Craft Room

My entire family are crafters. The trouble is, many of the craft supplies (through painting, scrapbooking, etc.) end up sitting around on the dining room table. The supplies become so burdensome that it gets to be so that you don’t want to pull them out after a while. Hobbies are a great thing for a family to share, and even if each family member doesn’t have the same interest in a particular craft, the fact that everyone likes to do something makes it a great way to bond in a healthy way.

We’ve decided to make a craft room in our house recently because then we can pull stuff out and leave it there without having a mess sitting in our living or dining area. Being the frugal girl I am, we decided to do this without spending a lot of money. Here are a couple of the things we did to make our craft room work.

Cabinet Storage
Crafting is seriously messy business. Or in can be if you don’t have proper organization (especially with something like scrapbooking.) We purchased a full-size cabinet at Goodwill for $30. The drawers will help us pack the paper, stamps, and other doo-dads away neatly.

Room to Work
We purchased two plastic folding tables, one from Aldi, one from Sam’s. Both were under $50, and are fold up tables about 6-feet in length. We can put them both up so people can paint, color, or scrapbook together and still have lots of room, or just fold them up and put them off to the side.

Plastic Storage
While I have much of the paper supplies in the cabinet we got at Goodwill, I still need a few more plastic storage bins for scrapbooking. Here’s a tip, go to Walmart or Kmart to get a plastic bin that holds the 12 inch papers. I got one for $17. So much cheaper than the $60 bins in craft stores!

Lighting
We went to rummage sales in the area, and picked up too funky lamps without shades that will go perfect in the craft room. The lamps were $1 each. At another sale a few weeks later, I found two matching shades for 50 cents each. It pays to be patient.

Seating
We got two comfy chairs at a flea market a few weeks ago for $15 each.

Table Covers
Since our tables are white, we didn’t want paint or crayon to ruin them in case we wanted to use them for something else. We picked up two plastic (white) tablecloths at the dollar store which we can swap out anytime they get messy.

Most of the steps we took in creating this room were not only frugal but green and good for the environment. Now we’re ready to craft away (and shut the door if company comes over!)

Image: sxc.hu.