I want...

Um, I am a bit jealous and I think I need my craft room to look like this.

Check out the full post at Apartment Therapy. The beautiful craft room belongs to Erica Domesek of P.S. I made this!

How little is too little?

via little white paw

I was helping my sister clean out her sewing room this past weekend and I helped my mom with the same project a few weeks ago (free fabric for me!). Both times we started going through scrap piles. I am a slight hoarder so I have an extremely hard time throwing anything away. I'm not ready for TLC to come film my house or anything but there are a few areas (especially my sewing room) that could use a professional organizer and probably a big dumpster. We got to talking about how hard it is to throw away scraps during or after a sewing project, and she said "how little is too little to save?" I thought this was a very good question because I am guilty, on many occasions, of saving teeny, tiny fabric scraps because what if someday I am working on a project and I need a sliver of green fabric? Yes, these thoughts actually go through my head and no, these projects in need of slivers of fabric never come around.

So how small is too small to keep? My piles and baskets of scraps show me that I obviously think there is no such thing as too small.

Collections on display - mini purses

I have a slight habit of starting off collections all the time, rather than keeping these collections stored away in a box somewhere I love to have them out on display. Today's subject is my collection of mini purses. It's not secret that I love purses - in all shapes and sizes. So over the years I have come across these little guys at garage sales and flea markets and picked them up to add to my little shelf in my studio.

Fabric organization and storage

I have a lot of fabric, having worked in the fabric industry for a little over 3 years now and having my mom constantly feed my obsession (thanks mom!) I seem to have acquired quite a bit and a great variety as well. I keep "my favorites" organized by color and out on open shelves in my room so I can constantly see it:

(notice my awesome vintage Singer Featherweight and my out of control magazine collection - well, about half of my magazine collection I guess)

This helps inspire me for new projects and lets me easily scan my fabric when the urge to sew hits me. I am often an impulsive sewer, when the mood hits me there is no stopping me and it's best if I have everything I need within reach at a moment's notice.

After organizing my fabrics on the shelves in my room I had lots of fabrics left over and I needed to have them organized so I could easily access them. I settled on good old plastic storage bins, you can't go wrong there. I have the rest of my fabric separated into - solids, warms (red, orange, yellow, etc), cools (blue, green, turquoise, etc) and neutrals (black, white, tan).

I even made some pretty labels with Amy Butler scrap book paper too!

Just the other day I needed a few solid colors to finish a project and I was so excited to open up my closet door and see my lovely bin of solids sitting there waiting for me. It made the whole project more enjoyable because I didn't have to dig through my entire stash to find one or two pieces of fabric. A great success!

Collections on display - Fat Quarters

I am what many people may consider a "keeper." I keep most things that come into my house, I am bad at getting rid of things and I have a tendency to start collections all the time. During my craft room organization I started to realize just how many collections I have. I have my collections displayed throughout my house and I love to see how others display their various collections. So I think this will become a reoccurring topic over the next few months as I show some of my collections with you and find some other displays that I find fun. I love to collect so this could end up being a bit dangerous as I might find some new items that I need to start gathering.

To start us off here are a few photos that you may have seen before but it is one of my favorite collections. My Fat Quarters!

What have I got myself into?

I started this weekend in my sewing room with the plan to organize one of my closets. It was a bit of a disaster so it needed some help.

The previous home owner had wallpaper EVERYWHERE, including the closet and the ceiling in the closet. So there was a little piece sticking up and I pulled on it - big mistake. So a few hours later I was sitting in a pile of stripped wallpaper and new DIY project on my hands.

So, remember my studio that was coming together and getting clean? Well, this is what it looks like today:It's a crazy mess! But I am actually excited about the hopeful outcome that I will have. I am planning on painting it a nice clean white and doing some stenciling on the walls. Then I will organize it perfectly and it will be an amazing closet that I will be so happy with rather than the dark messy closet it was before.

I have these printing books so I plan to use the tips I find inside to make this closet beautiful.

Have you ever tried stenciling your walls? Any advice?

Organizing my craft room - Before & After - My Book Shelf

My next makeover target was my book shelf. I love craft and sewing books, really any type of book that has to do with these subjects is welcome in my book shelves at any time. Before my bookshelf was just that a shelf with all of my books tossed in.

Now it is a beautifully organized library of craft!

I spent the time to organize my books into different categories so I can easily find the book I want when I want it.

The top shelf includes all of my general sewing books:

My book shelf also has my little collection of vintage toy sewing machines!

The next shelf includes all of my bag making books, needle art books (knitting, crochet and embroidery) and all of my general craft books.

The next shelf has all of the jewelry/button crafts, paper crafting and business books.

The next shelf has a small storage unit and a collection of my journals that are just too pretty to use and write in so I just keep them to look at.

The final shelf has all of my sewing patterns (divided in two boxes, one for purses and one for everything else) and the rest of my miscellaneous books - fashion, decorating and a few others.

I have tried to keep a little extra room on the shelf because I am sure there will be more books to add to my shelf soon. Like Martha's new Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts that is coming out next month!

To see all of these images and the rest of my before & after studio photos you can visit my Flickr page.

Organizing my craft room - Before & After - Fat Quarter Storage

We all know that I have a small obsession with fat quarters. I love to collect them, display them and just have them in general. I have a few areas where some of them are on display and before they were just kind of there. Not much organization or interaction with my other sewing notions so I did a little re-working the shelves, no huge deal but it makes me feel better when I walk in the room to have little pockets of organized, nice looking areas. Here are a few before images of the disaster areas:

And now, the after photos:
The "pretty" areas inspire me to keep on working on other sections of the room so eventually there will be one big inviting, inspiring room for me to work in.

Visit my new Flickr page to see a few more detail shots of each of these shelves.

Creative Organization

Since I have started working on my sewing room I have been obsessed with finding photos of other organized spaces to find new storage ideas. Apartment Therapy, one of my favorite blogs, has tons of great posts about organizing and storage to keep you busy for hours. Here are a few posts that i have been oogling over:

Double Duty work spaces

Bright White Sewing Room

Martha's Craft Room

Colorful Craft Room

Wall Mounted Craft Stations

Tofu Studio

Fabric Organization

Industrial Chic Organization

Organizing my craft room - one step at a time

I did a little organizing work in my studio this weekend and it was fun and felt great to start getting things organized. The bits and pieces are coming together and soon enough my studio will be a place where I can actually get work done and find what I need when I need it rather that spending all day looking for my zippers or sifting through piles of fabric to find the "perfect" piece. So I have a few before & after photos that I will be posting throughout the week of a few of the shelves and nooks in my room. I'm still far from finished but it's getting closer! So keep posted for all of the "after" photos to come this week. Here is a sneak peek of a few of the before photos of the disaster of a craft room that used to be upstairs.

Obsession Confession - Magazines & Catalogs

Hello, my name is Mallory and I am addicted to magazines...

I haven't done one of these in a while but you may remember that past confessions have included fat quarters and craft books. Today I would like to talk about another obsession of mine. I have tons of magazines and catalogs, it was honestly a small workout to gather all the magazines from their various locations around my house and get them all to my studio. I love looking through them, some are for keeping some are just for perusing and tearing out what I like before they hit the recycling bin. But, I love them all. In today's era of magazines folding faster than your husband after getting kicked in the junk, I cherish each of these issues and take my time devouring each page. I pull inspiration for new projects from the fashion and craft magazine and I love grabbing ideas for my house from the decor and shelter magazines.

Another great thing about magazines and catalogs is when they arrive in the mail. You know the scene in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler sings a song after finding out that it is nudie magazine day. Well, that is how I feel when a new issue of Martha Stewart Living hits my mailbox. I am also a sucker for the BH&G SIP publication at the check out counter of the grocery store or drug store. 100 decorating ideas - Great! Easy Storage Solutions - Fantastic! I am always sneaking those into my cart and it just gets added into the grocery bill so nobody needs to find out. I love my magazines and no matter what my husband says about this obsession I believe it is here to stay.

Are you also obsessed with magazines? Share your stories, it's ok to admit it!

Organizing my craft room

Although I said that I was going to have a very productive weekend in my studio last weekend I will confess that I did not. I went on a road trip to Pittsburgh instead. But this weekend is a whole different story. I am far from being done with the organizing process and showing you amazing before and after photos but I have a good start. Actually my studio looks like Martha Stewart threw up all over the place right now but I keep telling myself that it needs to get messy before it will be clean. So, I guess this is just a boring post to tell you that I did what I promised I was going to do, just a little later.

I will do the big reveal in a few weeks when I have time to make the room all shiny and beautiful, for now I will show you just two of the projects I am tackling. We moved into our new house about 7 months ago. I took over one of the extra bedrooms as my studio and while we were renovating the house I literally took most of my fabric and other crafty goodies and tossed them into a crawl space in my studio. Before this weekend it looked like this:

There is also a small closet where purses, bags, buttons and other items are being stored. It currently looks like this:

So, as you can see I have a lot of work ahead of me. After my cleaning process is complete I hope both spaces will look a bit more presentable.