Sewing Room Organization - on a budget! - The supply wall

 Part 3 of the sewing room makeover!

The goal: 

**To completely reorganize everything in my room and probably move around the furniture. 

**To find a space for my new embroidery machine.

**To put up artwork and other stuff I find visually inspiring.

**To keep my room neat and tidy. I need to be able to actually find what I'm looking for.

**To have my dream sewing room!

**And do it all on a budget. Reuse or refurbish anything you can.

Next up: the dreaded sewing supply wall.

There's a lot of parts to this process so it's not quite done right now. But there's a huge great start to it!

I have a blank wall which I decided is going to be the home for my small dry erase board which I will keep tabs on what supplies are getting low. Along with getting my ribbons, lace and various other trims and patterns up there as well. 

So first things first. Gotta map out what's going where. OK done. Easy part over.

 

 Now let's get this stuff up on the walls!

 

Got the dry erase board up, nothing really to say about that part. 

What I decided to use for the ribbon racks was one of those CD towers. It had been unused for years and just taking up space in my corner. So I took it apart, put some screws in the wall and hug the 2 pieces up there.  

I tended to stuff my trims in any container or bag I could find. Which was never very efficient when trying to find something. 

I have these rotating cup holder things. I had gotten them at Costco years ago with the intention for this. But never got them into the cups and never got the devices up on the wall. Until now! How they're color coded and organized by style!

A few years back I started putting all my patterns into labeled ziplock bags. Which was great, but since I start a new pattern bags for every different pincushion I make, I have close to 100 bags, I had no where to put them so I could easily find which one I needed. 

 

Decided I needed them up on a wall with clips so I can easily detach which one I need. So a PVC pipe will do. Though I see I need to get a third middle brace as well but that's an easy fix. 

 

Getting the actual devices/racks up on the wall wasn't too bad, but trying to sort through years of supplies and properly organize them was not. 

Price tally:

**2 office paper dividers/Felt dividers - saved from the trash - $0

**Hanging shoe divider - $6.00 

 **Oatmeal containers/Pipe cleaner organizer - counting those as free since I ate all the oatmeal $0
**Paper towel rolls/Pipe cleaner organizer - also counting as free $0

**CD tower/Ribbon racks - already had - $0

**Rotating cups/Trim organizer - already had - $0
**PVC piping and random screws, nails, supports - $7.00

**Dry erase board - $4.00

New Spring Themed Fat Cat Pincushions: gardener, flower heads, hula dancer and frog costume

My sewing room has been full of activity lately! Along with working on the room redesign, I've also gotten a bunch of new spring themed Fat Cat pincushions completed. All my felt pincushion are handmade by me and from my own patterns. They stand approximately 5.5 inches (14 cms) tall and measure approximately 11 inches (28 cms) around the bellies.

First up: Gardener Cat!

This gray cat is ready for gardening in her blue jeans, lavender shirt, green apron, tan sun hat and purple gloves. She carries her trusty shovel and precious pot of yellow flowers with her.

Flower Head Cats!

These brightly colored cats are celebrating spring by wearing a big flowers on their faces.

Hula Dancer Cat!

This tan cat is ready for dancing in her grass skirt adorned with multicolored flowers, coconut bra and lei. She wears a flower by her right ear, which means she's single!

And last for now, Frog Costume Cat!

This caramel cat is showing his froggy love by wearing his two-tone green frog suit complete with hood, big eyes and frog feet.

 All these cat pincushions can be viewed or purchased in my Etsy shop: CLICK HERE

Tell us which Fat Cat is your favorite in the comments!

And there are still more to come throughout the rest of this month! Queen bees, Uncle Sam, George Washington, Betsy Ross with flag and and some special ones for shark week! 

Sewing Room Organization - on a budget! - The pipe cleaners

Part 2 of the sewing room makeover!

The goal: 

**To completely reorganize everything in my room and probably move around the furniture. 

**To find a space for my new embroidery machine.

**To put up artwork and other stuff I find visually inspiring.

**To keep my room neat and tidy. I need to be able to actually find what I'm looking for.

**To have my dream sewing room!

**And do it all on a budget. Reuse or refurbish anything you can.

Next up: the pipe cleaner area.

For some reason, I've acquired a ton of pipe cleaners in various colors and sizes. I do use some pipe cleaners in my Fat Cat pincushion designs, but nowhere as many as what I have. So I needed some sort of storage case and/or divider. My overflowing boxes were no longer working. 

So as I was pouring my oatmeal out of my container one day, a brilliant idea filled my mind. OATMEAL CONTAINERS!! Since I eat oatmeal everyday I have a ton of empty containers in my recycling bag. Plus I eat a lot of it so I'll get more empty ones soon. Oatmeal containers are going to be the base for my pipe cleaner case. Now how to separate the different colors and sizes? And what's something I already have? Empty paper towel rolls! 5 rolls fit nicely in an oatmeal container. Yay! I figured out the first part!

Now where will they go? Putting them on a shelf will take up space but it's doable. But I saw that I had a bit of space in between my two shelving units.

 

What would fit in there? I bet one of those hanging shoe dividers would! And it did! And an oatmeal container fits perfectly in a cube! Wow, this is all working out pretty nicely! 

So with some extra PVC piping, a brace was made to hold it in between the two shelving units.

 

 

And I'm going to have some extra space on the bottom so I threw in my few skeins of yarn I have. 

Though ignore everything to the right of that - I haven't gotten to that part of the room yet...

So far this is turning out pretty easy! And I feel so accomplished. Though the next part will be challenging: the ribbon/trim and pattern wall. Stay tuned! 

Price tally:

**2 office paper dividers saved from the trash - $0

**Hanging shoe divider - $6.00 

 **Oatmeal containers - I'm counting those as free since I ate all the oatmeal
**Paper towel rolls - also counting as free

 

Sewing Room Organization - on a budget! - The felt fabric corner

I'm happy to report that I'm FINALLY starting on my sewing room redesign! 

The goal: 

**To completely reorganize everything in my room and probably move around the furniture. 

**To find a space for my new embroidery machine.

**To put up artwork and other stuff I find visually inspiring.

**To keep my room neat and tidy. I need to be able to actually find what I'm looking for.

**To have my dream sewing room!

**And do it all on a budget. Reuse or refurbish anything you can.

First up, the felt fabric area! And I'm only talking about the 9 x 12 sheets of felt, not the ones cut off the bolt. Those I have hanging in my closet. But these sheets now have taken on a life of their own. It started out not too bad since I didn't have too many colors. So I just made something out of those metal cube things. 

But that fast became not too convenient anymore. 

So I got a scrapbooking tower, which proved perfect...for awhile. 

But then I got more colors and didn't have enough shelves or width in those shelves. 

And then comes my sister to the rescue who saved these 2 office paper dividers from the trash! Mine!

 See the huge pile of fabric on top? Yeah, I'm a fabric hoarder and I'm OK with that.

And they turned out to be the perfect fit for my felts!! All colors can be separated with plenty of room in each space for lots of sheets. And I still have some free spaces on the last 7 or so slots that I just filled with random patterned sheets that I've never used, but were too fun not to buy. 

Perfect size fabric organizer that are free! What can be better than that??

Price tally:

**2 office paper dividers saved from the trash - $0

Off to a good start!