A Little Scrapbook Nook

With a little more free time on my hands, I've gotten around to some much needed organization around the house. I know I'm an Organizing Junkie has these Round-Ups every now and then if you are ever looking for more ideas about organizing pretty much anything, but I've never had the time to go along with one of them when she posts them.

A while back we re-did our play room and with kids occupying the house, offices/rooms/junk storage spaces slowly disappear! Anyway, one area that needed cleaning and fixing was all my scrapbooking/crafty stuff. My area is now in a "corner" of the playroom. My old way or organizing was having one of those stacking rolling carts with the see through drawers. When I moved my daughter into her room, instead of making my hubby build shelves in her closet right away (that part will come. . .), I used those for her clothes. My craft stuff was disorganized and not working out there anyway. Then I had some paper boxes as temporary storage, but I could never find anything I wanted. One of my good friends had a little desk and shelves in her office to work on her cards and scrapbooking stuff. That was a pretty inviting idea. I was also blog-hopping and found this site. . .phew! I'm not lucky enough to have my very own scrapbooking room, but hers is amazing! But in the end, this is what I did. . .


Here was my way of organizing all my embellishments, ribbons and odds and ends. I had my hubby go find a metal (magnetic) strip. He primed it and rounded the corners and drilled some holes in it. My mom picked up some of those magnetic spice cans at the thrift store for a dollar (I did have to go out and purchase 3 more--see my lonely one on the bottom row? ($2 a piece @ WM)). Then my mom had this "rod/dowel" hanging around at her house that I took off of her hands. I wanted to have all (all the ones that fit anyway) the ribbon hang on it. I bought some BIG hooks (again, $3-4 at WM) that I screwed in the wall. And for fun, I have a few fun magnets hanging around.
To give you an idea of where my little "Scrapbook Nook" is, here is our playroom. (Yes, this is how regular playrooms look--I didn't clean it up for you!) The area where I have my little desk is around the corner on some laminate flooring (great idea in the playroom to get those Hot Wheels racing like crazy!). This is my view from my spot.
This is my little desk. We originally bought it to fix our ugly kitchen--I mean the lack of counter space and so forth in our kitchen, but then we did a few renos in there and this desk was put in storage. Now I found a great way of using it again! The desk part of it rolls out, so I can mostly hide everything away from my kids when they are playing, need more space, or I'm not around (see below). I also put hooks into the wall to hang long, thick ribbons on where I can clip my finished products or other "stuff" I will run into. (I haven't gotten that far yet). I do have a few (or so) Scrapbook Storage Totes in a nearby cupboard. And. . .that blank canvas. . .that is another project I am still pondering over a little. In time you will see what I came up with. . . but I needed something creative up there to hide a plate (from a junction box). White makes a statement, right? :)