She asked for it....my craft room!

Maria is doing some daily challenges on her blog. For her Day 1 Challenge she has asked everyone to send in photos of their craft room in it's current state! She also wants to see if you have a peaceful inspiration. Her challenge is titled "Peace and Calm in spite of the Chaos".

I have been promising photos of my craft room for a while now and even though it's not ready - OK IT'S A MESS!!! I really can't seem to get a handle on this and get myself organized. The trouble is that I'm using my STUFF all the time and so at various times I have STUFF out and/or STUFF that needs to be put away from recent classes or card making sessions.


Since Maria asked for it (and she's giving away candy for it) I'm going to show you what my craft room looks like NOW!!

This is the view from the doorway. It's not a large room - only 10 x 11!

The following photos move along the right hand wall starting at the built in desk towards the doorway.

There is a built bookcase along the right wall with a desk built in and a desk top computer.

I used to have all of these shelves filled with SU! stamp sets but now I only have my alphas out. The rest are all in the Martha Stewart linen CD boxes (orange and brown).

Here's a close up of the CD boxes. They have a hinged lid and hold about 30 cd cases. A stamp set will fit in one regular sized cd jewel case and for non SU! sets I've sorted by theme (ie., nature, greetings, christmas etc..).I'm still labelling the spine of the CD cases and stamping reference sheets for each one.

I have cupboards below with bins of stuff (mostly embellishments) that I'm trying to empty out into my craft caddies. Yes I now have 2 craft caddies!

There is a bit of counter space here but right now it's littered with class supplies that need to be put away.This is how I store my background stamps! I store them upright like books on the shelf.

The bookcase wraps around in an L shape with a TV in the corner. This last little bit of shelf space I use for my ribbon keepers, baskets of ribbon and my ink caddies.

The kids have 2 shelves for their PS2 games and DVDs in the middle of this section and then below that is my drawers with my glitter, pearlex and lumiere supplies. The set of drawers to the left bottom is full of my scrap paper. Here is where I spend most of my time. This is my new work surface and on it is my notebook computer and my 2 OTT lights. When I want to take a card photo I just take the foam sheets from behind the notebook and lay them across the screen and keyboard and turn on my lights.

Here is a distant shot of the work surface along the left hand side of the room. There used to be a honking huge couch here! Now I have 2 tables almost 9 feet long!

Under the farther table I have my 2 drawer lateral filing cabinet. Yes it's REALLY under there!

The bottom drawer is full of my SU! cardstock. The top drawer holds some 12x12 paper and some stamp sets that I'm selling off.

Here is 1 of my 2 rolling craft caddies. This one has 7 - 1 inch drawers and 6 - 2 inch drawers. The other one just has 8 - 2 inch drawers with space to put in punches. There is one caddy out right now but they both fit under my work table.

This one is filled with embellishments!

This is the back of my door. I use pant hangers to store my wheels.

Here is my current "Peaceful Inspiration". It's a card I received in a swap - unfortunately I don't know who made it since it's not signed or stamped on the back. I really love the look of this reverse mask technique and I'm using it on a set of Christmas cards I'm making for a corporate client. If you're reading this and this is your card from Jenny Jones' Full Card Christmas swap please leave me a comment!


Well that's it! The GRAND TOUR of Marie's Mess. Once things settle down a bit and we get through the holidays my goal is to finish sorting, organizing and labelling. Really I'll get it done - it'll just take me a while!