Rubber Room Renovation

Last time I posted photos of my stampin' space was right after the New Year in 2008. Since then I have made some more improvements, but never took the time to take photos and post. Over this past week I've spent most of my time in my room, BUT unfortunately NOT to stamp. With the new color renovation and the new catalog starting soon it was the kick in the butt I needed to get re-organized. While my room is still clean, I took some photos and thought I'd share my hard work with you.

Last time I posted photos of my room I ended with this comment: "The good news is...I got my things put back into place and made room to sit and stamp at my desk. The bad news is...when I sit down and look ahead, this is what I see. (insert photo of messy closet)" If you want to see my messy room photos, and what my room looked like before my latest improvements, click here.

Since I ended last time sitting at my clean desk staring at my messy closet, I'm starting with my new and improved view of my now organized closet. (you can click on any of the pics below if you want to see them enlarged)

When you walk into the closet, on the right are my collection of stamps. The overflowing shelving unit on the left are most of my retired stamps and on the right are most of the current sets in my collection. Notice that there is now some room for new stamps! ;-) (I have another couple smaller shelves near my desk where I keep my backgrounds, sentiments and alphabets...so they are within easy reach)

On the left side of my closet are these plastic stacking drawer units. I stamped the labels with Eastern Blooms to make them look prettier. These hold mostly non-SU stuff craft supplies.

My friend was moving a few years ago and gave me this awesome paper rack that she had acquired from a scrapbook store. I use it to store most of my card stock. I can fit 3 packs per shelf. I used to have this out in the main room, but I like it much better in the closet. This also helps keep the paper out of direct sunlight.

Here is a full view of my room standing in the doorway looking in.

On this side of the room the biggest improvement I made since my last room post was the rod for my punches. I store the ones I use the most on the rod and the rest are stored in this wire rack on wheels next to my desk. This rack also holds the wheel handles and some of the wheels. My big old oak desk isn't very attractive (mostly due to the previous owners attempt to add a faux finish) but it is nice and sturdy and holds a lot of stuff. I love the pull outs...especially the little shelf to my right which holds my stampin' scrub. Someday I will re-paint or perhaps strip it down to it;s natural oak. (the front was never painted and that part I like.)

Next to the punches is a holder I made for some of my most used embellishments. I took a metal sheet (not sure where it came from originally, but had it hanging around) covered it with some cute Razzleberry Lemonade paper, punched holes in the top with my Crop-a-dile and ran celery ribbon through the holes as a hanger. I glued magnets to the back of my embellishment containers and now they are at my finger tips.

My very favorite storage piece I have is for my ink storage. I bought these on line several years ago by a company called Dzyntec. Unfortunately they have since gone out of business. The four units sit on a lazy susan so it it easy to grab colors as needed. I printed up myself some little cards listing the inks by the color collection so that I can get used to what color goes where.

This is the biggest improvement I made to my room since last time. I removed the drafting table, moved my paper rack into the closet and scooted my bookshelf down the wall and added these great stackable cubes.

I'll share more photos of this side of my room tomorrow. Now time to go mess it up some! Enjoy your day!