Every 6 months or so I get to the point in my studio where my works in progress, stash, gifts, random house stuff, and hid-away-so-guest-won’t-see-it” completely takes over my studio.

After this last clean out was done I got rid of:

• 9 boxes and 2 garbage bags of craft stuff
• 3 bags of trash
• 2 overflowing boxes of recycling
• a whole pile of things that had no reason to be in my studio and found homes elsewhere in the house.

And for every box I kept, I was getting rid of a box, which was a pretty good feeling.

I’m lucky to have ample storage space for all my art supplies. I never in a million years thought that I would have a partner who would be so completely understanding of my need to squirrel things away to use later…. within reason. For me, I know that it’s not that I need more space. It’s that I need less stuff. And I need my stuff to be more organized.

Every time I reorganize my studio I think “this is it, this is the best way to organize my s*&t ever, it will stay clean this time.” Nope. But each time I reshuffle my things I do learn a few valuable lessons. Sure I’m hopeful that this time I have it. But will I give myself a hard time if it’s just as bad a year from now? Nah. Life is too short. But I’m hoping for it to be a full year instead of 6 months time before I have to do a complete clean out.

Organizing a Studio Lessons

• While daily cleaning is key, sometimes it’s good to tackle a big clean out all at once just to get it done on be able to move on to the more important things in life – like knitting!
• If you can afford it, invest in a nice set of containers that fit your stuff AND your space well. I have these really great shelves in the “tile room” where I keep all my supplies. But until this last clean up, I was keeping my stuff in piles and random boxes.
• Don’t buy said containers until you’ve actually gone through your stuff and figured out what you need. For me, I’ve learned I need about 20 shoebox sized ones and 10 double wide shoebox ones.
• While donating and selling and recycling is great, even I need to realize trash is trash and my house is not a trash bin. You cannot “organize” garbage. Just throw it out! Do it.
• But, also don’t forget about donating what you can and recycling what’s recyclable. And if you have the space and the time and the desire fill a bin with things you want to sell and get it listed on ebay IMMEDIATELY and if it doesn’t sell that first time, donate it!
• Daily cleaning is key. Weekly cleaning works well too. Yearly clean….. come on now. Just pick up after yourself (myself). Me, crap I’m bad at that. But I’m still young and I’m learning.I’ll get it eventually.
• Don’t just tuck something into your craft space to “put away later”. You won’t. I won’t. And things will pile up on the edge of your work table until you’re (cough, read ME) trying to cut fabric on a 1/4 of the table because the pile has taken over.

On an up note. I have been doing really well keeping my office clean. But, that’s because I clean it up every morning before I start my day’s work. And once a week I take out trash and make sure I’m not stashing things in weird places like behind my books. If you don’t have an issue with cleaning, you may not get the sanity of this. But I know some of you, yeah, you right there. You totally get what I’m saying and you’re shaking your head thinking – oh crap, I really should get that something something from behind there.

Happy Crafting!
Kristin Roach

That’s right, I’m showing you a picture of how my fabric should look. It’s so bad I’m not even going to show you the current chaos. Think of the worst your stash has ever looked. Then imagine your whole house looking that way. That’s how it was after the wedding.

Whoops. I think my studio exploded. Or at least that’s the way it looks. If you’ve been hanging in there with my random postings over the last 18 months, you may remember posts about my “craft supply room” aka the tile room and how I’d been making progress getting it cleaned up. Well, when the wedding came around, that little room turned into an exploded pile of everything that needed to be hidden away from upstairs. This included, but is not limited to: a computer desk, tower speakers, piles of wedding craft stuff, ames c.art stuff, files, office supplies, random randomness.

I started to have a bit of a panic attack this morning when I turned to face it after getting back from vacation. There was disgust. Anger. Frustration. Sadness. And then inspiration to make it better.

Instead of trying to get the whole thing done in one day, I’ve opted to just do a couple of boxes at a time. I would like to have some kind of sense made out of it by the end of the weekend so I can get cracking on Renegade production. I do need a place to assemble all those zines after all.

I surprised myself how much I was able to get done in just one hour. I thought I would maybe get through one box of stuff. Instead I made it through about a dozen. Quickly sorting into piles:

• Trash
• Other part of the house
• Art and Craft supplies
• Art and Craft tools
• Ames C.art stuff
• Office stuff
• To be filed
• To be donated

So far trash has been the largest pile. It’s weird how boxes, papers, packaging from purchased stuff just piles up.

While I don’t expect it to be Martha Stewart level of ocd crafty closet bliss, I do now think it will be a usable organized space by next Monday, which is very promising.

How’s your holiday crafting prep coming? Are you getting organized so you have a bit of space to work in?

Happy Crafting!
Kristin Roach

As you all know, and I’m sure many of you are dealing with the same issues as me, I’m working hard to use up all my leftovers and stash and in general not going willy-nilly in the craft store impulse buying up things I don’t really need for current projects. Yeah. That’s a Run-on-mouthful.

So, when on vacation, it’s especially hard to resist visiting the local yarn shops. Yarn shops are my favorite. All the internet in the world can’t replace a good yarn fondling. You know exactly how I feel. All the colorful pictures in all of the world wide just won’t do. So you can explore online all you want, but the point is, I love seeing (and feeling) the different fibers that aren’t available locally. It’s really hard not to get away from myself. Like here in Katy, Texas at Yarntopia. Look at all this:

Yum and Yum!

Here’s the bargain I strike with myself. First. I go check out any stores I want. If I try to just avoid them, I usually end up going anyway and then I blow it and buy like 3 sweaters and 6 hats and 4 socks worth of yarn. We aren’t even talking about fabric stores – a yard here, a half yard there, 6 quilts worth of fabric later. Yeah. You know.

Anyway, so I let myself go to the shops I really want to. Like @LindaMade on twitter recommended a great yarn shop here in Katy, TX. I found a really neat stone shop that sold beads in Eureka, AR. I bought a little bit from both. I buy enough to make a project and I have a project in mind for each purchase. And I give myself a trip budget. So say if I know I’ll be traveling over the course of 2 weeks, I might budget out anywhere from $25-$100 depending on how the bank is looking. But I stick to it.

I can buy a sweater’s worth or a couple of small projects. Maybe they sell a pattern book I haven’t seen elsewhere. Maybe they are having a super sale like the fine ladies at Yarntopia were and I was able to buy up 6 skeins and a pattern book for under $50. Point is, just like grocery shopping, have a list of projects in mind before you go is always a good idea. Have a budget at the ready so you don’t (like I totally want to) go nuts. And granted this is like a once or twice a year trip vs every weekend. In which case I’d put myself on a monthly budget :)

On the topic of Yarntopia, I had a really nice chat with the owner. So friendly! They had a great selection of yarn and happily most of it was yarn that my local shop doesn’t carry. And they had all these needles. And just so cute. I love the way the shop is put together with a nice area for hanging out and knitting. If you ever happen through Katy Texas, do make sure to stop by and snap up some of their delicious yarn!

Happy Crafting!
Kristin

The weekend before the wedding I decided it would be a good idea to build a day bed for our guest bedroom. To some this might be crazy, but to me, it was perfect. We ended up finishing the daybed on Thursday, just a couple of hours before the person due to sleep in it arrived. She was thrilled!

And now, we have an actual guest room. Okay, so it’s actually more a “nap room” as it’s the quietest room in the house during the day and Jason and I have both been habitually napping there.

The project itself came together pretty easily. Anna White‘s plans were really thorough and if you have the tools, I know you could build it too. It’s opened the door to a whole new world of things to make for the home, yeeee! Exciting!

I would say I’m of “intermediate” level when it comes to woodworking. I have some basic knowledge and skills, but still don’t know all the terms, cuts, and am still a bit sloppy.

When it was all said in done, the whole build cost about $100. I still need to buy some paint or stain and wood putty to finish it up all the way, but I’m not going to worry about that until Jason and I return from our honeymoon (leaving next wednesday).

Next up on the list of “to build” is the Narrow Cottage End Table for our living room. But when, I’m not sure. I’m excited all the same.

Yarnie related news and an update on reclaiming my home and studio after the wedding. Can’t wait to use all my new Craft Leftovers up!

Happy Crafting!
Kristin Roach

We are just 9 days away from the big wedding day, which means just 6 days away from the first wedding guest arriving. We really want to have the all the wedding related things done + the house prepared before those first guests start arriving.

Of course Jason and I both have two large projects coming up due about the same time we are getting married. And we are trying to get loads of work done before we leave on our Texas Triathlon trip so we can actually relax and have a non-working week long vacation. Chaos was consuming. The house was a mess. Still looks semi like we just moved in (maybe not that bad). But definitely was without the “homey” touches we both wanted, though the kitchen has always looked awesome. So…

Two weeks ago we did something that I only ever dreamed of doing. We hired help. My friend Aimee is a wonderfully talented creative woman who not only can make the dullest of dull things shine, but has an uncanny talent for organizing and bringing order to a disordered space. It’s a special type of personality that can cut through the clutter of a home and restore order in a way that it will stay organized despite the residence (Jason and I).

We’ve been able to clean and restore order to the bulk of the spaces that need it. Only the guest bedrooms are left and now we can focus on a little dash and splash decorating to tie this whole place together. This weekend I’m taking a “break” from wedding projects per-say and working on some home projects – a day bed for one of the guest bedrooms and a shoe caddy/bench for the living room.

I found the perfect day bed for one of our guest rooms (formally our offices), but with the $1000 price tag Pottery Barn had attached to it, I was going to settle for a much less attractive piece. That is until I found this amazing website that is revolutionizing my home woodworking projects. Have you ever seen Ana White: Homemaker? This website is brilliant. And I see about half of you have already liked it on facebook. I feel so in the dark sometimes! Why didn’t you tell me!

And wouldn’t you know it, she’s put together plans that knock off the very day bed I was envying? The Storage Day Bed: Lovely. I especially love Kara’s version and pictures of the bed. I guess it’s finally time to dig out my sewing machine and make all those pillows I’ve been talking about.

Encouraged by this tri-box approach, I’ve decided to build a knock off of my own. I found this “perfect” bench on amazon, but at $300, couldn’t really justify the expense. Especially because it would over-lap our living room windows by 5 inches+. I realized if I just leave off the bottom footer and give it a slightly less abundant cushion, it would fit our space perfectly. Ah I do love the custom nature of making it myself.

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated you on the status of the “farm”, so I thought I would take this week where I’m focusing all my creativity on getting the next zine finished and out the door, to show you around a bit and give you the updates.

Backyard Chickens

These little guys are having a great time outside even though we are nearing 100 degrees each day. It’s so fun to look at them from the air conditioned house picking at bugs, weeds, and running around having a blast. We have 3 Red Stars, 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes, and 2 Cornish X Rocks (meat birds, aka food zombies). We have another few months before the layers will lay, but they are so cute and petite hen looking that they pay their way with their cute antics. We’ll be slaughtering the last two cornish x rocks in two weeks.

Last week, I slaughtered my first hen, and on Saturday night, we had roasted chicken for dinner.

(they like to hang out in the window well)

It was a really sad case, I was moving the coop and didn’t see him in there. I put the whole coop down right on his leg. He had to be put down because it broke. Yuck. I wasn’t mentally prepared to slaughter and butcher my first chicken. I did it with a help of a friend and followed it with a bottle of wine. It shook me up. I don’t like killing things. I’m not sure if I’ll get meat birds again after these last two are gone.I didn’t puke, I didn’t cry, I felt like doing both. But I survived. The chicken clearly did not. We decided to roast a hyvee chicken at the same time and do a taste test. Everyone liked the rooster we slaughtered better than the hyvee bird.

Fence Building!

Last week we finally had our fence built! It is a great fence and many of Jak’s issues have disappeared. He loves getting to zoom around in the back yard a couple of times a day. And he doesn’t care about the chickens at all. So they get to free range all day and he gets to run around like a greyhound and impress us with his agility and speed and then sleeping for hours. He’s a happy guy.

Why did we have our fence built vs doing it ourselves? Well, our yard is really waving, it’s really hot, we want it to look good, and we wanted our gates to be awesome at latching and opening without issues. Check out this awesome gate! We could not have done that.

It’s cedar, 4 feet high, dog eared pickets, 2 inch spacing. Awesome!

And the company gave us all the picket trimmings so I have a load of cedar I get to make into little shelves, line my herb bed with, and boxes and planters and bird houses and who knows what else.

Herb Garden

I’ve been working on tackling the weeds and mulching all my beds. But the heat has beat me up and I’m staying indoors for now. Yuck. I hate when it gets so humid and hot and blahhhh.

I have successfully kept alive: chamomile, plantain, sage, thyme, tarragon, lavender, rosemary, marjoram, and a few mystery plants. They have been adding such deliciousness to our food.

Veggie Garden

Zucchini plants are still not pollinating, which is so sad. And we’ve been unable to pollinate the ourselves. But, we do have loads of peas, beans, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, beets, dill, basil, eggplant, and asparagus (just getting established this year, but doing well).

Flowers

I suck at growing flowers apparently. I have kept two planters somewhat alive and the ferns I planted last year are doing okay. But some of the others are getting mowed down by a combo of chipmunks and ground hogs. The chickens are actually battling the chipmunks out of the backyard. Every time they see one they chase it off.

Until Next Time!

(sooner rather than later this week)

Kristin Roach

Here are the filofax printables that I laid out in InDesign. You can download them by clicking here.

I like to plan out the main things that need to be done each week. I try to space them out so I don’t feel like I have to do everything on Monday or leave it all to Friday.

Usually, there are a bunch of little things I need to get done each day, so I start out my morning by making a list of all those. Things like packing orders, making kits, finishing a post, cleaning the cat box out, taking chicken out of the freezer to thaw by noon so it’s ready for dinner, returning library books, etc.

For each big project I have, I like to write down the main deadlines and then next steps I need to work on towards getting it done.

I tend to scribble meeting notes on whatever scrap of paper is around and promptly loose them. By giving them their own little sheet, I can fill out the main points and then file it under the project or in a folder in my filing cabinet with that project/organization information.

I actually have these filled out before hand because they stay the same each week. Each monday I clean the cat litter, do laundry; tuesday I clean the ferret cage and mop; and so on through the week. I check them off each week and it gives me an extreme sense of satisfaction. I use the fly lady system, so it’s based off her weekly routine plan.

Just like the weekly routine, these are the things I do each day. Do the dishes, drink loads of water, take Jak for a walk, feed and water all pets, let the chickens on the hen house, put the chickens into the hen house (they are still too young to know that’s where they should be at night).

And that’s that. Combined with some blank card stock, graph paper, and my blog planning pages, my little organizer is very well stocked.

Oh and I just started using the mayo clinic “healthy weight” food log, so I’m going to lay those out onto  little pages too and fill my organizer with that as well. But I’ll respect their copyright and won’t be posting that here. You can, however, get loads of great info on their website. More on the health and fitness thing over on Kristinmroach if you are into that kind of thing.

Until Next Time!
Kristin

I snatched up this dress at the Salvation Army a couple months ago while picking out things for my book’s photo shoot. It was plain, a little frumpy, an awesome neckline, and an excellent candidate for redressing!

Here’s what I did to make this frumpy dress into a cute little summer top.

Measure up from the bottom and cut off 11 inches.

Oh and make sure to not just cut straight across, the back is usually slightly longer than the front to accommodate your our behinds.

Press the edge under and straight stitch to finish off.

Sew together 3″ wide pieces of the scraps to make a fabric band.

Tie it off and enjoy OR pin and stitch it to the front so it stays put while wearing and then tie in the back.

I love it when I get to take something I wouldn’t be caught in and convert it into my new favorite piece to wear around town!

What have you refashioned into a summery piece lately?

Happy crafting!
Kristin

This past month I moved my studio to my home fully, finally, and officially. I really like our house. So does Jason. We decided not to renew the lease on our office. I’ve been slowly moving home the most used things.

March 28th, we moved all the least used things.

And it turns out there were a lot of them…the least used things that is.

So the great thing is that I have a really sweet office and studio set up in my home, which I absolutely love.

Yeah, there is an old piano in my studio. Eventually I’ll get it tuned and maybe potentially learn how to play it :) I want to refinish it first, it has about 20 layers of paint on it.

But then there is the pile, the pile of craft supplies in the basement with boxes and boxes of things. Many of them were given to me by friends, family, and other super kind community members. Others purchased, found, “scored” from local shops and travels.

Granted some of it was purchased for making kits. But really, I don’t sell enough kits to warrant this huge pile.

I feel like I’m part of some kind of craftoholics anonymous group: Hi, my name is Kristin and I’m addicted to craft supplies. By announcing it, I might actually have a chance of doing something about it. The funny thing is, I actually haven’t purchased much of these things. About 70% have been given, donated, gifted, inherited over the last 6 years or so. I’m in big trouble at the pace I’m going. I just have a hard time letting them go. I see possibilities in every little scrap.

It’s time to be more proactive. It’s time to let others be inspired with these fun things. It’s time to destash.

There’s stash busting in the sense of making from the leftovers–which I do most excellently. But I don’t think I could knit, sew, crochet, weave, needlepoint for the rest of my life and get through all these things. I will continue to try though.

It’s not just craft supplies either, I’ve acquired books too. Old pattern books I don’t really care for or books that I have knit the 1 pattern I liked. It’s vintage things and new things and used things. It’s just a lot. I’m ready to pare down.

I’ve talked big about this in the past. I had plans for destashing, but it never happened. It’s funny, but I think it’s actually like an addiction. You can’t actually break an addiction until you are ready. It’s like when some may know you shouldn’t smoke, but still do anyway. I didn’t really want to destash before, I just knew I should.

I’m ready to DeStash

The first option is the Craft Leftovers Shop. I’m going to start taking full advantage of that Stash category by selling cuts of fabric, skeins, collections of buttons, and craft books. I’ll try and get a new group of things listed every week.

Here’s the first batch:

After a few weeks, anything that doesn’t sell will get put up on ebay. After that, it all gets donated. I’m promising you and myself that I can’t keep it. Even if I’m all of a sudden inspired by it, if it’s in the “to go” pile it has to go!

How do you keep your stash from growing out of control? How do you keep it organized?

Now I’m off to sew to try and use up some more fabric so I don’t have to sell it. :)

Happy crafting!
Kristin

Two weeks ago I posted about how I was sick of all my zines being in a cardboard box and had started building a system of shelves to house them in the most creative way ever. Well, I got caught up getting my own zine finished and have finally returned to that pile of zines in my card board box.

With the clarity of 2 weeks, I wonder if my “most creative way ever” was really the best way for me to go about building my zine library. I want it to be mobile and functional and organized so I can find what I need. I decided to do what I really do best: research! After all I totally need to use those art history minor skills somehow. I started digging around in zine library websites, googling them, looking for reviews, and in general poking around on flickr for what worked best for what kind of zines. I’m not convinced that my library would best be done with a series of woodworking and cardboard cutting vs. just woodworking.

Zine Libraries I found

“SHOP Vintage Lounge and Arts Venue in Bristol houses its very own Zine Library. We want to create a central reference resource to help preserve and promote the diverse work of the small press world. The library operates by donations from zine makers and collectors, and we are always looking for more contributions.”

I love the reading nook style of this zine library–the big stuffed chairs and cute little table. If I could have shelves like that for all my zines I totally would. But, they don’t quite fit all the littlest of zines I have.

Over on Boing Boing, this sweet zine library, PaperCut Zine Library, was featured. While I totally love the stuff hanging there and really enjoy the visual eye candy, it’s not quite the solution for me because I want to continue to flip through them and see their covers. But wow is that fun. What a great job that would be to have!

The Toronto Zine Library takes the comic book shop style approach with zines in box sort of compartments, almost like a record store would arrange them. I like this idea a whole lot, but the question becomes, how to make it work in a shelf sort of setting? I think I’m starting to puzzle this idea out completely.

The Regional Assembly of Text has that beautiful look of clean, yet vintage, yet slightly cozy and welcoming. Maybe it’s just all the zines. Any place that has that any zines in such a pretty presentation must be a welcoming-my-kind-of-place. They also have a nice stock of little mini zines on the top shelf. They are hard to see, but they are in little boxes. Hmmm, I like this.

I love this, because it makes me think we could eventually have something like this right in our own home town library. If you are able to, encourage your local library to start carrying zines. It’s a great place to start a local zine collection, in a place where people are already coming to read and look and enjoy things in print.

Oh I do love the Roberts Street Library. Someday I’m going to have my office be floor to ceiling shelves of printed deliciousness.

The Little Berlin zine library has a nice little shelf set up to hold their zines. If I had my own shop, I think this is how I would house them.

And this is a really cool looking library at Niagara College, but the image was fully copyright protected, so go look at the neatness by clicking here.

Zine libraries are on the rise around the United States so I was able to get a nice broad perspective on housing and organizing zines. One thing I’ve decided is to start keeping a running catalog of all my zines. I now realize a few are missing and I have no idea who I loaned them out to.

After looking at all these great zine libraries, I’m finally ready to build my own. I’ll be back on Friday (for reals this time) to show you how. Wednesday I’m posting about some of the fun projects I have going on around the house like brewing my own hard apple cider and growing produce in the basement in the middle of winter.

Happy crafting!
Kristin