my stuff into some kind of order on the dinning room table before I got started and yes, I did "clean up" all the left over odds and ends from various other projects that had been on the go prior to this shot ... so trust me when I say that it looks a whole lot better then it did *giggle*



I think you can see some of the items that I purchased from Ikea on the end of the table.  Here is a better shot of those "supplies"... 4 rods, 1 long low basket (already filled with ribbon!), 2 taller baskets, some S hooks and a package of 5 magazine holders.  I also have Hubby's drill with bits and a package of screws and anchors (which came with the drill bit I needed - totally handy and I recommend that you buy them as a kit as it's much easier to figure out which bit you need if it comes with the anchors in the first place!! I bet a woman came up with that one! *laugh*). 


All the dinning room chairs have been moved into the hallway to make it a little easier to maneuver around without bumping into them all the time.   Then I dragged out my craft caddies (those 2 white sets of drawers on either side of my hutch).  And the plan is to move the hutch against one side of the wall to free up more space on the other side.  Here it is all cleaned out but when I tried to move it, it wouldn't budge!  Darn, am I going to have to wait until Hubby gets home from work before I can continue this project?? If I do, then he will want to "help" and I want to do this on my own *pout*.  Oh, I know, how about I clean out everything in the top of the hutch, all that glass has got to be heavy, right?!! Presto, and change-O, moved with very little effort after it was emptied from the middle up!

*happy dance with Bosco (the dog) for 15 minutes before continuing* He didn't know what to do with himself with all the discombobulations going on so I put him in the back yard for a spell to keep him out from under foot (which is really ontop of foot as he's nearly as big as I am! *laugh*

Ok, so after emptying the top part of the hutch and shoving it over as far as it would go, I checked to see if my floating shelf would fit in the remaining space *fingers crossed*

Unfortunately, with the maneuvers I had to do to get the first one up by myself, I just could not take pictures at the same time! *laugh*  So, you'll just have to take my word for it, I sat in a chair and held the support bar for the shelf up against the wall with both feet and drilled all the holes as quick as a button with the drill!  I'm sure that handyman everywhere are having strokes thinking about me doing that but it worked and the shelf was level when I was done! *laugh* 

See!! It worked.  My tools are not rolling around in any direction!  They are sitting right where I put them.  The next step is to measure the amount of space I will need over the shelf for my first rod.  So, with 1 magazine box and the larger of the 2 baskets in place, it should take about ... THIS much space!  Oh, this is so exciting, it's coming together and I just can't wait for the finished product!  Hmmmm, maybe I should have bought 2 baskets for ribbon?

Anyway ... you must be wondering by now, what I'm doing with that shoe on my shelf? Well the long story is, we're in the process of ripping up the basement and I just couldn't find my handy dandy hammer that is usually in my junk drawer in the kitchen.  In a pinch, a nice sturdy heel works great as a hammer to tap those pesky little plastic anchors into the holes!

Ok, so maybe I did it more for a laugh then anything but come on, it was pretty funny!  I love that "woman's tool kit" joke that is a butter knife and a high heel shoe!  *giggle* Ok, onward and upward we go.  I installed the 4 rods and then reached the limits of my reach (I knew I could not pull the same maneuver I had earlier to install the top shelf, so I would have to wait until Hubby gets home for that one, bless him and his 6'6" stature!)

And as it happens, that is about when he called me to come pick him up from work.  I can't tell you how excited I got from my adventures in organizing today!  Now, you will see the proper handyman way of installing a shelf using all the proper tools including a real hammer! *laugh*

And that's it! I spent the rest of the evening going through my drawers to re-organized the contents, packing away the retired items to another location and moving things that I don't use everyday up to the top shelf out of the way!  Oh, and I put all the stuff back in the hutch too.  Maybe this isn't how you want your dinning room to look but for me, it's a little slice of heaven!

I'd love to hear your comments, tips or suggestions too so please feel free to drop me a note!  And I think any of the above little tips could be put to good use in any small space you have for your crafting!  If you can't spread out, then go UP!!

Good Luck in your re-organizing efforts - hope you have as much fun as I did!

Until next time ...

e