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

Thrift Kitchen
Each Thursday I post about ways to be thrifty in the kitchen. To me, it isn’t just about being cheap, it’s about living creatively!

The ArtVend, our Wedding, and vacation have all conspired to bring my excellent meal making and budgeting to a screeching halt. We have been eating out so much. SO much. I’m embarrassed to admit it. Me, the thrifty lady who can cook up a storm.

Everyone has their own way of viewing cooking for your loved ones – some like to, some don’t. For me though, especially because I make so much less than Jason, I feel it’s my job to cook us good food and save us money by doing so. It’s kind of like reverse income. Part of my “income” is how much I can save for us by doing things like cooking, cleaning, gardening, crafting, etc.

Warm fuzzy feelings about loving my family by feeding them well aside, we save money in two ways: actual money saved because we aren’t spending as much to feed us (not super coupon crazy here either, just cooking at home vs eating out) and also money saved on doctor visits because every meal is like a multivitamin.

So after what feels like 18 months straight of not cooking nearly as much as I should, I’m getting right down to it. I’m ready to cook! I’m beyond sick of eating out, no matter how delicious the food.

When I got home from Texas I immediately cleaned out the fridge and went grocery shopping. I took a cue from Average Jane Crafter and posted my meal plan in a public place so Jason could see what we are having for dinner any time for the next week. For me, shopping on Thursday and Monday works well, so my meal plan goes Friday to Sunday and then Monday to Thursday. I like to make room for a veggie/fruit restock before the weekend.

Then I looked at our weekly trends. Jason works out at 5:30 each day, so dinner at 7:15 would be ideal. Lunch at 1pm stepping it back. Then snacks around 11am and 3pm. Breakfast at 8:30 before we start work.

I usually have a meeting or ames c.art group 1t 7pm on Wednesday, so our big meal will be at lunch that day vs dinner. I’ll cue him in on our posted plan which meal I’m cooking and which meal is leftovers.

Rachel and I had a great conversation about easing our way back into cooking on a daily basis, how at first, healthy fixins come second to just getting cookin’. Just make it a habit first, then worry about getting lean and lots of green – though a serving of veggies with every meal is highly recommended.

And that being the case I’m going to spend this week cooking all our favorite least complicated meals. Oh and I really want to try and cook one big meal a day, so anything we don’t eat the next day is going to get packed up in freezer bags for meals later. I’m sure some time over the next 6 months I’ll get into a not wanting to cook funk, so I want to bank this inspired cooking phase for later too!

Here’s what I’m cooking this week:

• Sauerkraut, Sausage, and Potatoes (recipe post here)
• Caesar Salad and Salmon with brown rice
• Tacos with beans and rice on the side (the zatteran’s spanish rice mix is king!) (taco mix recipe here)
• Stir-fried chicken with broccoli and brown rice
• Caesar Salad and spaghetti with meat balls
• Burrito Bowls (link to post)

And then we get to eat out or in once a week. Usually Friday night.

Happy Cooking!
Kristi 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

When I first thought of making my own zine library I was at a loss as to what would fit them all. How could it look good and be functional? I thought it would be kind of neat to make a series of small boxes that would hang on the wall in a modular fashion–little boxes for little zines and bigger boxes for bigger zines. I just wasn’t sure how to do it. After a couple of weeks of searching, looking, and scrawling out ideas in my sketch book, I got it down perfectly.

Check out parts 1 and 2 of this post series:

• Zine Library Part 1: Getting Organized & Getting Inspired
• Zine Library Part 2: Organizing Ideas from the official libraries

Now the cool thing about this is not only are these boxes easy to make, but the size of each box will be custom for each type of zine you are holding.

I’m going to show you how to make a box for Volume 1 and 3 of Craft Leftovers Monthly. The zines are 4.25″ wide and when all stacked together, are about 2.5″ thick. The interior space of my box will be 4.5″ wide by 3″ deep.

Materials Needed:
After making the chicken coop this summer, we have loads of wood leftover, so that’s what I’m using as my main material.

• A crap ton of zines – grouped by size or series
• Wood scraps – I like 1/4×3″, you can get it at the hardware store or craft shop in 30″ lengths.
• Paint or stain to treat the wood
• Wood glue
• Brad gun if you have one using 1/2″ brads – I do not so I used a hammer and 1/2″ nails (little skinny ones)
• Corner Brace
• Angle
• Frame wire and 1/4″ screws OR frame hangers (the little saw tooth ones)

Step One: Measure all your zines and decide how you want to group them together. I decided that I wanted make my boxes by series and size.

• A big series of zines like Craft Leftovers and Tangle Crafts Zines get their own box.
• Everything else is by size. A little box for little zines, a bigger box for big zines. You get the idea.

Step Two: Cutting the wood.

• I like mitered edges because it gives your boxes a nice clean look and makes them pretty strong.
• And seriously, measure four times and cut once.
• And remember, your box has five sides: left, right, back, front, and bottom. The left and right and the back and front need to match. So cut your first piece, then use that as a guide to cut your second. You will see what I mean in the pictures.

Here’s my cut list for my Volume 1 Box:

• 2 – 1/4x3x3.5″
• 2 – 1/4x3x5″
• 1 – 1/4x3x4.5″

And don’t forget to sand everything down:

Step Three: Assembly Time
a. Smear a bit of wood glue on the cut ends that you will are joining together.

b. Place two sides together and use the corner brace to hold them in place – this cheap-o tool is top of my list for making corners a snap – and use the angle to square it up and make sure it’s 90 degrees.
c. Hammer in four nails – 2 in one side and 2 in the other.

d. Work clockwise around your box, gluing, holding, and nailing in place until you have completed square.
e. Slip the bottom piece into the box to make sure it fits. Too big is better than too small as you can sand it down to fit. Use wood glue along the edges of the bottom piece and fit it into the bottom. Nail it in using a nail every 2 inches – the bigger the box, the more nails needed.

Tip: If, like me, there was no easy way to cut down a piece exactly, fit it in, glue and nail. Then take a piece of mat board or card stock and fit it to the inside of the box. Glue it inside the box so the bottom is completely covered.

Step Four: Finishing!
Don’t you dare just toss your zines in here, this is the part that makes these boxes really shine.
a. Sand down each box to remove any burs, snags, and splinters. Also use sanding and a little wood glue to cover up any gaps in your corner joins.
Note: To make a little wood putty, mix sawdust from when you cut your wood down and some wood glue together and fill in the gaps. Sand it well to cover it up.

b. Wipe it all down with a damp – not wet – cloth.

c. Paint with spray paint or whatever can-o-paint you have around. If it’s nice wood, consider staining and/or varnishing it. Sand it with fine sanding paper (200) between each coat for a very nice looking finish.

Step Five: Hanging it up.
You can hang up your boxes a few different ways.

• If you know they won’t be loaded with zines, you can use frame hangers – the little saw tooth ones or the wire.
• If you will be packing this thing full, you can screw a small piece of wood into the wall, and then screw the box into that, along with one last screw going through the back of the box.
• Or you can drill two holes in the back of the box and use that to hang it on two nails (so it doesn’t rock back and forth). If you do this, make sure your box is very centered.
• Personally, I like the wire method best. Since I know the weight distribution will be changing around a bit, and these are no where near my heaviest painting, they are a-okay to use. Instead of using eye-screws though, I used two small screws, wrapped the wire around them, then screwed them in more to clamp down the wire. This makes it so the box is nice and flush to the wall.

I’ve made a few of the boxes now (one), but not nearly as many as I would like to (twelve, haha). It will take some time, but I will get them all finished and hung up. Right now it looks like this:

Hehe, I have quite a few more to make indeed. I’ll update this post when I get the wall all the way filled with zines.

Happy crafting!

Kristin

Every winter I have a nice pile of handmade items to keep me warm when I head outside. With that pile comes a dilemma: Where to put them? Originally, I put them all in a basket and put it on the shelf. Being so high up they usually just ended up on the floor because–I have to face it–I can be pretty lazy and so can Jason.

So instead of on the floor in the closet, our hats and mittens started finding their way onto the floor. Yep, lazy.

I went to my folks for the Thanksgiving break and while there received a nice big basket full of goodies from Jason’s sister. (Yum and thank you! I’m enjoy a tasty cup of tea as I type this.) When I got home and was unpacking everything when I realized that this basket is the perfect solution for my problem. At first I just hung it around a hanger–good enough. Then I had the idea to tie it up using a piece of selvedge–even better because now it hangs straight.

I was thinking, another easy way to keep my winter cozies organized would be to hang a reusable grocery bag or handmade tote.

How do you keep your winter handmade goods organized so they aren’t just a pile on the floor?

Happy crafting!
Kristin

I wanted to follow up on the post I wrote two weeks ago about my sketchbook organizing dilemma. I’m happy to say that thanks to all of your great suggestions, I’ve found the perfect way organize my sketchbooks without having to dismantle them: Evernote!

And even better, it’s also provided a way to organize all the snippets of photos, links, and documents related to all of my creating. This is definitely an upside to solving my sketchbook solution.

I took a hard look at Evernote’s term of service. I have to admit that I was a little concerned about them having all my ideas, hopes, dreams, disgruntled notes, and drawings. After much digging, it looks pretty standard, similar to Flickr, better than Facebook. So I’ve decided to use it. There are a few really amazing features.

One:

image text recognition – seriously! it takes your images and recognizes any text in them and makes that said text searchable.

Two:

you can tag all the photos and search that way.

Three:

You can install and use Evernote on your pc, mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and it syncs them all up via their server. Which is pretty sweet. So I can be working on things in my office on my pc, then come home and use my macbook at home to look things up. Excellent.

Four:

You can scan, photograph, clip links using a Firefox plugin, and “clip” files on your computer. So you can really pull together all the info and search through it.

One draw back is a monthly upload limit, but you can opt to pay a monthly/yearly fee to increase that limit, just like Flickr or any other similar service. Right now, I can only upload about one sketchbook a month.

Using Evernote to Archive and Search my Sketchbooks

At first I thought I would scan it, but then thought photographing would definitely be the good way to go. Here’s how I’m going to do it, one sketchbook at a time, over the next few months:

1. Set up lights-

-I use 3 utility lamps, one above and one to each side.

2. Tripod

– I’ve been taking photos right over the sketchbook with a tripod, nice a steady.

4. Turn the page

5. Naming the files

I’ve decided that it would be good to name the files according to what they are photos of. It’s a little archiving system so I can see what it contains or search easily for it.

1. A number for each sketchbook that I’ll write on the inside flap of the physical book: 001
2. Then, if I know it, year(s): 2010
3. Then, the spread number: 001
4. And then a letter for what type of thing it is:

• P = pattern
• J = journal
• S = sketch
• A = art project

Now I’m feeling like I want an assistant to help me with this monumental project. But I know for a fact it will be worth it.

Happy crafting!
Kristin

I draw a lot. For every issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly, I burn through about 2 dozen pages or so of my sketchbook, drawings, notes, patterns, and to do lists. For each post, at least a few pages. I see things, I read things, they inspire me, I write them down, tear them out, save them. I get a snippet of an idea and jot it down. How in the world do I organize all that so I can actually reference it later?

I don’t.

And that’s a problem for me.

These are my sketchbooks from the past year or two, some others are already in storage at home. I have 3 boxes full of them + many folders of drawings and small paintings.

I read once that Martha Stewart has an army of interns that file away her ideas for her in a complex, multi-filing cabinet system in her at home studio. I would love that. Without an army of interns, how do I make a system that’s both simple to maintain and works well?

I’ve been thinking more about following her example and setting up a filing system to capture all these ideas and things. I thought about just cutting all the pages out of my sketchbooks and dividing them into categories which would be the easiest way to do it. But that really pained me the more I thought about it.

Some are just notepads I don’t mind dissecting into their categories, but some, like a few hard bound ones, I have a harder time taking apart. And some sketchbooks show a really nice history of where I was when I did that, almost like a diary. Well, exactly like a dairy, just a visual one.

One option I thought about was to number each sketchbook, then photocopy everything in it and label each photocopy with the number so I know where it came from. Then I would file all my sketchbooks chronologically and all the photocopies alphabetically according to category–like “pattern,” then tag it “knitting.”

That would be the best way to do it because I would preserve my sketchbooks. I would also have an easy way to find my original notes for patterns I’ve written (always longhand, always drawn) which is increasingly problematic.

There is only one problem. I don’t have an army of interns and that’s a lot of work.

Do any of you file your ideas/resources/references? How do you make it happen?

Any suggestions for an easier system idea?

On a side note: I’m excited that I even have the time to contemplate such organizational topics. It’s been far too long. :)

Happy crafting!
Kristin

Okay, so I didn’t really “roll” but–wow–I could have! I have a lot of yarn, more than I realized. Every time I think I have it all documented, I find another skein stashed in some drawer or bin or purse.

This past weekend I took all the yarn I have and dumped it into piles on my studio floor. What a mess that was and what fun! It’s not often that I let myself to do that.

At first I sorted it by fiber–fancy stuff like silks and mohair in one pile, cotton and cotton blends in another, and wool in the last.

While the cotton and fancy fibers were just fine, the wool will need some subcategories. Since I don’t have enough shelf space to display it proudly (plus it’s tough to keep it organized that way) it will be going back into bins. That being the case, I’ve opted (as suggested by the kind folks on twitter) to subdivide my wool by weight. And since I have so much, I’m going to further group it by colorways and brands.

I’ve also opted to do another crazy thing. I took photos of all of it. Every single skein.

You can see them all in the Flickr Yarn Stash Set.

I opted to do this for a couple of reasons.
1. Because of the way I’m going to have to store it, in bins, it will be nice to flip through my flickr set to see what I have when deciding what to make with what next.
2. I’m going to list a bunch in my shop in the stash section so while taking pictures of some, why not just do it all.
3. It will help me with my before and after idea because I’ll have a stock of all the yarn I have (the before) already done.
4. It’s had the added bonus of giving me loads of practice shooting photos.

Will I keep track of all this on Ravelry? Most likely not. While I like Ravelry and their “stash” section of the notebook, It would just add one more step. I’m taking stock of more than just yarn and I don’t want to double list things. I’ve set up a series of Collections and Sets on Flickr where all the before and afters, stash photos, WIPs, and stash kit pictures can be found.

Here’s my first Before & After too! This weekend we had lunch with Jason’s folks and while we were chatting back at the house I grabbed a skein of cotton yarn and crocheted up this little dishcloth.

Another golden example of how I started crochet before I took my “before” shot. Ah well, you can still see that there was about 2 oz of yarn there and now there is like 10 yards. Progress!

Next up I’ll start digging through my misc. craft supplies and documenting those too: embroidery, polymer clay, buttons, trim, lacy stuff, bias tape, weaving supplies. Ahh, I love craft supplies. :)

How do you keep your yarn sorted?

Happy crafting!
Kristin

Friday’s post really inspired me to get my act together and organize my fabric. Each box is 11″ x 12″ x 14″. I opted to sort them by color, which seems to be my best organizing option yet.

::Pink::Orange::Red::Purple::

::Blue::

::Green::

::Brown::Yellow::

::Gray::Black::

::Patterned Whites::

::Utilitarian Fabrics::

::Bolts of Fabric::

::Spiral of Strips::

::Little Squares::

::Pieces that were too big to fit in the boxes::

::The whole shebang::

I think next I’ll organize and take pictures of all my yarn. Should I organize by weight? fiber type? or color? How do you organize your yarn? your fabric?

Happy crafting!

Kristin