Carol Duvall, host of HGTV's The Carol Duvall Show, visited producer Linda Watson's craft room and discovered lots of ideas for keeping craft supplies organized and stored. Storing That Stuff I have long wanted to take a camera to producer Linda Watson's craft room, the room where she does all of her crafting and stores all of her craft supplies. The letter from viewer Linda Gholson-Hoffine of Palm Harbor, Florida, gave me the perfect reason. Florida Linda sent photos of her work space along with her cry, "Help! My room runneth over! I am a very involved (as in totally) crafts and sewing person. I am sending you these photos in high hopes that you will do a show on storing and organizing your craft materials." It couldn't have been more perfect. Not only are both of our heavy-duty crafters named Linda, but both of them use their bedrooms as their base of operations! The only real difference is that Florida Linda shares her craft/storage/bedroom with a husband, and California Linda shares hers with two large dogs! California Linda has the most totally organized storage system I have ever seen, so we took some pictures and shared some of her ideas with the hope that they will help not only Florida Linda but many more of you as well, even if you don't have to use your bedroom as your workplace. Linda Watson's Storage Secrets Around her room Linda has placed several shelves constructed from elbow brackets and boards, which she either painted or covered with adhesive-backed paper. These are placed high up and are used to store or display seldom-used materials (figure A). Flat-backed baskets with handles, hanging shelves held up with ribbon, etc., can all be stored on the walls. Linda uses ribbons in so many of her projects that she has enough to open her own ribbon store! Many of the ribbons are stored on dowels placed horizontally in the closet. Others hang on a length of cording with a knot at the bottom to prevent the ribbon spool from sliding off (figure B). Offray® also has a hanging ribbon holder on the market that was made to hang from the clothes rod in a closet. Metal shelves in the workroom make very respectable-looking bookshelves when covered. Linda used black-and-white-checked Con-Tact® paper to cover hers (figure C). Paintbrushes, scissors, tweezers, sponge brushes, etc., in Linda's room are kept neatly together by putting them in baskets, boxes and other receptacles (figure D). To prevent these smaller items from getting all jumbled together, she makes dividers, some of which are merely bathroom-tissue cardboard cores placed upright side by side (figure E). Others are made of foam board cut to the shape of the container and linked together. A slit is cut in the lengthwise pieces, halfway up from the bottom, and then in the crosswise pieces from the top down so that the pieces fit together (figure F). Linda made hanging holders for all those felt-tipped markers that have 2"-wide tips by cutting holes in a piece of 1/2"-thick foam board and pushing the markers through from the top. The whole board is then hung on the wall (figure G). Many plastic shoeboxes and other storage containers are kept on top of Linda's bed along with the container holding brushes and scissors. These are placed on a large tray so that moving everything off the bed can be done in one motion (figure H). Some of Linda's most frequently used rubber stamps are housed in a divided boxtop hanging on the wall, but the vast majority of stamps are kept in plastic-box frames. To make these stack easily and securely, she cut many 1" squares of 1/8"-thick plastic, and glued one in each corner, placing each square 1/8" in from the outside corner. The adhesive was Plastix® glue by Loctite (figure I). To make on-the-bed crafting easier, Linda uses CraftSpace® by Eagle as her work surface and a June Tailor® board for cutting and pressing.
RESOURCES :
Plastic repair
Manco Inc. / Loctite
Avon, OH 44011
Phone: Private
Website: www.manco.com or www.loctite.com
Ribbon holders
Lion Ribbon Co. / C.M. Offray & Son Inc.
Website: www.offray.com
Portable crafting surface
Manco Inc. / Loctite
Avon, OH 44011
Phone: Private
Website: www.manco.com or www.loctite.com
Cutting and pressing boards
June Tailor Inc.
Richfield, WI 53076
Phone: 414-644-5288
Fax: 414-644-5061
Email: tailor@nconnect.net
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