Home is where the art is.
Professional crafters and hobbyists alike have discovered that, with some planning and organizing, they can be their very own artist-in-residence.
If you find yourself canvassing your home for art supplies, while longing for a permanent place to sew, scrapbook or creatively sprawl out, setting up a craft room may be the solution to channel your inner artist.
Stephenie Hamen, content and education manager for Fiskars, a Madison, Wis.-based international brand that manufactures crafting materials, is also an avid crafter. Hamen says when setting up a craft room, it’s important to dedicate a separate space that feeds creativity.
“When a craft room works, it’s that place where you can feel most at home,” Hamen says. “No two craft rooms are alike, because no two people are alike. A crafter needs to ‘own’ the space in which she’s creative.” Hamen’s personal craft room is set up in the basement of her Sun Prairie, Wis., home. It’s where Hamen enjoys scrapbooking, sewing and making collages.
A craft room space doesn’t have to be large to be functional, but it should be a beautiful backdrop to support what you’re creating. “Whatever inspires you most in your craft room — plants, music — is what you should give yourself,” Hamen says.
Finding a space, preferably a room with a door, is the first step to creating a craft room. After you have your space, you need to illuminate and organize it properly to maximize productivity.
Hamen has chandeliers hanging in her craft room, which, she says, reflect her freedom of expression. She advises painting walls a neutral color in a craft room, except one, which may serve as a “wall of inspiration.”
“One wall can be painted a favorite color and filled with pegboards and corkboards,” she says. “This is where you can hang tools or things, like pictures, that can inspire your craftiness.”
Channeling the inner artist in your home’s inner sanctum also means having the proper work surfaces in a craft room, says Hannah Milman, executive editorial director of crafts for Martha Stewart Living.
“In a craft room, you need to have accessible work surfaces that can be easily cleaned,” Milman says. “Modular pieces with adjustable shelving work well, because they can be tailored to a specific crafter’s needs.”
In January, Martha Stewart Living launched a line of organizational systems and crafting furniture through Home Decorators Collection. The line includes tables of varying heights, gift-wrapping hutches and storage/filing cabinetry.
“This furniture was designed by crafters and features pullout trays, drawers that are deep enough to hold a 4-ounce can of paint, and scratch-resistant surfaces,” Milman says. “Crafting can be a state of creative chaos, and if you spend all your time searching for something you need, you can lose that moment of inspiration.”
Furniture comes in Martha Stewart-style colors: Picket Fence (white), Sharkey Gray (light charcoal) and Rhododendron Leaf (soft green). Modular pieces range in price from $129 to $399. Complementary organizational components, including bulletin boards, storage, magazine and paper files, range from $5 to $119.
“The room you craft in is a direct reflection of yourself as an artist,” Milman says. “You want the tools you work with most often to be easily accessible.”
Milman suggests grouping wet crafting projects in one area (such as painting and gluing), while keeping dry crafting projects (sewing and paper cutting) in another area of the room. She also likes using hutches that have doors, which can close and contain supplies, and the occasional clutter, in an organized way.
After crafting, Hamen says cleaning up can often take just as much time as the creative process. “I’ll go through my craft room and tidy it after a project,” she says. “Often in the cleaning process, I will rediscover what I have: a forgotten picture or an interestingly patterned paper that I can use next time.”
Hamen says her craft room can be a Zen-like zone when there’s a place for all her Fiskars scissors, paper punches and stamps, and everything’s in its place. “If people find the joy in creating and crafting, often they also find a place in their home to do it,” she says.
