My New Craft Room!

After almost a year and a half in this apartment, I am so excited to finally have a space specifically for working on crafts! No, it's not really a room, more like a craft corner carved out of our dining room. I love being creative, but since we need our dining table for 3 meals a day and school work, I was rarely if ever pulling out any of my crafting things. My scrapbooks are shamefully behind, and then when we found out in July we were having our first baby girl I suddenly decided I wanted to start sewing again! There had to be a solution.

I decided the best place to squeeze out some space was in our dining room, where we spend the majority of our time anyway. So I rearranged my computer desk and our big chest freezer, and in October we bought a used 6-ft. rectangular dining table at the Salvation Army. Right after Joanna was born Jeremy put up shelving for me. After about 3 weeks of having to look at my hodge-podge of plastic shoe boxes, baskets, and random piles of supplies gracing said shelves, I thought I might go nuts if I didn't neatly organize all of it. So we went to Ikea and bought a bunch of black boxes with lids. They hold everything in a nice, neatly labeled manner and I still have room for more stuff! This is important when you have a newly-discovered addiction for cute fabrics AND a girly-girl scrapbook to start!

So, here it is. I don't expect it to look this neat most of the time, but I do expect that I'll be creating all sorts of wonderful things here!


The filing cabinet and the small stack of wooden shelves resting on it will be leaving shortly! The water isn't exactly crafty, but we don't have anywhere else to store it. It's our week's supply of emergency water. The artwork was donated by Jordan and Jonathan.


Since I'm making a crafty post, I'm taking the opportunity to show off a few of the things I made while waiting for little Joanna to make her appearance. The first is a baby cocoon and matching hat I made on the knifty knitter. The huge flower is a pin I found in a trim shop in the fashion district.


A taggie blanket that was supposed to be her first Christmas present, but I never wrapped it up. I think I'll still call it her first Christmas present. After all, she wouldn't have been able to open it anyway! It's minkee dots on one side and satin on the other.


This is a blanket I crocheted for her. It's a variegated yarn called "pink camo" that was really cute in the skein, but I didn't love it as it came together as a blanket. I added the solid pink ruffle later and now I like it better, although I still don't love it. Maybe someday Joanna will.


These were my first (and only) attempt at booties. The pattern is super-easy and I think they're pretty cute, but they don't stay on her feet at all. Oh, well!


Here's my favorite thing I've ever sewn so far...her quilt. It's my first ever quilt, and I'm quite proud of it! I think it turned out really well. I already have plans (and some of the fabrics) to make Josiah a quilt this year. Maybe eventually all the boys will have one as well...we'll see! I think this could become addicting!


I can't wait to see what fun things I get done this year now that I have my craft space. I'm sure I'll keep you posted!