Craft Room Setup

I have a laundry/craft room.  It is long but a little narrow.   Here is what it looks like overall.

This is the entry. I have my KNK digital cutter tucked in this niche with a shelf above it that holds letter sized paper sorters. The door opens into the room, so I have floor to ceiling narrow, adjustable shelves behind the door. More on that later.

To make the best use of space, I try to keep everything I can on wheels.

Most of the time I have my tables along the wall, but if I want to really break bad on some work, I can wheel everything out and open it up.   The oak table I keep my laptop on actually is  an old sewing table that has a drop leaf on the back side.  When I open it up, it doubles my work space.

I purchased this tool chest from Costco.  It's also on wheels. 

 

 One of my favorite things about it is that I'm able to use my scoring tools (I have both the Martha Stewart brand and a Score It) while they are still in the drawer.  They are stored in the top drawer, so when I need a quick score, I just open the drawer and use it in place.

The next drawer holds my glue runners.

I have a drawer with all my cutting plates and shims for both my Big Shot and my Grand Calibur.

This drawer holds my Cinch binding machine and it's supplies.

The bottom drawer is deep enough to hold my die cutting machines.

I installed some full extension pull out shelves on the tall side.  It hold my liquid glues, glue dots, etc.  The second shelf holds my Copic Markers in their cases.  The bottom opening has my 9 inch Xyron machine in it.

I'm still arranging things in the left side drawers.  Right now it holds markers that need to be stored flat, charcoals, glue guns ect.

As you can see, I have peg boards installed along that wall with a shelf above it.  I had to work around some utility issues (breaker boxes and phone system).  My newest additions are some custom made acrylic shelves for my punches.  I was trying to get the most punches in the least amount of space.  I originally had flat 4"deep x 24 " long acrylic shelves (purchased online).  They worked pretty well, but I couldn't quite see what all the punches were at a glance.  I considered the rails that I saw a lot of people using, but having to have clearance above the punch to allow for it to be lifted off the rail seemed like a waste of precious space. I went to our local plastics company and had them make a shelf deep enough to hold my biggest punches (about six inches), but then I had them make the shelf with a 30 degree slope and a little lip.  The were made exactly as wide as that area of peg board, so not even a wasted inch!  I love them.  Don't know if you can tell much from the photos or not.  Since the shelves are on an angle, the really only stick out about 5 inches.

Squeeze Punch Storage

I have found that the most efficient storage for my squeeze punches is to put them in pvc couplers mounted to a wooden strip.  You could cut up a pvc pipe, but I was too lazy for that.  I actually mounted mine to my peg board door that covers our electric panel in my laundry/craft room.  I can't stand to see any space go to waste, so this door allows me to store some craft items but still be able to get to the electric panel quickly.  Storing the squeeze punches in the couplers this way lets me get the most storage out of the space and the punches don't go flying when I have to open the door.  I used the punch to cut out a decorative paper to stick to the coupler which identifies it spot and adds a splash of color.

Craft Storage magnet

A lot of times when I'm busy cutting with my Big Shot, I'll lose the dies in the mass of papers I have strewn about (esp. the tiny ones).  To avoid this, I mounted a magnetic strip and a magnetic sheet to the wall just above my work surface.  That way, as soon as I pull the die off my machine, I can stick it to the wall.  That gives me easy access to it when I need it (and saves me time because I'm not hunting it up).  This also works well for any picks or tweezers I'm working with.

I also tend to lose my cutting plates and shims in all the paper, so I added a stainless steel magnetic pocket strip (from the Container Store) to the wall as well.  As soon as I crank my dies through my Big Shot, I stash the cutting plates and shims in the pocket out of the way.