Reclaimed, Revamped & Reinvented Craft Studio Storage Solutions

Last month I conquered cleaning my studio, this month I am determined to get it organized. I am finding the key to getting organized is finding the right storage solution for the right job. Sure I have just as many clear plastic bins as the next guy, but I have a few other fun things helping me sort my craft supplies. Like for instance this vintage wooden soda crate holding all my craft paint. Used to hold magazines, but not anymore.


Why would I let this blue beauty hide in the bottom of a silverware drawer when it could be out loud and proud holding my paintbrushes and paint markers.


This drawer started life holding meat in a fridge, wound up in the trash where I found it, lived as a planter in my yard for years and is now holding swag in my studio.


Down the shelf from the meat drawer is a weenie dog butter dish and a lime green planter now reclaimed as office tools.


As mentioned in Operation Craft Space Clean Up Volume 4 I transformed a couple of old TV trays into a magnet board.


Directly above my spiffy new magnet boards lives a myriad of reinvented office storage solutions. I love using vintage kitchen tins around my office. A children's tin toy washing machine holds pens and my metal files. You might recall my wallpaper covered tin and customized ice cream carton which now sit on a shelf and hold random odds and ends.


I told ya, I love those old kitchen containers.


An unusual item in my studio soon to be replaced is the old door I revamped into a work table with the help of some pink Ikea table legs.


Underneath my worktable lives my suitcase storage. Some of the suitcases are studios to go when I teach classes, others hold vintage cookbooks and postcards one is the lap top case I made.


Old teapots and cookie jars without lids make great storage solutions for colored pencils and pens. How could I pass up the groovy ice bucket that probably made cocktails at a key party? It now holds office supplies on my desk.


In my search for perfect studio organization I am eyeballing a few books. Got any favorites on the topic I should look into?

First up is Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Making Art by Rice Freeman-Zachery. This book intrigues me because it looks like more than a book with just pictures of studio spaces. I gather there are plenty of styduio spaces to look at, but also tips and tricks about how to find the time create.

Next on my short list is Art Making & Studio Spaces: Unleash Your Inner Artist: An Intimate Look at 31 Creative Work Spaces by Lynne Perrella. I have Lynne's book Alphabetica: An A-Z Creativity Guide for Collage and Book Artists (Quarry Book) so from my experience thus far I'd like to think this would be a good book. 31 different studios to snoop through does sound good!

There is not one, but two versions of the next book. First there is the original Where Women Create: Inspiring Work Spaces of Extraordinary Women by Jo Packham. I have blogged about Jo before because she featured my bathroom and old living room in her book Kitschy Crafts: A Celebration of Overlooked 20th-Century Crafts. I have actually flipped through this book before. There is a part 2 to this book coming out this spring that is high on my amazon wish list called Where Women Create: Book of Inspiration: In the Studio and Behind the Scenes with Extraordinary Women.

Last, but not least is Organizing Your Craft Space also by Jo Packham. The title alone sounds like it is pretty applicable to my current situation.

Do you own any of these books? Can you recommend them?