Amy's Craft Room

We head to Seattle to tour Amy's rainbow organized craft space:

"I love EVERYTHING about it! I think if I had to pick a favorite though, it would be a tie between the 75 slot paper shelves, and the 14 linear-foot-long desk."

Tell us about your space?

My room is located in my house adjacent to my bedroom. It was my daughter's bedroom when she was growing up. I have some AMAZING neighbors that decided they wanted to barter a couple of years ago. They have large dogs and like to vacation, so In exchange for me dog and house sitting for them, they built me a custom craft room! They literally took everything out of the room down to the carpet and light fixtures and started all over from scratch. We mixed paint until we found a shade I liked, and it just all fell into place from there. They gave me new artist's lighting, new flooring, and custom-built shelving and cabinetry. It's an 8 x 10 foot space, with a few extra feet added since we built the desk right into the space that used to be a closet. Even though it's a small room, we were able to make it bright and airy, and I LOVE it! The room is a dedicated craft space, all my own! (My husband has his own Man Cave downstairs!) An extra fun bit of trivia about the room...it cost us only $22 out of pocket for the entire space! Well, plus some fun time with the neighbor's dogs! The space is where I work and hang out quite a bit. I'm pretty much a dedicated paper-crafter and blogger, so there's a lot of writing and paper flying around that room on any given day!

What have you done to make your space cosy, beautiful or inspiring?

The whole space was custom-built for me and to my specifications, so everything about it is cozy, beautiful and inspiring to me. I particularly love the Dutch doors so that I can keep my large dogs out of the room, but they can still hear me and be close-by in the hallway.

How do you keep organized?

There's so much organization built in to the room that it's pretty easy. Above the paper shelves, there's a shallow shelf that is designed to hold spools of ribbon, and jars of embellishments. I had some friends who saved baby food jars for me, and we spray painted the lids silver, and they're perfect for all sorts of brads and embellishments.

I made curtains to hang under the desks, so that I can store bulky and unsightly stuff out of sight. I can keep an old file cabinet, shipping boxes, my computer printer, and all sorts of other goodies under there.

Any tips & tricks for organising supplies?

Other than what I mentioned above, I keep my flat embellishments and stickers in page protectors that are located inside a few thick three-ring binders. I also mounted manila envelopes on the back of each of my patterned paper stacks, to keep all the like-scraps together. My stacks stand upright in holders similar to Cropper Hopper paper holders, that I up-cycled used mailing boxes to make.

Which are your favourite possessions and are there any of your own creations on display?

As far as paper-crafting tools go, my favorite, hands down, is my Silhouette Cameo. I got it last November, and use it on almost every creation I make. I absolutely love it! I do have several creations on display that I'm particularly proud of! One of them is a huge chalkboard-paper calendar that I put on one wall so that I can easily see and reference all the things I have to do for them month. At the end of the month, I can erase it and start over!

How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?

In my computer! Actually, most of my inspiration and ideas come from ideas I see on blogs or Pinterest. I do have a small collection of scrapbooking magazines, but I find I turn to the internet more often these days.

Where do you look for inspiration?
Same answer as above!

If you had three wishes, what would you do to make it the dream space?

That's a really hard question, because my room really is my dream space already. I guess my one big wish would be for more space. My room filled up so quickly! My sweet husband has already found a way to easily expand the room! Maybe one day!

Make sure to check out Amy's blog, Scrap This Save That »