A Shared Craft Space with Nathalie DeSousa

Hi there! It’s Nathalie with you today to share a few snapshots of my craft room! We are lucky to own a large apartment in the city of Toronto. So, my craft room, like many of you, is part of a communal area of my home.  Though I dream about having a space of my own for my crafts (maybe once the kids move out!), I enjoy sharing the space with my family and having everything at hand. However, this also means that I have to keep things organized and be inventive in how I store things!

Let me first show you what you will always find on my workspace, which is my dining room table. I keep a daily journal, so I need to have stamps, ephemera and stickers at hand. For this, I converted an old melamine Rae Dunn Halloween tray into an everyday caddy.  The spaces in the tray are perfect to store all of my most used products, and I am able to stack the small trays inside the tray when I am done working.

Though I try my best to keep a clean and neat work area, there is always a craft aftermath! Thankfully my husband installed an Ikea shelf system next to the dining room table where I am able to store my stamps, paper, and a few tools, the ones that get a lot of use.

The secret to keeping organized in a small space is finding ways to store your products so that they are accessible, yet not at plain sight. A few years ago, I converted one of our bookcases into a storage unit. The deep drawers allow me to keep my machines at hand without taking space in our living area.

This bookcase is also an old IKEA system with a combination of drawers and large glass doors on top. In order to have my materials look appealing and as part of the overall look of the apartment, I have chosen fun mugs and containers to store my mixed media products. As you can see, I have a deep love for Boston Terrier mugs!

There are a few things that are hard to keep behind glass, such as glazes. My solution is finding tins that hold the bottles in place. This one holds most of my Vicki Boutin glazes. I have made it a custom to add a dab of any new medium to the top of the lids, this has helped when taking things off the shelf, and when the kids are helping around.

Here is another example of using containers to help my stash organized. I purchased these bins at my local craft store to hold my embroidery floss collection.  Having them in a color-coded container helps to find the right color quickly and also to replenish them easily.

I hope these few snapshots of my craft space have given you a few ideas for organizing your workspace, too!  Though it may not be the craft room we all dream of, I would not change having to share it with my family!  

~ Nathalie