Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Crafty organization for a small-desk drawer

I'm having another crisis of house-envy so today I'm going to brag about my desk drawers to make myself feel better about the very tiny (but cute!) space I live in.


This is the shelf that stops things falling off the right side of my desk onto the floor.  And when I say 'floor', I mean the very tiny area in front of the radiator that's just big enough to support the bottom of a very small IKEA 'Billy' shelf.  In fact, my desk, which is an IKEA slab standing on mismatched IKEA legs because that's the only way I could work around the aforementioned radiator, runs just over 3' wide and is wedged under my bedroom window between my bed, my wardrobe, and this shelf.

And yes, in fact, I do refer to this area as 'my office.'  sigh.

But that's not all it is.  It's also my sewing table... because that's the only place where my much-loved Bernina sewing machine can fit.

So: my desk is not only tiny, it has to be each of the following at the drop of a hat:
1/ bill-paying central
2/ knit design emporium
3/ writer's den
4/ sewing table
5/ bedside table
6/ papercraft zone, and
7/ um, playspace... because I seem to have a few Playmobil figures around now and they treated themselves to an RV because I read way too much Attic24 and realized that is the closest I am ever getting to my own Connievan. (hey, just be grateful I am not forcing you to sit through an RV photoshoot, even though the dishes that came with it are SO ADORABLE.)

Those drawers up on the shelf picture have to house the bits and pieces for these activities that don't logically fit into my bedroom closet - too small to store clothes in, it's where the bulk of the sewing gear lives - or the craft pocket organizer on the inside of my wardrobe door.  And up to about a month ago, it was pretty messy, but then I had an inspiration.


Isn't that tidy?

I've got my trusty red seam ripper close at hand, my sheep measuring tape from Lantern Moon, a special pin Melissa embroidered, the index cards I use for a ton of different things, my purse-ready pencilcase made from a an old cardboard cookie container, paperclips, my bunny-shaped hole punch - thank you Auntie Helen - and the all-important yellow Citroen that... okay, I also play with a car at my desk sometimes.

(but not at the same time as I'm playing with the RV because they are not even remotely the same scale.)

And now for how I did it:


Yep: recycled snack boxes with one side cut off.

I cannot tell you how many times I have gone out and bought drawer organizers only to find they don't really fit or don't work when I reconfigure my storage system, which happens every time I find I simply have to fit in some new craft activity and/or supply.  For this fix, I just walked over to the drawer every time I emptied a box to see whether it would be of use there or not, and if it was, I cut it up and put it in.  It's a small thing but honestly: getting all this stuff off my desk, and yet totally accessible and more important, easy to find, is just a huge time-saver.

Tomorrow: back to our regularly scheduled yarnfestings.  see you then!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

What a wonderful idea! It's all about loving and working with what you have, right!

Cynthia K-R in Canada said...

HI--I use metal cookie tins in many shapes and sizes as well for containing my 'stuff' in my craft and Fibber-McGee drawers. The tins usually fit into their lids, so if I ever need to move them around and NOT want all the stuff to fall out of the tins--the lids return to their places. We all have stuff, right?

Holly said...

I completely sympathize with the tiny desk that needs to be everything, I'm in the same situation.
Love what you did with your drawers, maybe one of these days I'll get around to organizing mine.