A Few Organizing Ideas from the Whimsie Dots Studio...

The space that I work in is always in flux, it seems. Since the materials I work with are ever changing, coming up with storage solutions needs to be as well. I thought I would share just a few ideas of how I store the materials I work with. Getting to this point has been a gradual process over the years. Acquiring the right shelving and containers has not happened overnight. A lot of the time, it has been trial and error to see if something works. But I have given the area of storage some of my energy because if it is done right, it does in fact save me time when designing new items as well as aiding in the clean up. "The hunt" for the right colors or textures for projects is not so daunting but in fact has become a joy. The area I will show today is strictly recycled wool that is used in the making of mittens, hats, pillows, brooches etc that I sell. I have winded down the "winter" creations for awhile, but have been able to get prepared for when it arrives again.

These shelves originally were used in our playroom, but as the kiddos have been growing older, so have their toys-and I have now inherited these shelves. They were just simple shelf kits we purchased at menards for $20. The open shelving, I have found to be much more productive than crates-having everything at eye level helps in the choosing. And for those of you who have not been following me long-I should share-my "studio" is simply in part of our unfinished basement. These shelves are lining my laundry room area-nothing fancy:) But like I have mentioned before-the fact that the basement is unfinished means that I am never buried in a room working- I have the blessing of being around the kids while I work. So while I may be "distracted" sometimes I am never "unavailable" :).

As a matter of fact, at this moment, my wee ones are sitting at the cutting table with me working on "colors" for the 3 yr old and on "letter sounds and penmanship" for my kindergartener.

For the wool scraps I use for embellishment on my hats and mittens as well as for making brooches, I have finally seperated them out by color. I used to have them all in a big bin and was finding it extremely difficult and time consuming to gather the pieces I needed for projects. Over Christmas when we were all couped up with the flu, I took some of that time to sort(which was awful!!) but how incredibly wonderful the result has been. I have each color in a little laundry basket under my shelves.

And here is one more little organizing or storage idea that I am using right now. I took some regular old clothes pins and hot glued them to my shelves. The are wonderful for clipping my finished mittens and brooches to.