My Creative Space Journey – The Beginning

I LOVE seeing where everyone creates.  Do You ?  Sometimes I get “creative space” envy when I see others spaces. But then I always remember, whether you have a temporary space where you have to put it all up each time or a dedicated space, I know that any place you can carve out is better than not creating at all, right ?  Today I am sharing with you a bit about my creative space journey so maybe you can relate that it can and will evolve over time.  And everyone’s space is worthy.

 

Lets start way way back in 2000…yes I said 2000 !  That’s when I really started my creative space journey.  Up until then I had always crafted in some form or another…water color painting, cross-stitch, rug weaving, embroidery, a little paper crafting with my kids, etc.  I had a small stash of crafty stuff in shoe boxes in the top of a closet that were pulled out and use at the kitchen table when needed.  Does that sound like you? 

 

The Beginning of My Creative Space Journey

 

In 2000, I was traveling a LOT for work.  I was home mostly on the weekends and my kids were in high school and hubby was working from home and holding down the fort.  We had just moved in to a new house in a new neighborhood and didn’t know many people yet.  Then one Friday night in March a new neighbor invited me over for a glass of wine and to meet some of the other ladies on our street.  I was tired but I went.  I like to be sociable and know the neighbors.

 

Well guess what ?  All these ladies were having their glass of wine but also working on scrapbooks !  I just kind of hung out and chatted and watched them.  Becoming kind of fascinated with what they were doing with papers, stickers, glue and photos.  They were working on all kinds of albums for different occasions…baby books, wedding, trips, retirement, etc.

 

 

You know how it goes, the longer I stayed, the more wine I drank and when they asked me if I wanted to join in, I said sure.  They planned to together once a month to scrapbook and that sounded like fun.  I bought a scrapbook album and paper from one of the ladies…she was a Creative Memories Consultant for those that remember that era.

 

Do You Remember Scrapbook Stores ?

 

When I was traveling for work someone in the office mentioned they were going to a Scrapbook Store and invited me to go along.  What?  A whole store dedicated to scrapbooking ?  Of course I went.  And OMGosh !  I was like a kid a candy store buying stuff to make my daughter her album. And that’s what started me down the path of scrapbooking and paper crafting

 

After that I accumulated a lot of stuff over the course of two months visiting various scrapbook stores.  I’d make up my own page kits to go with the photos and took them during the week with me to work on at night.  And I am happy to say that I got the album done in time to give my daughter at her graduation party that May, which she absolutely loved!

 

At this point I was keeping scrapbook stuff in my master closet in a big brown packing box (partly to hide from my daughter) but mostly because I had no idea where to put all the stuff I had accumulated. I had no dedicated creative space.

 

So when someone introduced me to a portable scrapbook rolling tote.  Kind of like this one…and I bought it and stored all the stuff in there.  It was great because I could roll it out to the kitchen table when I wanted to work on something now that I no longer had to hide it from my daughter.  This worked for perfect for several months.

 

 

But eventually my family got tired of eating off tv trays because I had left my scrapbook stuff all over the kitchen table.  So I had to find another solution quick.

 

Phase Two of My Creative Space Journey

 

We did have a guest bedroom and my family encouraged me to move my scrapbook stuff to that room instead of downstairs.  Which was good in a way because I could leave my scrapbook projects out longer while I worked on them.  But it wouldn’t be a dedicated craft room because it still needed to function as a guest bedroom so the bed had to stay.  It was a large room though so there was an area for me to make a creative space for myself.

 

Along one wall I added an inexpensive wood desk with drawers.  Plus two Billy Bookcases from Ikea with the doors on them, one of each side of the desk.  This created my NEW creative space but still could function as a guest bedroom and look tidy.  Plus I spent less than $500 on the whole set up.  Sorry I don’t have photos of the original set up…that was before digital cameras and iphones 🙂

 

 

I had plenty of room to store my craft stuff away on the shelves in decorative shoe like boxes and my scrapbook albums. And I still had the rolling tote bag I kept in the closet in that room for when I took stuff over to my neighbors for wine and scrapbooking.

 

Have you ever wished for a Dreambox ?

 

This was way before Createroom offered their amazing Dreambox. It would have been nice to just fold everything up and look like a cabinet in the guest room.  And if I had the $2,500 to spend on it.

 

 

But my poor man’s version worked really well for about 4 years before we moved again and I once again had to make a creative space for myself.

Phase Three of My Creative Space Journey

 

With the kids off to college, we moved from the burbs to a much smaller home in the city.  There was a smaller spare bedroom that had built in bookcases along one wall that I could claim.  So once again I needed to figure out how to make a creative space for myself.  It still had to be a guest bedroom so this was more of a challenge in a smaller room.

 

By now I really had quite the ever growing stash of scrapbooking and cardmaking supplies.  I used more shoe storage type boxes to organize on the shelves and had room for all the scrapbooks I was making.  The desk from the past room barely fit under the outer wall window because we had to allocate room for file cabinet storage in there too for home use. There wasn’t much space now on the desk because it had to double as a work desk with a computer on it.

 

Finding the Right Table

 

I really needed room to spread out when I was crafting. So I decided to get a portable folding table to set up in there when I wanted to craft.  When I need to use the room I could unfold it and put under the bed.

 

At first I tried a square folding card table….but it just wasn’t up to the weight when I put my scrapbook tool bag and album and other things on it. Or really large enough to use.

 

I needed to find a harder and larger table to set up in there.  I was at Academy buying stuff for a camping trip and stumbled across a 6 Ft. Folding Table with a hard plastic top.  It was just what I needed.  Larger but still portable to store away !

 

This table served me well in my tinier creative space.  I highly recommend if you need a portable solution, this is pretty awesome. In fact, we still have that same folding table and another one that we take with us when we go tailgating at football games or when we need more dining room area for extra big events   !

Phase Four of My Creative Space Journey

 

Yes, another change was underway !  If you remember way up at the top of this journey I told you creative spaces evolve over time.  And I was not kidding…I should be the poster child for carving out my creative spaces over the years.  So my creative space was on the move again.

 

We have a large bonus room in this smaller home in the city that was a converted garage.  My crafting had gotten out of hand.  I was not only making stuff for myself but selling at craft shows and teaching classes at local scrapbook stores. And on top of that, I was working full time in my HR job.

 

You can only imagine the amount of space needed to hold all of this and still function.  Plus I had acquired the original Cricut (baby bug) plus a bunch of other Cricut machines as they evolved.

 

Hubs and I decided it was time to carve out some of that space for me in the bonus room. I was thrilled ! But once again I needed to come up with creative space solutions.

 

The Updated Craft Room Space

 

Here is what that space looked like…that gold curtain hanging from the ceiling was hiding home storage stuff behind it.

 

I bought an Alex (now called Kallax)  5X5 Bookcase to place in front it to start defining my creative space area.  And I bought 2 ClosetMaid Stackable Cubes from Target to stack and hold scrapbook albums next to it on one side. And on the other side I bought a folding Oragami shelf to hold my heavier items.

 

This is the other side of my creative space back then.  There were some built in storage on the wall where I stored things in 12X12 scrapbook boxes from Michaels.  Hubby added a larger shelf to the one under the air conditioning unit so I had room for my Vevor heat press.  In front of that are 3 storage shelving units where my printer sat on top.  They used to be called technology towers but now they are called Modular Mobile Panel Towers at Michaels. With more of those 12X12 scrapbook boxes to sort cardstock, patterned paper, printables, printer paper, etc.

 

This new creative space of mine was only about 9 ft wide x 12 ft long but it seemed like a palace to me.  Yes, it was a hodge podge of furnishings and bins.  And it had ugly berber carpet and only a ceiling fan light overhead but I was so happy to have it.  Even though it was squeezed in between household storage and my husband’s workbench on the other side of my space.  I added a few desk task lights and it helped brighten the space a bit.  The only natural light came in from french doors on far side of the place.

 

The most exciting thing was I had created a large L-shaped desk using some Ikea Linnmon Tabletops and Alex Drawer units from Ikea.  I finally had a solid surface to work on and  plenty of storage close by.  It was easy to make just by measuring the space where I wanted to make the L-shaped desk and figuring out how many pieces I needed of each.

 

Ikea Linnmon Tabletop

 

Ikea 5 Drawer

I did not buy all of this at once.  Most of it were things re-purposed that I had or found.  Any new things were bought a few pieces at a time.  Plus some were gifts I asked for Mother’s Day and my Birthday.  It was definitely a work in progress for a a good while.

Just When My Creative Space Seemed Complete

 

I was happily crafting in this creative space for a few years….and then the unthinkable happened.  We went on a weekend trip over a long Memorial Day weekend and came home to the room being flooded by a burst water heater.

 

 

 

 

We were able to save a few things and most of the furniture did ok after drying out. But the carpet had to be replaced so we had to move everything out of the room. And replace the water heater in the closet and re-do baseboards and re-paint thing, etc.

 

Then my husband said the magic words….“Why don’t you design your creative space the way you would really want it and let’s re-do the room for you.”  It only took me a 1 hot minute and then I was jumping up and down for joy !

 

Then the real work started on my next creative space journey.  Come see what choices I made to create my ultimate creative space HERE.

 

I love to hear from you.  Leave me a comment if you have any questions.