Carving out the Craft Room
Date: December 29, 2021
I have had my craft room as my nemesis for some time now. No matter what, it always becomes the dumping ground. "Company is coming over! Ditch it all into the craft room!" AKA the Crap Room. This has to stop. I'm spending a lot more time creating stuff now and I want to have a place where I can create - and that place is NOT the kitchen table. I get tired of dragging everything out of 'the crap room' to the kitchen table; often leaving it there for a few days until I finish whatever I'm working on/it dries whatever. No longer an option.
I started out because I got mad at my husband over a little food storage container he was using to divvy up cat food. It set me off as I grew frustrated - wanting to have an orderly house for a change. Baby steps. He gestured towards the kitchen table, which was the site of my current resin pours - and it was a mess. Instead of having a loud meltdown, I decided to take action instead. I hit it. I hit it hard. I got back there and pictured a nice table in the middle of the room where I could do my art projects. Said table would be a folding table that could be taken down in between projects. My sewing table is in there - always set up, ready to go. Why not my art room?
Several things have to change:
The kayak. Husband argues that if we put it in the garage, it'll be munched on by wildlife that finds its way past the friendly cat who graces the garage and backyard. My solution? A large container with a tight fitting lid. Going to Walmart later - will get one.
The bowling score books. I hoarded our bowling printouts for years. For what? I have the very last printout from the very last day our beloved Cloverleaf Family Bowl was open before COVID shut it down permanenty. I laminated it. I have it. The rest can go.
Stuff from my cubicle. I have a few boxes of effects from my life as a cubicle dweller. As of this writing, we are all working from home, and will be for the foreseeable future. Management sees how happy we are working from home; we are way more productive and don't have to fight traffic. I'll be scaling it down to ONE box which contains actual items which belong to my employer - like my docking station, the extra laptops I don't use, etc. Actually, the extra laptops can be moved into the home office - which is ANOTHER area which I wil be cleaning up as we usher in 2022.
Camping luxuries. We glamp. Somehow, the glamping stuff (which is a small smart TV, a blu ray player, and a projector in case we want to project movies outside on a nice evening while camping - it's all in that room. I don't have room in the closet! It's full of yarn, fleece to spin yarn, extra equipment...um...well...see next paragraph...
My own stuff - abundance of. I need to thin out the yarn stash again - I thinned it out once but it grew again. Time to thin it out...I also have a LOT of fleece. So, I will make sure I get spinning and make some nice items out of the homespun yarn. I have some BEAUTIFUL fleeces...
That's about it, really. I already re-purposed a 'display unit' I had picked up in my merchandising days. It is a multi-tiered shippper I spray painted to use in a 'hobby case' display at the County Fair. It was about to go into the recycle bin when I realized that if I perched it atop my grandmother's old bookcase (that my grandfather built!) it could be a wonderful organizer for stuff like my cans of spray paint, adhesives, glitter glues, and other miscellaneous crafting items that I need often.
The project continues on - and I hope to be able to work in there by tomorrow. I have some resin pours to do today and don't want to resort to the kitchen table!!!!
It's tough being 'a creative' with limited space...