Evolution of my Crafting Space

I know what you are thinking! She has re-done her craft room again!?!?!  Well yes and no. I finally have found a layout and organization for my craft room that works great. It allows me to get lots of cutting, sewing and other crafting done with ease.

So why the make-over?  Well you see when we first moved into this house, the craft room was my husband's home office. Over the next several years I tried to make some different areas of our home a craft area only to always return to the dining room table. With small children at home, that was not a great solution since they quite often would get into my paints, papers, or glue. Fast forward a few years, my husband's business had grown and he decided to rent an office space outside of the home. I was then allowed invited into the office to have a crafting space. Hence we got this. Trying to share the space proved difficult (I have a lot of stuff!). Then there was this attempt to set the room up. But still it didn't work for long.

My hubby finally gave up any hope of having an office space at home and he moved out of the room completely (except for a TINY desk space in the corner). The result was the beginning of the space I have now. The paint color was changed to suit me SO much better and the furniture again rearranged. At the time we had hopes that the space could also serve as our homeschooling room since we would start that adventure that fall. Quickly we learned that with only 1 in school and the others being a toddler and a preschooler, that just wasn't possible. There was NO extra space to move in there!

A few changes have been made to the furniture layout but I think we finally have a winner! {Pictures will be added to this post soon, thought I had some already on my computer, but I don't and nighttime doesn't provide the best lighting in there.} So now that it is set up properly, I am trying to dress it up a bit.  I have wanted to make curtains for under my desk for some time now, but I cannot find a tutorial on how to do so anywhere. Can you guess what will be coming to this blog really soon!

Thanks to Pinterest, I have a list of other craft room projects I have set to work on. But those are for another post.

Finally my addiction gets funded!

Now that Christmas is over and the new year has come, I finally have some down time. Time to sew what I want! Sew something for ME!  I have long been wanting to make some curtains for underneath my crafting desks in order to hid all the junk storage I have underneath. While that means hours in the fabric store searching for the perfect fabric, it also means LOTS of money (I measured my desk and it will take about 8 yards of fabric to make the curtains! YIKES

So while on a quick trip to the fabric store, I decided to finally listen to my husband (the businessman and entrepreneur's advice) and test the waters in making and then selling my creations to others. Since Valentine's Day is approaching I thought about what I was doing this time last year. I was sewing Valentine Chair bags for my boys with my new machine!  When I made them there were lots of Facebook Ohhs and Ahhs and I even had a few "orders" for bags. So off I went, happily sewing the bags.

Keep in mind a year ago there was no Pinterest in my world so I found the tutorial for these the "old fashioned" way - AKA - my Google reader. 

Quickly, while leaving said fabric store, I typed up a quick Facebook post to test the interest level for Valentine Chair bags. Within a couple hours I had 5 bag orders!  Not too shabby.  A couple days later I was back at the store picking out felt, Valentine fabric, and the assorted notions I would need to fulfill my orders. Fabric was cut, piled, organized and prepped for sewing. Having a bit more sewing experience than I did a year ago and NOT wanting to fight with the bag like I did previously, I made a few changes to the original design making the bottom of the bag SO much easier to sew! Thanks to Pinterest and the amazing Copy Cat Bag tutorial (which is sadly no longer online - so glad I printed the tutorial out!) I saved myself hours of frustration and thus streamlined my assembly process.

Just a little over a week later and my bags are being delivered to customers and received with great joy (YAY- for customer satisfaction). After posting finished product pics on Facebook, I received another order for 2 bags as well as a order from a friend that wanted a purse like mine (again, the Copy Cat Bag!).

Not sure where this will lead as I do have 4 small children, homeschooling to accomplish, a house to manage, and the need for some down time, but I do know that very soon I should have my under desk curtains as well as a few other nice touches to make my crafting space a bit more friendly on the eyes.

My Sewing To Do List for 2012

Thanks to Pinterest I have a huge list of projects i want to complete!  Several are for myself to dress up my craft room a bit. Here is what I am going to be working on...

-Curtains for under my desks, I need to hide all the supplies i have stored under there and add more color to the room.
- a sewing machine cover
- an ironing board cover (to match the sewing machine cover)
- curtains for the window
- just found these cute terry cloth (AKA Towel) shower curtains today!

The CopyCat Bag... Thank you Pinterest!

For my birthday this year, my hubby took me to JoAnn's and let me pick out whatever I wanted. Since I was neck deep in Christmas projects I was grateful for the break and decided to spend the afternoon making myself a little something!  I found this purse on Pinterest and I fell in LOVE.  So much so that I even snagged the same fabric used in the tutorial to make my own. 

While there is quite a bit of cutting, this was a pretty easy tutorial to follow and within a few hours I had a new purse!  I added some pockets to the interior of the purse to hold chapstick and such. In retrospect I would have also put in a snap to close the bag. When I made this same bag for my sister in law for Christmas i put a snap on hers. 

This purse has gotten quite a few compliments and it is roomy enough to be a perfect mommy bag!  

(just tried to link back to the blog post where the tutorial was given and the page it no longer being found.)

Christmas Gifts

Christmas has come and gone. All the gifts were completed (by the 22nd, I might add!)  Final count of projects:

13 hostess aprons

2 full aprons

9 BBQ aprons

12 Lego bags

3 robes

5 PJ bottoms

1 purse

 Here is my nephew's lego bag. I LOVE how this one turned out. The shark fabric is just adorable. These are great for all children but since I have A LOT of boys to make gifts for these were perfect. Basically this is a huge circle with drawstrings in it and when playtime is over you can just pull the drawstrings and put the pouch away.

Here is some of the assortment of aprons I made. Hostess aprons were a hit among the family.  Since most of my crafting is done at night I don't have very great pictures. These were pretty simple overall and the coordinating fabrics make them just adorable.

My boys just love their robes and have been wearing them around the house. I must say they look just adorable in them.

SEW much to do!

Christmas is a mere 89 days until Christmas and I still have not really even begun to make Christmas gifts. I have known what I was making since LAST Christmas and yet, NOTHING! I have 6 sisters, 4 brother in laws, 2 sets of parents, a hubby, 4 kids, and my close friends and their kids to make gifts for. So I have begun having craft nights several times a month. I have enjoyed these since I have been inviting friends to come create with me. Nothing better than working with friends. Last Friday I got ONE present completed and that pushed me to get 3 more started. I am on my way!

Adorable Apron

I am making aprons for Christmas presents so I have been on the lookout for online tutorials. When I found this tutorial I fell in love!  This is the cutest apron with such attention to detail. So one day during the boys naps I decided to test it out. I have LOTS of these to make so I wanted to see it if was possible to use this pattern.

Before the boys woke up from naps, I was done with the apron! It was that simple. Definitely going to be making these as gifts. Since making this one, I have gotten 1 more completed and 3 more are about 1/3 of the way done. Yeah!