My first WOYWW - # 137

Please feel free to skip the rambling and just look at piccy's (Long long post, lots of rambling and lots of photos)

I have been reading this blog STAMPING GROUND since well before it’s First Birthday but have never taken part, I used to craft at the dinning room table so as soon as I finished at the end of each day everything had to go away so we could use it to eat dinner, so I never had anything to show, I used to go around other blogs and marvel at the spaces, (I never managed all the blogs tho even in the early days, I love Julia’s way of writing and I decided that as soon as I started blogging again that I would take part, I am not sure if I will manage every week, it depends on how unwell I am, but today I thought I would show you my crafting space – no longer am I at the table but I have my very own space, I know many people have spare bedrooms or even proper offices but here in England you have to practically be a millionaire to own a big house with spare rooms (ok I might be exaggerating a bit) but generally our homes are quite small and I am far from a millionaire so when my son went to university we discussed with him about me sharing his room, as he is hardly here (holidays only Now :-( ) I also had a long list of what storage I would like and spent many hours drooling over spaces and homemade storage but knew that I would never be able to afford any posh craft stuff so when my sister in-law had a new extension (new kitchen, dinning room and treatment room, she is a reflexologist !) she offered us her old kitchen I can tell you I almost bit her hand off and so waited patiently (well not so patiently) till they got round to removing the cupboards and hubby collected them and with a bit of hammering, sawing, and adjusting and lots of swearing lol he put them into bedroom, I was a bit unsure how it would look but knew that I wanted all the craft stuff to be able to be put away when son comes home so he has his bedroom back ‘almost’ and i can honestly say it works really well, so here are a few piccys of my space.

So I have 2 1/2 wall cupboards with doors so things can be hidden away and then a small open wall unit which is perfect for 6x6 papers, there is also a corner display unit on the end which I have some of sons medals and awards standing, oh and a small cross stitched picture I did! Under the wall cupboards is a long strip of lighting and I have to use the small daylight lamp because as you can tell there is not a window, it's at the other end of the room.

I have 4 base cupboards I don’t know if you can tell but basically they go along one wall and a little bit around the corner onto another wall, well before son went to uni he worked at a DIY store and managed to purchase the kitchen work top for £10 (can you imagine how delighted I was, I bet you can)

My Bigshot is standing on an Old Card Table that folds flat when not in use and is the perfect height and fits into the large cupboard when not in use.

I am sure you are all very fed up by now but I wanted to show the just another few pictures of my Pen storage – this is a CD holder bought from a large supermarket (S) when it was on sale for £7 and hubby bought some black mounting board and made separate compartments big enough so that all my pens can fit in even when I expand I use copics mostly but have a collection of Pro-markers a few whisper pens and various other gel pens etc..And they all fit wonderfully with space for more!!! When I am unwell and need to craft in bed (another story for another day) I use a kitchen tool holder to hold my pens and not sure of the exact cost but it was only a few pounds I wouldn’t have paid more! But again it works really well for me and I think the total cost of my craft space and storage as well as it being recycled cost us less then £50 – I have lots of little storage boxes in the cupboard and some more crafty recycled storage but I will leave that for another day.

One day I will get around to painting the doors and maybe even getting some proper craft storage, but hubby is happy I am not using the table, (and making mess, I know he just didn't understand lol) and I am soooo happy that I can leave out the things I am working on and that it works well when my son is home, even the cat is happy

If your still here Thank you for looking and I will do my very best to get around as many of your blogs as possible. And remember to leave your love for Julia over at The Stamping Ground.

Lou xx