Let’s talk about craft room organization! Whether you’ve got a large room, a small closet or are crafting on your dining room table – I’ve joined with some of my favorite people to share our favorite storage and organization tips from our own craft rooms.
If you know me then you know that this won’t be any old craft room tour. We’re doing like 70,000 craft room tours in one blog post! We are a military family which (for us) has meant moving every 2-3 years. It has been such a fun challenge to make myself a creative space no matter where we live so today I’m sharing a round up of my craft rooms over the years. I’m also sharing some of my favorite (and one not so favorite) storage and organization ideas. {FTC Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links which means I may make a commission on any sales at no additional cost to you.}
CRAFT ROOM STORAGE AND ORGANIZATION IDEAS
Let’s kick it off with a peek of my current craft room because it is BY FAR the most well organized I’ve ever had (and best photographed! ha!) – at the bottom of this post I’ve got some close up photos so you can see all the details! Also at the bottom of this post I’m sharing links to some other fabulous craft spaces. So so many ideas packed in here!
Now let’s take a step back in time and see how things have changed – both in my life and in the craft industry as a whole! This post was SO FUN to put together!
FORT BENNING (COLUMBUS) GEORGIA – 2008
Brace yourselves for the first (and apparently only) photo of my first “real” craft space. I have no clue what is happening here…but that is my brother-in-law Paul with the hairy knees in the foreground and me in the middle. If you can look away from the weirdos sprawled all over the table check out my wire grids in the background! Remember when those were ALL the rage? I have always been a “I need to see it or I won’t use it” person so vertical storage was key. The rest of my supplies fit on that small bookcase and a set of built-ins (you can see a corner of it on the left). If only I’d known then what I was getting in to! ha!
FORT BRAGG (FAYETTEVILLE) NORTH CAROLINA – 2010
You know what is weird? I have not ONE photo of my craft room(s) in NC – and we lived in two different houses while we were there! The only SUPER clear recollection I have of my “crafty” time there was making chipboard houses with my Mom for Christmas gifts one year. Isn’t it crazy what we remember?
FORT LEAVENWORTH KANSAS – 2012
In our first (and only) foray in to on-post housing we were assigned a second floor apartment because we had no children. We did have two giant dogs but apparently that doesn’t count! 🙂 The apartment was a little tight on space so I did most of my crafting on my dining room table, but we had amazing neighbors and friends and I was fortunate enough to host neighborhood craft nights at least once a month!
We even got the kids in the act with our quarterly Kids Crafts Saturdays. We were so so lucky to have such an incredible community and I treasure these memories!
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD (STEILACOOM) Washington – 2013
We loved loved loved living in Washington and (upside) I had a HUGE space for my craft room! The only downside? It didn’t have many windows and had a crazy slanted ceiling which made fitting furniture against the walls a little big of a jenga game! I thought I was the cleverest person in the world when I added shelf liner to a yard sale bookcase for some additional storage.
Has anyone in the world NOT owned these Iris Carts (below right)? While the quantity of them has gone down over the years…I still own some of those carts and have used them in a variety of ways. They are a staple in my craft room!
In this room I moved on from wire grids to pegboard (below left) – still staying with the “I need to see it” rule!
This is where I made quite possibly my WORST STORAGE DECISION EVER. See this? This is HUNDREDS of alphabet letters. Chipboard, plastic, wood, etc. I thought it would be a great idea to sort them in to GIANT BINS. Like… A-E in the first bin, F-J in the second. TERRIBLE idea. I can’t tell you how terrible. But trust me. TERRIBLE. 🙂
This is also where I posted my first EVER YouTube video!! Look at that background! Note the ribbon storage. I was using wood dowels and string (to hang them on the wall). It served it’s purpose but just wait until you see what I did with my ribbon when we moved to Kentucky!
FORT KNOX (Elizabethtown) Kentucky – 2015
When we lived in Kentucky I had not one but TWO craft rooms…but not in a good way! 🙂 I was so stinkin’ excited when we moved in to a house with a full basement – it had no windows but had SO MUCH room that I didn’t care. Until we had our first rain and the basement flooded. And again, and again, and again (sometimes being a renter is a challenge). So I gave up my big ol’ basement space and moved up in to our “front room”, a 14×13 room that I actually fell in love with and made some wonderful memories in.
Brace yourselves because I found this FB Live of my first recorded craft room tour!! I am so dang tickled!!
It was there I had my first “big” blog post success – these spray painted drawers (yep – it is those same Iris Carts!) are still one of my most popular projects even years later!
Still hanging on to the peg board!
The “upstairs” craft room is where I first began my love of Origami shelving (below right) and look! There is my bookcase from Steilacoom (below left)! I have also always LOVED antiques – so I used vintage wood boxes for storage and still use the vintage scale (below far left) to hold my 6×6 paper pads!
Once we moved to KY I really hit my “stride” with videos – here I am giving you a tour of my upstairs craft room!
This is also where I decided to start storing my ribbon in plastic gutters and it was one of my BEST storage decisions EVER!!! Love it so dang much!!
FORT MEADE (ARNOLD) MARYLAND – 2018
And now…finally, here we are. If you follow me on social media you know that we have recently made a HUGE decision and my husband is going to retire from the Army next year. One of the big factors in our decision? We were given the chance to buy the house we were renting which is our dream home. We are feeling like the luckiest people in the world!
This room is a work in progress (you don’t want to see what it looks like right now! ha!) but seeing how many of the storage options I’ve continued to use throughout the years has helped me realize that I’ve got some solutions that really work for me. I mean, I’ve got a WHOLE WALL full of Origami shelves you can see in the video (sharing again at the bottom of this post)!
I’ve also added two Origami Craft Carts – one for my gift wrapping stuff and one for my fabric!
These “tables” from IKEA have been a game changer for me. I got the idea while visiting my friend Teri’s Makery – they are actually IKEA Kallax bookcases turned on their sides with a tabletop screwed on to them! Genius! We added casters to the bottom so the tables can easily be moved around and it allows me to make any configuration I need. These are all I use in my craft room now!
I found a wooden display shelf at Michaels (keep your eyes open – they sell these during different seasons throughout the year) to store my paints…again with the “I need to see it” rule!
And bought a sofa table to sit along my wall where I can display some of my photo styling props. Seeing all this color makes me ridiculously happy. You can also see a peek of my gutter ribbon storage in the top right!
The piece de resistance – and one of my most treasured items – is this hardware store counter from the 1890s that Don and I discovered while we were living in Kentucky. The history of this piece, the story behind how we found it and brought it home, and the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF STORAGE it gives me makes me downright giddy. Top that (literally) with a ton of space for all of my big equipment (printers, Cricuts, etc) and this might be my favorite storage ideas of all time. I wish I could give one to everybody!
OTHER GREAT CRAFT ROOM IDEAS
Today I’m teaming up with three of my favorite crafty people and they are sharing their tips for organization and storage in their own craft rooms. Head on over and check out their cool spaces!
Thanks so much for joining us – we can’t wait to see how you create your own space!
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Shellie says
Such an AWESOME tour, and historical account (preserving not only memories, but a real timeline of storage evolution, Beth)! I love crafts, I love making crafts, I love making craft-organization a priority. You demonstrate well that ‘organization and keeping at hand’ are at least half the success! NOW, if I posted what’s going in my craft-space, you would film your next DIY-episode called something like Twister-Froggie-Maze (because all activities are involved)! I, too, am anticipating some major changes (moving my craft-room, I mean, literally, but things are a little stalled here, too). So, in the meantime, my desk and space look alot like the workroom of ‘Project RunAway’ (pun intended). By crackly, I’ll finish the cards with cut-and-folded papers that look like tuxes, dresses, purses, and gift boxes (–what was I thinking?!)!
Bonnie Murgi says
I love watching you on HSN. You are so bubbly.i wish I had half of your
enthusiasm. I imagine i’ll be watching you on 8/11 with Anna and Sara
and all the other crafters.
Enjoy whatever you do.
Beth says
Oh my gosh Bonnie thank you so much!! I’m so lucky to be at HSN so I’m glad my excitement shows through!! Appreciate you!