My Room!

OK, here it is! I want to start by saying I have 2 goals when furnishing and organizing my scrapbook room. First, I want to do it inexpensively. Second, since I work best when I'm visually inspired, keeping as many of my supplies as possible out in the open is necessary. Because my style causes me to change my plans as I create (if you're this way, too, this is not a vice!) having my things out in the open also makes creating easier.

And, I want to say the blue paint on my walls is more green than it appears in these photos so it's more of a turquoise.


This is what you see when you first walk into my room. There's a short little "hall" that allows me to have a closet off to the left.

The display case is my main worktable. I scrapbook standing up so this works out fabulously for me. When we started furnishing my room, I had my heart set on the Pottery Barn Bedford Project Table. But $1000 is more than I wanted to spend on my entire room so I knew that would never really happen.

Shawn and I did a lot of brainstorming trying to come up with options that were tall enough, provided some storage (his idea since I like to keep my things out in the open)and were inexpensive. I looked for 3 years before I found this showcase at Pappy's Antiques. I was in there one day and saw it and started gushing to Teri, who owns the store with her husband, Dan, about how perfect it was. Since it was such an amazing find, I was afraid someone would buy it before I got Shawn back there to look at it and make sure we could get it into my room. I asked Teri how long it had been for sale. 6 months!

She still had items on display in it so I asked her why she was selling it. She said, "No one looks in showcases anymore. I can take something that has been in that case for months out and set it on a table and within a couple of days it's gone." I proved her point. I don't know how many times I walked right past it the previous 6 months and never saw the "for sale" sign in the window of it!

For the $150 I paid for it, I got an awesome work surface (the glass top allows me to paint and mist without worry,) a place to display my mini-albums, and lots of storage.

Behind the display case you can see my humongous basket I bought for $7 at a local flea market. I store larger lengths of fabric and vintage linens in it.



I use canning jars that I pick up for less than $1 each for storage. I paid a grand total of $4 for the candy jars. And my mother-in-law picks up covered refrigerator dishes for me when she finds them! She's a better treasure finder than I because I never see them.



I got this trifle dish for $3 on clearance at Walmart after Christmas and keep journaling spots and paper embellishments in it.



This cake carrier came from a garage sale for 25 cents. I store my liquid adhesives in it.



Inside my room, off to the left is this little table. Shawn frowned when I brought it home because it was in horrible condition. It was beyond ugly. It had, at one time, been white but had more rust on it than it did paint. I paid $1 for it and after using 2 cans of spray paint, I had a functional table for less than $10.

More jars! The big one contains old pieces of jewelry. The small one has metal things like overall buckels and things I find lying on the ground. Yes, I pick junk up off the ground! In the galvanized bucket is my old wood spools on which I store my embroidery floss. This works better for me than any other storage method because I never get it all tangled up.



The enamel pans ($2 each) under the table have ribbons and punches in them. I forget about the ribbons so I'm getting ready to move them to a more visible place and store my Fiskars Lever Punches in that pan.



Above the table is a memoboard I made a couple of years ago using an old frame, some scrap lumber from when we built our house, and fabric.



Next in my room, after the closet, is this cabinet my mother-in-law bought for Caelan to store his NASCAR cars in. He didn't want it so I let him put it in my room. The sacrifices we make for our kids!

I keep canvas bins from Walmart in it where I store older embellishments that I don't want to get rid of.



I forgot to take a photo of these so I'm using this one I took several years ago. I got these enamel pans from Shawn's grandma and use them as storage inside the cabinet. They were part of the turkey roaster she used when she was a young wife and she was getting ready to throw them away! She died a couple of months ago so it's neat have a little part of her in my room.

The white basket in the photo above this one is where I keep all my newest purchases so I remember to use them.



Hanging on one side of the cabinet is my homemade Clip-It-Up. I bought the metal shelf for 50 cents at a swap and shop. I spent more on the cafe clips and paint to cover their fake brass finish! The black clips on the end of the cafe clips are either Tim Holtz or 7 Gypsies and they are attached with black jump rings.



On the other side of the cabinet are these cast iron hooks where I hang some of my favorite trims. I bought the hooks at Pappy's Antiques (you'll have no doubt by the time you finish reading today's entry how much I love Pappy's!) Teri told me to leave them out in the yard for a few days so the dew could rust them and then spray them with a sealer. I plan to add more of these because they make the best ribbon storage. I can see all I have, it's quick work draping them over the hooks, and they don't get all tangled up.



I orginally bought this workbench to use as my worktable but, at only 13 inches, it ended up not being deep enough. I still love it, though! It didn't photograph well because the flash made the wood look a lot lighter than it is. I paid $110 for it at Pappy's Antiques and put a glass top on it for two reasons. The top is pretty rough since it was actually some man's workbench. And, again because it was used, it has oil and grease on it.

The metal milk crates under and around the bench are all garage sale purchases, the most expensive one costing $7. I store my patterned papers in the, organized by manufacturer. The cast iron stars (Hobby Lobby clearance) hold the papers upright to keep them from buckling.

The red stool was a steal at $7. I found it at a garage sale and it was marked $15. I rarely negotiate and knew it was worth a lot more than that but I still didn't want to pay that. Will had been playing on it and when I started to walk away, the lady having the sale said he looked so cute on it that he had to have it. She said it was her son's so she called him and said, "There's this adorable little boy playing on your red stool and he NEEDS it so I'm going to sell it for $7." I didn't even have to haggle, she did it for me!

The galvanized bucket on the stool was $1 at a thrift store and I keep my paper scraps in it. My rule for keeping scraps under control is they have to be cut into a square shape so they don't end up all tangled together.



I keep all my scissors, along with some of my other bigger tools, in old sugar molds. The little trifle dishes were $2 each at Walmart and I keep little odds-and-ends for filling space on layouts in them. Short scraps of ribbon hang on a mug rack.

When Shawn built this room, he built it for my little sister who lived with us for awhile. Being the wonderfully organized, forward-looking man he is, he knew it would eventually be my room so he installed electrical outlets at countertop height in this corner of the room.



My paints are kept in an old soda pop crate I got for $5 at a flea market. The little galvanized "tool box" was $1 and I keep a variety of shipping tags and my stapler in it.



After the workbench is a window. The white rack on the wall was blue when I bought it for a dime. I pick up little votive cups that I keep on the shelf at a local thrift store for a quarter apiece to store buttons and brads in.



The cast iron stars are stocking hangers I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby. There's my lone bit of yellow in my room for you, Michelle! The old egg basket was a dime at a garage sale and I keep some of my favorite fabrics in it to remind me to use them.



My storage above my sewing table was Shawn's idea. It's an old hen nesting box he bought for $60 and it's a fantastic storage unit. I keep blank mini albums, older stamp sets, and a lot of things I don't use very often stored in it. The roosting bars on the front support a lot of weigh so I have baskets filled with my Fiskars Border Punches, rub ons, chipboard pieces, jewelry making supplies, and packages of embellishments on them.



On my sewing table is a retro bread box I bought at Target. Jennifer Stewart mentioned them on Facebook and I was at the store the next day getting one! The toaster salt and pepper set on top was an expensive example I set for Will. I picked it up at a flea market and didn't realize the waffle slices were just setting on top. 9 wasted dollars later and a bunch of time glueing it back together I got to say, "See! See why I always tell you not to pick stuff up?"



And the inside of the bread box.



Next to my sewing table is my button storage. I bought the 3-tiered rack at a garage sale for $3. This is the best storage solution I've found for buttons. I get to keep them all separated by color and the jars are compactly stored away in a corner rather than taking up an entire table top.



On the floor next to my sewing table is my chipboard/sticker letter collection. I got these bins on clearance at Target for $3 each several years ago.



Next to that is my trash can and craft/cutting mats.



Above the cutting mats is this reproduction basket I bought at Pappy's. I hung it using rusted cast iron hooks (again from Pappy's!) and perched a sewing cabinet box on top of the hooks. The tins inside the box are General Foods International Coffee tins covered in patterned paper, a trick I learned from Paula Barber in a class I took taught by her. I store Tim Holtz metal embellishments and bull clips in them.



Now we're back at my display case. I bought this photo holder at a garage sale for a quarter. I've had it for about a year and just got it out a few days ago to store journaling cards I have planned layouts for. I'm hoping it will get me motivated to get going on scrapbooking again. The little gingham cup came from a swap and shop for 50 cents and I store journaling cards in it.



Above the journaling cards is this shelf we made out of shelf brackets and some old boards we had out in the garden. The bar is just a piece of rebar with old door knobs on the ends of it.

My heat embossing supplies are in the rectangular basket. Glitters are in the basket and stacked boxes on the other end of the shelf.



Hanging from one end of the shelf is a hanging basket I bought for ribbon storage at a garage sale for a dime.



And the last thing to share in my room is my punch storage. It's made from a shoe storage unit and hung from a piece of copper pipe on more rusted hooks from Pappy's.

I'll finish up with two more photos from the room.




And that's it! I still need to add a large shelving unit of some sort above the work bench where I can store my fabrics. But other than that, I finally have it set up just the way I want it.