Features
We head to Tulsa, Oklahoma to go behind the scenes at A Prudent Life and explore Melissa's super organized craft space.
"It’s so hard to pick a favorite, but I love that everything has a designated place. It’s so much easier to complete projects when you know what materials you have on hand and where they are located."
Tell us about your space?
I took over one of our upstairs bedrooms as my craft space. In addition to serving as a craft room, the space is also a guest bedroom for occasional overnight guests. One of my big challenges was blending the two areas together. I didn't want my craft space to feel like an afterthought in a bedroom, and I didn't want guests to feel like they were invading my craft space. I'm lucky enough to have a separate home office, so editing pictures and writing posts generally happens in the office. The craft room is used most often for home decor DIY/craft projects. Lots of gluing, painting, and experimenting happens in that space!
What have you done to make your space cosy, beautiful or inspiring?
Making the space beautiful and inspiring was important to me, for my own enjoyment and for the benefit of house guests. I used a cohesive color palette between the areas that had bright accents, but was still calming. I love that we were able to include a small reading corner to encourage relaxing. Creating a gallery wall that incorporates art and supplies together was another one of the ways I made the space beautiful.
How do you keep organized?
I stay organized by using lots of bins and labels. When supplies have a labeled home, they are much more likely to be put up when I am done with them. Also, when a space is pretty, I want to keep it that way. So even though adding art and decor items doesn't contribute to the function of the space, it adds to my incentive to keep the room clean.
It’s a tricky balance between having items in plain view so you don’t forget about them, and having them tucked away so everything looks neat and tidy. My biggest tip is to make sure you are using appropriately sized bins. I used to think buying bigger bins was better, but the opposite is true. For example, the drawer unit I had before was a mess because the drawers were large enough for me to keep shoving unrelated items in them together. Now inside each drawer there are smaller sections for designated supplies. It's so much easier to keep smaller sections organized. A bin within a bin always wins.
Which are your favourite possessions and are there any of your own creations on display?
In this room, my favorite possessions are definitely the three paintings by my husband’s granny. It is great to be inspired by prior generations in your craft space! The favorite piece I created for the room is the turquoise bird lamp. I found the ceramic bird and clear lamp at separate stores and combined them together into a custom piece of functional art.
How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?
I'm not sure I've perfected this yet! My process while I'm at home is a small notebook that I jot future project ideas in. If I'm out and about, I also tend to take photos with my phone that serve as inspiration. OR if I have an idea, but there isn't a picture involved, I use the Google Keep app to list the idea. I probably should make everything electronic, but I still love writing things in my notebook!
Where do you look for inspiration?
All around me! I love giving boring products new life, like the plastic popcorn tub I turned into an herb garden. Reading other blogs can bring new ideas – bloggers as a group are the most creative people I've ever seen. I love that we can all build on each other’s ideas to make something completely new. Of course, magazine, catalogs, and fashion are always great jumping off points for ideas as well.
If you had three wishes, what would you do to make it the dream space?
Oh, fun question!
1) I’d have a GIANT counter-height island in the middle of the room for big projects.
2) I'd have a separate beautiful gift wrapping station.
3) I'd have really tall ceilings and a gorgeous crystal girly chandelier for the light fixture. Was that
cheating? It's kind of two things :)
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