My little creative escape.

If you ever wanted to know where the magic happens, today is your day. People ask me lots of questions about crafting and scrapbooking, but the one I hear the most is, "How do you store all of your stuff?" Well, here it is. In all it's glory. My crafty corner. I didn't clean up first, I don't think that's fair to all the viewers at home. I AM NOT A CLEAN CRAFTER. How many of us are?

My space is in the corner of the basement. When we had the basement finished I had them put in extra recessed lights over there, but I still needed to add more lighting. I bought three of those paper lights from IKEA to hang over my table. The table is actually a dinning room table that I got for free from one of our neighbors. Perfect height, and if I really need the room I can stick the extra leaf in. My ironing board stays up all the time. I spend more time ironing what I sew than I do actually sewing sometimes, so I just got tired of setting it up and taking it down, it also makes the perfect hot gluing station.

I tried many storage options before I finally sucked it up and invested in some great storage cubes. I bought them on sale for half off at the big "M". They are messy, but perfect. They hold paper, albums, pictures, paint, chipboard...anything and everything.

Some of the drawers have these nifty little dividers, which I find super handy for keeping glitter, paint, and jars of doo-dads. Some of the drawers are divider-less and are great for storing punches, tools and big pieces of chipboard. I keep my glue gun in there as well as measuring tapes, hammers, pliers and wire cutters. A gal never knows what she might need to get a craft job done. Plus an open drawer is a great place for Mae to hide under.

I also love jars. I have a shelf of jars where I store all my loose ribbon. I have them arranged by color. There's just something cool about a jar. I have big ones and small ones. I have tiny decorative jars that have designs cut into them and great big modern jars that could hold 5 pounds of flour. Some of the jars were once used to hold spagetti sauce or apple butter that was made by my Grandmother and my Mom. The lids still have the descriptions written on them in their handwriting.

My desktop is always a mess, but it seems to work for me. My sewing machine (bought by my husbands ex-wife while they were still married and then given to me before she moved back to the homeland) is a Bernina. It's made out of metal, which most new machines aren't. It weighs a ton. It's a complete workhorse. I love it. I have one of those true color lights. If you haven't caught on yet, I can't see without lots of lights. I have one of those spinning tool organizers by Making Memories and a little tin buckett I use to collect small bits of trash.

So that's my little corner of the world. Sometimes when you call my house and I don't answer I'm hiding down there with the dog. Call back later.....