Our New Crafting Center

I had an idea in my head for a piece of furniture to add to our downstairs bedroom.  I knew that if I could find just the right piece I'd be able to make it work for keeping all of our crafting supplies together in one defined place.

We are a family that loves to do crafts together, especially at the holidays.  Whenever we do crafts it seemed to take forever to find and gather everything we needed as well as it created a huge mess in our living room.  Now that we have a better place set up for doing crafts it only made sense to have a better place to keep our supplies.

Dollar Tree finds

In September I found a bookcase on Facebook Marketplace that I was sure would work perfectly for what I wanted.  A cabinet on the bottom with doors to conceal items as well as shelves above for storing baskets or bins.  It was also done in the same dark finish as the rest of the furniture in the room.  Even better the owner only wanted $20 for it!

The plastic faux wood coating over the particle board had peeled away

When I got there to pick it up I was happily surprised to find it to be sturdy and in really good condition.  The only real flaw was the trim at the top had some damage, but I knew I could do something with it so I wasn't deterred at all.  I paid the lovely young lady $20 and then she and I loaded it into the back of my truck.

You can't even tell the trim at the top was ever damaged

Once the downstairs bedroom renovation was completed I turned my attention to the bookcase.  First I gave it a really good cleaning with some Fabulosa and a damp cloth.  With a little bit of black and brown acrylic paint and a sponge brush I was able to take care of the trim along the top and with some furniture markers I'd picked up at Dollar Tree I went over the entire piece and filled in any nicks and scratches.  It looked good as new so I set it in its new home.  I'd picked up six dark gray fabric bins, also from Dollar Tree, for the shelves and spent the next few hours collecting all of our craft supplies, organizing and putting them into the bookcase.  So much fun!

In the cabinet I have plastic containers with beads, all of my colored papers and cardstocks as well as a plastic bin filled with scrapbooking paper scraps.  On the shelves I've organized our Modge Podge, glues and adhesives along with my glue gun and glue sticks into one of the fabric bins.  Another holds painting supplies while another one holds stamps and ink pads.  I've put my card making supplies into one of the bins and various other craft supplies into another.  I still have one empty fabric bin to hold other items later on if I happen to buy more stuff.  For now I don't plan to do that, however.  In fact, I think I have too much, but we'll see once we get crafting.  You can always seem to find something new!

These bins are a pretty and practical way to organize our craft supplies

Total cost for this project - $27!  Bookcase = $20, six fabric organizer bins = $6, one three pack furniture markers = $1.  Not bad at all and I'm super happy with how quickly it all came together and how well it turned out.  It looks really nice in the room.

Looks really nice in here

I love having everything together in one place, neat and organized.  The way it is setup is visually appealing as it conceals any clutter.  With this room also being my oldest daughter's space when she visits it doesn't look like Mom's stuff is in her room and she can enjoy her time in here.  I think it turned out perfectly and will be a lot of fun to use next time we decide to do some crafting.