Office Re-org!

Oof, it's been a long time since my last post. The more time that passed the more I thought I had to catch up on for the next post - which led to more and more time passing due to overwhelming procrastination... So, I'm just going to jump back in like I was never gone!

My sewing "office" is in the corner of my living room, which I talked about in a previous post. I've got two little boys at home so as much as I'd like a little in-law unit in the backyard dedicated solely to my craft, it's just not gonna happen. First of all, we don't have a little in-law unit in the backyard and secondly, if I leave the boys for more than a few minutes they will either a)follow me and pester me or b)kill themselves or each other.

So, with the need to keep a watchful eye over my angelic devils, my office occupies a corner of the living room, right in the middle of all the action. At least the baby is not really a baby anymore and I don't need to put big ugly gates around everything to keep him away from my scissors. He's 2.5 now and for the most part stays out when I tell him to.

The point of all this is that I have a lot of stuff in a little space so organization is KEY. I have about 8' x 12' to house my sewing table (the 4' x 2.5' table that used to be our dining room table) my 8' work table, my computer, large ironing board that I built, bookshelf, storage shelves, wire shelves with fabric, several bolts of fabric, all my inventory and shipping supplies. Oh, and the cat, too. She likes to sleep in my office.

My 8' work table is where almost everything happens, so it can get pretty cluttered, along with the wall that it's up against. That wall is the only wall space in my office, because the other wall in my corner is taken up by a window and a fireplace. But thanks to $11 spent at IKEA (okay, I actually spent much more than that, but don't tell my husband - it's the $11 that's important here) I totally reorganized the main area of my office, getting most things off my table leaving it nice and clean and wide open for my projects.

I don't have a before picture, but just imagine clutter on the table, with a huge map of the united states taking up valuable wall space. Here's what it looks like now:

So clean and pretty! I made the blue and yellow quilt out of t-shirts that my boys wore when they were babies - that quilt even made it into a quilt book! Terrific Tees by Roberta DeLuz. It's a great book on how to quilt with t-shirts. The beach scene to the left is a little wall hanging I felted out of wool that I dyed.

Here's a close up of my new organizing:

My $11 bought that bar there above my cutting mat that I screwed into the wall, 10 hooks, 3 hanging clips and 3 buckets for my supplies. My supplies used to be in jars on the table, but it's much nicer to get them out of the way. One bucket holds pens, markers and pencils, the other holds craft scissors, sewing scissors and rotary cutter, and the other bucket holds craft glue and a few other random supplies I use often. I hung my clipboard with my instructions for my current projects, and a clip holding my open orders. I hung a pin cushion with thread catcher (that I make and sell on my Etsy site) from the bar, too. That little bar got rid of a lot of clutter!

Some other things I bought were a couple packets of 6x4 picture frames (four for $1.29) and a snazzy green lamp (on sale for $1.99). Gotta love IKEA! Above the bar I framed four close ups of some of my products with nice colors, for a little bit of inspiration:

On the other end of my table is the bulletin board I made with old corks, a magnetic strip for odds and ends (bought a long time ago at IKEA) and a few of my drawings in picture frames. A pencil drawing of Einstein is on top, a painting of the sunset over the ocean is on the bottom:

Oh yeah, and the cat's bed. She has a nice bed made of fuzzy Minkee fabric right in front of the window and she almost never leaves. I was a little bitter that her cat bed took up PRIME TABLE REAL ESTATE, but this way she doesn't even look twice at my fabric or projects, so I guess it's worth it. =) My mom made that little cat wall hanging for me, and it seemed appropriate to place it over Sarah's bed:

So, that's about it! One corner of my office has been freshly organized. I have a pretty sweet ironing board, too, I'll have to show off the rest of my office in a future post!