Fabric Deliciousness (& Storage!)

When I was a kid, I had a Charlie Brown book called Happiness is a Warm Puppy.  Every page started with "Happiness is..." and ended with something awesome.  Like a warm blanket.  Or an umbrella and rainboots.  Anyway, I think the point was to enjoy the small pleasures in life, so I want to share one of mine...

Upstairs in the room I refer to as my studio, I make things. Christmas is coming, and these things I make make great gifts, so lately I've been making A LOT of them. Which means things like this happen:

(AKA bliss in yummy fabric form*)

Just having all these pieces cut and laid out ready to sew makes me very happy. Having the space to work this way - even happier!

(*wondering what those rows of fabrics turned into?  Many of them are hanging out right here)

A long time ago, I posted a little studio organization project I completed, and promised to post pics of my fabric storage... Well, it happens to be fairly neat right now, so here you go!

This is an antique piece my family used to use as a cabinet in our dining room.  Usually I'm more into 'vintage' than 'antique', but this cupboard works really well for storing lots of pretty fabric in plain sight.  (I also love that it has room on top to store all my shipping supplies!).  And yes, it's upside down, but it's been used that way for as long as I can remember - and personally, I get more storage out of it like this!

Unfortunately, it's still not sufficient for storing the ever-growing collection of a fabric hoarder like me...

it's a sickness, people! There really should be some kind of a 12 step program for this! 

As you can see, the bottom shelf of my rolling rack is full, too.  I've gotta say, though, even on a makeshift shelf like this the sight of such fabric abundance makes me happy. :D

As Charlie Brown might say, "Happiness is.... many organized stacks of yummy fabric!"

Organization Makes Me Giddy

There's one room in my house that I end up spending most of my time in, and I'm pretty sure I haven't posted any pictures of it yet (it's late, or I'd check). It's my studio, it's the largest bedroom upstairs, and if you're wondering what it is that I DO in there, have a look over yonder
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Anyway, it's a work-in-progress (aren't they all!?), so I'm not ready to show off the whole thing yet, but I couldn't wait to show my latest bit of organizing/thrifting/DIY awesomeness. But first, let's get the 'Before' mess over with quickly, bandaid-style:


Ugh. Ok, that's all you're getting, and I insist you forget you ever saw that. My propensity for making (or attempting to make) practically everything, means I have A LOT of stuff. And up until recently, no place to put it all.


Now check this out! The two white bookshelves were an absolute SCORE from Kijiji (I showed up expecting to buy just one, it turned out that they had two after all, and I got the two of them for just the $15 I'd planned to pay for only one).

As a side note, for those of you in the US: do you have Kijiji? I only ever see Americans talk about Craigslist...

Anyway, they were in great shape, but since I'm apparently not one to be happy with plain white shelves, I lined the backs of them in this cool 'formica'-like stuff that looks like bamboo (formica=weird, I know. But it was relatively cheap, easy to work with, and I love the look of it!):

(and no, I don't typically store placemats and stemware in my studio. I use these random objects as photo props, and my business cards are just in the glass because I think they look cool)


The fun stripe-y pegboard is super functional, but it's also practical: shelves all the way along that wall would've made for a tight squeeze trying to walk around my extra large work surface that's almost as wide as the room. This way I still get the storage, but it doesn't take up any floor space. (The stripes weren't for function, though. Just like the bamboo stuff lining the shelves, they're there because I think they make it more interesting, and because I can't leave well enough alone.)

Anyway, that's it for now. Maybe next time I'll show you how I store my ridiculous fabric stash. :)