Fabric Heaven

I have never been much of a fabric hoarder. I have typically been a buy-as-I-go fabric gal.

But last weekend, my pastor's wife gave me 5 large trash bags of old fabric she'd been collecting but didn't want/need anymore. I spent Monday (had the day off because school was closed) organizing it.

I have to say, I'm enjoying having a closet full of fabric so much that I haven't even closed the closet door since I put it all in there.

 

I even organized the scraps into Joann-style fat quarter folds!

 

Craft Room Upgrade

So, when I originally designed my craft room, this was my inspiration:

Now, since I didn't have a window on the area of the wall where my main shelves would go, I had to improvise and decided to put a dry erase board there, as you can see in my pics from the post about the ribbon organizer project.

The thing is, I NEVER use that whiteboard!  Never.  I think Thing 1 and Thing 2 have drawn on it more than I have.

So, I decided I wanted to replace it with something more functional...a peg board.

I went to Lowe's and was able to find a 2 ft x 4 ft pre-cut peg board (otherwise they came in HUGE sheets!) for $5.  I also picked up a 47 pc assortment of peg hooks for $9.

The pegboard was a brownish color, so when I got home I primed it and painted it white.

Then I hung it (remember you need to leave space behind it for the peg hooks...my assortment kit actually came with rubber spacers, which made it easy).

Then I added my peg hooks.

Then I ended up totally rearranging the peg hooks as I placed the items I wanted to hang. :)

I don't have it fully organized yet, but here it is so far.

(Please ignore the mess on the bottom right.  It's a combination of some stuff that needs to make it onto the board and stuff that needs to find a place to go.)

Ribbon Organizer

I'm not a ribbon maniac.  I don't have rows and rows of all of the colors of the rainbow.  But, I do have a small assortment that I store like this:

The problem with this storage method (besides not looking neat and kept) is that I can't easily see the ribbon I have (there are spools under that mess!) and therefore rarely use what I actually have.

One day at Michael's I saw this storage system:

I like how the ribbons are stored at the bottom.  So I decided I could come up with something similar in my craft room.  (But spending a lot less $$ than the $49.99 this storage system costs!)

Here is my existing area:

First, I found a dowel I knew we had in the garage.  (You can find these at the hardware store for like $1.) 

Then I took a thick cloth ribbon I had (in the basket of ribbons)...

folded it in half and measured 3/4 inch...

and sewed a loop.

Then I sewed the top half of the ribbon together also (not pictured).

I found some small Command velcro strips in the garage.  (For the record, I wanted to screw them in, but Superman convinced me I should go with these strips.  Only time will tell who was right.)

Stick a strip over where you sewed the strips together...

then trim off the extra. I sewed it on using a basic straight stitch.

 Put the corresponding velcro on, and trim it down also.

Then stick the ribbons up underneath the shelf (obviously measure first).

Then put your spools of ribbon on your dowel, and stick each dowel end into the small loops you sewed.

Total time: 15 minutes
Total cost: $0 (since I used all found materials I already had at home.

Update: I spray painted the dowel black. What do you think?

My next craftroom improvement project will be replacing that dry erase board (I never use) with a pegboard system. Pictures coming soon!