Crafting In Small Spaces

In my blog reading travels I have come across many wonderful creators and artists. One of my favorite things is when they show off their glorious craft rooms. With Beautiful sewing tables, shelves of fabric all neat and color coordinated, ample work space, and above all expertly decorated. Now all these things are great and wonderful, but not all of us have entire rooms to dedicate to our art. A while back I started thinking about showing my spaces, but was a little frightened at the state they were in. So yesterday I set to work on my crafting closet, where I keep all things craft related. Seeing as we live in a 2 bedroom and have very limited space, so my "craft closet" is actually in ou Master bedroom where our clothing and shoes have to live too. Some people might be embarrassed to put their closets on the Internet, but me I don't mind. Anything that could possibly help make another crafty mama feel comfortable in her small space I'm all for.

M put a metal shelf in there for me to house all my fabric and other sewing notions. You can see how multi-purpose our bedroom is with Ms drum set to the side.
I usually try to buy only what I need for a project if at all possible. The only reason I have so much extra fabric and some extra yarn is b/c they were gifts. My mother is a compulsive shopper so I get whatever doesn't get used after several years. I have my knitting, paints and buttons on the top so that little hands can't get to them.
I have scrapbooking stuff on the bottom, felts and other scraps on the next row up. The boxes on the side are not in the best of shape those too were pass ons from my mom as well. They are filled with material to repurpose, jeans, shirts, old dresses and such.
Off to the side are my beading, stamping and other miscellaneous stuff in the box. I have candle making equipment and supplies and my dying bucket on top of that. Also there's my basket full of patterns and some jars for I'm not sure what.

Well, that's my small space, I didn't include a picture of the place where I actually sew, but soon I will. It's pretty much an old dining room table with the sides down in the corner of my living room. I can turn it sideways and put up one or both of the sides when I want to cut something out. I use it as both my desk and sewing table. I usually have my laptop, one speaker and my sewing machine on it.

M and I believe very much in simplicity. We try to make this belief a part of our everday life. I love the fact that we make it work in a 1000sq ft 2 bedroom home. I get a great sense of pride thinking about all the things I love in our small space and how our personality shows throughout. We have given up a lot of "stuff" that we or others thought that we needed in order to have room for the things we really love. I have room for my crafting, my hubbies drumming, our homeschooling books and a small backyard for my kids to play in. Now occassionly I do have my moments were I'm really wishing for a garage for Ms drumset or a larger yard so I can a have a veggie garden and some chickens. I just have to keep myself focused and remember what's really important to us, M getting his nursing degree and me staying home with the my children.