Colourful craft room tour: before

This room is a little bit of a funny shape, because of the chimney breast and the old airing cupboard in the corner. We couldn’t really do anything removing them, so it made sense to work around it. My wardrobe has always been in this room, so I decided to turn the existing cupboard into a built-in wardrobe. Next to this I wanted as much shelf space as possible, which would fit nicely into the alcove gaps. So I got out my masking tape and worked out where I wanted them to go:

Not the prettiest photos (awful wallpaper – we hadn’t decorated this room at all after buying the house!). But marking it out like this was really helpful I calculated the depth and width of each one around some storage boxes from IKEA, which meant that I could maximise storage space. As part of the shelving wall, I also wanted a mini desk for my computer. We have a similar thing in our living room from when my computer was down there, and it’s really handy.

Colourful craft room tour: starting work

To get the shelves exactly as I wanted meant that we had them custom made. This isn’t the cheapest option, but we got the same guy who did our living room shelves to build these too, and so we knew they would be good and give me the storage I need. I’ve had various shelving arrangements over the years, and they were all fine at the time but these need to be super strong and different depths. Working around that cupboard wasn’t going to be easy either. You can’t really tell from the photos, but we painted the ceiling and the other walls white before the shelves went in (there was no point in painting this one as it would be covered up). Our joiner Graeme did a brilliant job making the shelves on our extremely wonky walls, and it looks amazing!

So the final thing to do was to get it all painted, which we did ourselves. Because the shelves are made from MDF, we used the not-so-quick-drying satinwood in white. I like the look of this paint because it isn’t too shiny – but it takes a while between coats so that the MDF doesn’t warp. And it’s a bit stinky! Once it was touch dry, we had to leave it for about a week to make sure it had completely dried. Then the fun of moving things in could begin!

Colourful craft room tour: after

So now we’ve got to the colourful bit of the colourful craft room tour!

The space works perfectly for me – I’ve been organising things since the beginning of the year and I’m so happy with it. The flexibility is working out really well with this desk from IKEA – the trestle bottoms are great for storage, so I keep my sewing thread boxes there. We also have a sofa bed from John Lewis in this gorgeous teal colour, so that the room can easily be turned into a bedroom again when we have visitors. The desk top isn’t attached so it’s easily stored whilst the bed is up, and my little IKEA trolley can easily be move out of the way.

I have a mix of different sizes of boxes for ultimate storage – the bottom two rows are for large boxes, with medium-sized ones just above that. There was a little bit of space in an alcove next to the wardrobe, so that was designed around my smallest boxes. I have 10 of these to maximise space, which is great for keeping little things in.

These magazine files are really useful for storing things – I wrote a blog post about how to cover them a few years back (which you can find here).

This is my desk space, and it’s just what I wanted! I use the table or sit on the sofa to craft things, so this is where I do any other blog or shop admin. I’ve decorated it with happy prints and little things I’ve got from indie makers I’ve purchased from. You can also just see my Pantone colour chart curtains, which add a whole lot of colour to my room!

Super-handy letter board from The Room Alive and gorgeous felt ball garland from For Mama and Baba. Rainbow rug in the next picture is by Little Bird and I love the contrast of the rainbow against the teal sofa. It’s an extra fun pop of colour!

My colourful hoop wall

My hoop wall is one of my favourite things about my room. It’s a lovely way to display my work but also to support other talented indie makers too. I’ve added a few more things to it since taking these photos, so head over to @hellohoorayblog on Instagram as I’ve shared them there. The details for some of these are below (L-R on photo below):

Good vibes hoop and pastel enamel pin holder hoop from hellohoorayshop

Wooly girl hoop is a personal project

Spider pin from gildedcreatures (hoop is personal project)

LOVE hoop stitched from pattern by Brynn&Co (click here to read my post about it)

I love tea banner from hannahdoodle

Felt colour wheel hoop from hellohoorayshop

Tea helps hoop from ohmygollyembroidery

Small wreath hoop from GeorgieKEmery (which I won on Instagram!)

Hello banner from CottonClara

Retro floral hoop which I designed for Bibelot Magazine – find the tutorial here

Future craft room plans

On the other side of my craft room (for now) are my wardrobe and chest of drawers. This is just temporary until we get the rest of our extension done and they can move out into the new bedroom – we’re keeping everything crossed that we can get that done soon! Once they are gone, I’ll add peg boards to the wall for more storage and I have another IKEA trestle table for extra workspace. Yay!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my colourful craft room tour! I am working on a related post about being organised and crafting when you don’t have a craft room, so look out for that on the blog over the next few weeks. How do you organise your craft supplies? Let me know in the comments below!

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Measuring up

I wanted to make the most of as much of the print as possible. When I came up with the idea of curtains, I thought that this would be the perfect project for it! I measured up, and worked out that the panel pieces weren’t quite big enough for the drop. I didn’t have quite enough money in the budget to buy enough to make all of the curtains in this fabric, so considered making panels of white at the top and bottom to fit my window. I ordered 4 panels of the Pantone fabric (although 3 was enough in the end), and some white Kona cotton. It made sense to use this, because that’s what the Pantone fabric is printed on.

Before I made them, I was a bit worried that this would look a bit weird (and that I wouldn’t be able to make it look very straight), but I actually think that they look better with the white. It seems to set off the panels a bit more. Yay!

Making the curtains

This post isn’t really a ‘how to make curtains’ post, but I thought I’d share a few photos and tips from my making process in case you decide to make your own! The fabric from Spoonflower comes printed in one pice, so the first thing to do was to separate each colour chart. I used a rotary cutter and a quilting ruler to do this really carefully. Take your time with this bit to avoid accidentally cutting off any of the writing!

After measuring up, I decided to cut one panel in half so that each curtain would be one and a half panels wide. I matched the pieces as if the next chart was starting next to it, so the half piece is on the outer edge of each curtain. It took a little while to make sure that they were in the right place! Patience is key with pattern matching this fabric, but it’s worth the effort. Once I’d done the, I pinned and then stitched together (in two rows to make it really secure), trimming get seam allowances.

Once the pieces were attached, I measured out some strips of white fabric to attach to the top and bottom. The finished depth of each needed to be 18cm, so I cut 22cm to allow for joining and hems. I had intended to do one long strip of white along the bottom, but I messed up my maths! I ended up with a strip the same size as the panel, so had to add another half on the end (don’t ask – maths is not my strong point, that’s why I’m not a quilter!). Again, I thought this would look a bit weird, but it’s fine and I actually think that they hang alright so that’s the main thing!

Once stitched, it just needed a good press before I could attach the lining. I just used a cheap white polyester cotton lining for these curtains. I didn’t want them to be too bulky, as I need lots of light in my craft room!

Putting the curtains together

Once I had attached the lining I could add the curtain tape. To work out the bottom hem, I hung up the curtains and pinned the bottom hem before stitching. To be honest, I ended up doing most of this by eye in the end. I often work this way because it seems to be more accurate than my measuring…! As I said earlier, this isn’t a ‘how to make curtains’ post because it’s a bit complicated in many ways, depending on your window size and the kind of curtains you want to make. There’s a really useful post here about thinking about curtain types and a step-by-step guide based on that. There is also a helpful post on the Spoonflower blog about making curtains too.

Ta-dah!

I know I say this about LOTS of my projects, but I am so pleased with how my Pantone colour chart curtains turned out! They look even better than I hoped they would. Yay! And I actually have one more panel left that I didn’t use…so I’ll have to have a think about how I use that. If you have a go at making something with this amazing fabric, let me know in the comments below. I’d love to see all your colourful creations!

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I decided that I’d make a quilted cover, so chose some white fabric for the inside lining – it didn’t really need to be jazzy because no-one will see the inside! For the binding I picked out the pale aqua colour to co-ordinate, and got myself a bias binding-making tool too.

The first thing that I did was measure my machine with its plastic cover on – I measured from the middle of the front to the back, and then the width of the front. I also measured the width and height of the side. When I had the measurements I drew out some templates on craft paper, and to get the shape of the side pieces just right I drew around the side of the cover.

Once the templates were cut out, I then cut out all the pieces of fabric and wadding. I layered up the side pieces first and then pinned them together.

I tried out my quilting guide attachment for the first time today, and it’s brilliant for sewing evenly. I haven’t used it before because I’ve only ever used thicker polyester wadding, and not this thinner cotton wadding. I love the thinner stuff – it’s much easier to sew with! I decided to stitch between every other row after experimenting on some scrap pieces.

Once I had quilted the side pieces, I did the same with the large rectangular piece. This larger piece needed more pins to keep it all together, but I quilted it in the same way.

Once all three pieces were quilted, I pinned them (wrong sides together) before stitching. To make the cover fit a little better, I trimmed the excess afterwards.

The final thing to do was to make and attach the bias binding. The tool was really easy to use and it didn’t take as long as I thought! I also got a binding attachment for my machine, but I could not get the hang of it at all when I practised using it…so to save making a complete mess of my cover, I just pressed the binding in half and pinned and stitched it on.

Ta-dah!

I’m so glad that I chose this fabric – it certainly brightened up a very gloomy day today! Hopefully I’ll be able to sew dust free from now on…

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I bought these wooden drawers months ago, and did a little blog post about them at the time with my idea to do them up. This year really has flown by – when I looked for the original post, I was really surprised to find that it was in January! So, it’s October and I’ve finally got around to doing it! The insides of the drawers had been painted but they were a bit dusty (maybe done with chalk paint?), and because I want to use them to store haberdashery bits and pieces I thought that I’d be able to line them.

I chose some pretty scrapbooking papers to line each one. The first job was to measure up and make a template – harder than it sounds, as each drawer is slightly different, but I managed to make a ‘one-size-fits-all’ pattern!

When the pieces were cut out I used some glue on each piece to stick them in, starting with the sides. I didn’t put glue right to the top, but used some double-sided sticky tape along the tops to make sure that the paper really sticks well.

Once all of the drawers were lined, I left them for a few hours to dry (this also gave me time to decide what would go in each drawer!). I measured out some pieces of card for labels and then used some rubber stamps to stamp each one. Ta-dah!

I’m really pleased with how they turned out I actually found a larger set not so long ago, and I’m planning to do the same with those ones too! Photos to follow…when I get around to it!

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