Skip to main content

Craft Storage - It's A Beautiful Thing


I recently decided to revamp the storage boxes I keep my small jewellery making tools and supplies in. If you are anything like me and struggle to make jewellery in a room that is meant for other uses - the dining room and kitchen in other words - instead of having one of those wonderful workrooms/studios/sheds where you can spread things out, you probably get how important having enough storage space is. The dining room table was only used rarely anyway before I started taking over and now isn't used to eat off at all, just for cats to sit on and things to get dumped on to be put away "later".

This is what I had previously...... 


Perfectly good reinforced cardboard drawers but they were starting to get a bit tatty and they just weren't big enough! As you can see I have stuff everywhere, little bits of stuff and big bits of stuff that does start to get untidy and annoying after a while. Bear in mind the photo was taken when I'd tidied up and not when I was in the middle of making something. Then it would be a mass of tools, sand paper, files and bits of metal and metal dust everywhere!
I can't just spread out as it's a through room to the kitchen so I don't have a door to shut and hide the mess from people. I've already aquired one of the kitchen cupboards for my soldering and enamelling tools and supplies plus a cupboard in the sideboard for "stuff" so I definitely needed to sort my worktable space and invest in more nice drawers :D



I found the wooden six drawer boxes on ebay. They are similar to the Ikea drawers but better quality as they are 100% wood and not part hardboard. I also bought a different shaped six drawer Ikea box also on ebay.
After a quick sand I got my beloved stamps and Stayz On ink out and decorated the drawers.


The boxes were then stained and oiled with Danish Oil. I could've left them plain pine I suppose but I think they look so much better and more expensive when they are stained.


I did manage to mess up one of the stamps........... bottom row 2nd from the right....................

And here is the end result, everything moved over to the new boxes but I do still need to do a bit more sorting out. The brown three drawer thing on top that is full of cabs and bezel wire will be moved eventually and I rediscovered all those "useful" bits of metal and wire you keep, some of them from three years ago, that I didn't want to throw away but didn't know what to do with at the time and shoved into a drawer/bag/little pot that I now wonder what on earth I was thinking and know exactly what to do with. Throw gleefully into the bin.


Oh my God look at all those beautiful drawers I can put stuff in.
I need to stop pretending to be an artist and get rid of the paintbrushes though.................

Labels:

Comments

  1. Silver Moss JewellerySaturday, September 14, 2013

    Very impressed at your handiwork - I initially though those drawers were some pricy antique set! Love how you've customised them :)

    I've not got a dedicated workspace although sometimes I leave things set up until someone else complains...to have a workshop is a dream...

    But thanks for showing how simple it can be to make a work space look really good and presentable to anyone :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. littlecherryhillSunday, September 15, 2013

    I love how you've decorated the new drawers. Makes me want to get some and do the same thing! Can never have enough storage :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cinnamon JewellerySunday, September 15, 2013

    Thanks for your comments!
    It's amazing how some wood stain can change the appearance of plain pine. I'm about to revamp a very orange pine mirror frame and a coat rack with the stain and possibly some stamping........... I can't stop myself now :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. Miss Val's CreationsMonday, September 16, 2013

    Nice job! The drawers look beautiful and not something you need to hide from guests. :) Proper storage makes things much easier since you can organize better. Enjoy your revamped space!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.
Any comments containing links will be deleted so please don't waste your time.....

Popular posts from this blog

My Jewellery Shed Gets A Lick Of Paint

At the end of last summer, after an incredibly busy few months jewellery-wise, I decided to take a break and repaint my shed. I'd painted it a pale green colour when I first got it and it was starting to look a bit faded and sad. So I did what I expect most people do and started looking online at what wonderful colour I could repaint it. There are lots of great colours out there by Cuprinol and Ronseal and the DIY stores own brands. I took a long time deciding on a colour then got in the car to go and buy the paint. That's when I discovered that B&Q and Homebase only carry a limited selection of shed paint colours {8 if you're lucky} and if you then find something in stock you do like they quite often don't have it in the size pot you need! So the colour I bought was a bit of "Oh buggar it, that'll have to do". Luckily it turned out to be similar to what I'd originally wanted by the time I'd finished the third coat - yes it took three coat...
5 comments
Read more

Etching Copper With Ferric Chloride

 I decided recently that etching is one of my favourite things to do with metal. I read about it online quite a while ago and immediately thought it looked cool but the thought of using an "acid" and having to find somewhere to store it (a perennial problem when you don't have a workroom) put me off. So instead I admired etched copper from afar. Until I got a bee in my bonnet about it again and bought Lexi Erikson's copper etching dvd. Lexi Erikson is very good at explaining jewellery techniques and making them seem much more straightforward than they first appear. I already knew that ferric chloride was a salt and not an acid so wouldn't eat my flesh through to the bone if I accidently spilled some on my hand. The dvd made me feel much more comfortable about having a go so I ordered some ferric chloride from ebay and bought some stamps and StazOn ink from a local craft shop. My first attempt went ok but for some reason I left the copper to etch for an hou...
11 comments
Read more

Amazing Enamel Effects

Buying a kiln recently has given me the chance to experiment with enamelling on larger pieces of copper and to produce some really cool effects. These effects happen when you combine different types of enamel. I usually use smaller flat pieces of copper for making enamelled earrings and have had some of these effects happen when firing with a torch but they are much more obvious when you use larger pieces. I made a few practice pieces which you can see in the photos below. This was flux {a transparent enamel not to be confused with soldering flux!} applied straight onto copper and fired until the copper was a bright golden colour. Then I added a layer of liquid enamel in green and red over the flux and fired again.  The lines and spots form when the enamel becomes hot enough to start moving and in this case the transparent pushes through the liquid enamel layer forming these cool lines and spots. The effect is better in the green liquid enamel than the red.  N...
31 comments
Read more