Create a room where all of my supplies are handily available for me to get to work and COMPLETE an art or craft project without feeling hindered by too much clutter. I don't like having to dig and remove items just to find the brush or the canvas or the floss or the stationery to complete my project. I want the space to feel "creative" and not "cramped".

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 1 - student project

This bed has to go!

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 2 - student project

I can't do anything with this gun case until my son and his wife get a house. I'll have to work around it for now.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 3 - student project

I collect vintage cookbooks, arts and craft books, and puzzles. I'd like a way to display them. The small boxes contain artistic postcards that I send to penpals.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 4 - student project

This table extends to a round table, but there is no room for it to extend to full size because of the bed. I want to use it exclusively for my arts and crafts table. I'd like the brushes, scissors, etc. to go on a shelf and off of this table.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 5 - student project

This little space is useless for now. I want to put a desk by the window so I can journal and penpal in natural light.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 6 - student project

This little space is also useless. I'm not sure that the nightstand will have a place in this room. Right now it holds new and used journals plus some office supplies. My easel sits on the floor, but I think that I want it to have a permanant spot on the craft table (maybe). I keep boxes for mailing books to friends. I need a better way to store my boxes.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 7 - student project

I also collect washi tape. The glass table is an old nightstand that I'm temporarily using until I can come up with a better room design. It will probably have no place in my new craft room.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 8 - student project

This closet is a catch-all for my boxes and other things that I want to keep but I don't want to see. I have many old coffee cans and cigar boxes that I want to repurpose in my new craft room. I'll probably paint the coffee cans to store brushes, etc. I'm going to color-code my embroidery floss in the cigar boxes. I'll use the color wheel to code the colors.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 9 - student project

The top part of the closet hold boxes of papers, seasonal stickers, printer ink, and a fan that we're going to install in the craft room. The papers belong to my mother's estate~she lives in a nursing home, so I'm responsible for all of her legal matters. I need a better system.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 10 - student project

A drawer full of papers for paper crafts and wrapping books.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 11 - student project

Stationery for penpalling.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 12 - student project

Stickers, notebook with stamps for penpalling, a postal scale for weighing packages, unfinished bookmarks, notepads, etc.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 13 - student project

Art supplies.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 14 - student project

Odds and Ends...and a lonely sock...and a pair of socks from Ireland that need to be mended.

Create My Intentional Arts and Craft Room - image 15 - student project

I want to organize everything that's on the top of these into something more pleasing.

This project is going to take at least a year to create my intentional creative space.

Melissa Etheridge

Wife, Mom, Teacher

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