craft space teaser: cigar boxes

My craft space, at long last, is looking a lot better. However, I’m too lazy to clean up enough for photos, so I’m not going to show you the whole thing just yet.

My secret weapon in getting it together was a stash of cigar boxes I picked up from craigslist for $2 each (er, Amy picked them up while I was wallowing in bed, hopped up on pain meds… thanks Amy).

Here we go:*

I started with the top drawer in my most-excellent mid century desk, which I use for sewing. I wanted to have all my notions, thread, and the like easily accessible from the machine, and the top drawer was the closest spot. Before the cigar boxes, I had bobbins, scissors, pins, and all kinds of things just floating around. Now, they’re all contained!

My notions box holds the essentials: scissors, pins, tape measure, etc. The handy thing is that I can leave the top drawer and the cigar box open while I’m sewing, making these easy to get to without cluttering up my work surface or having to move the box around.

I’ve also got cigar boxes dedicated to fasteners and machine care — things I need less often but still need to keep around.

The desk’s second drawer is dedicated to the “sharp things” cigar box: craft scissors (not for sewing!), box cutters, extra blades for my small paper cutter, X-acto knives, all things dangerous. Having these things organized by function is really helpful, especially when I know I need some sort of slice’n’dicer but I’m not sure what the best tool for the job is.

What you see here is easily my favorite use of a cigar box. This one lives just below my dry erase board, which I use for lists, inspiration, you name it. I mean, come on — Expos never had it so good.

*Please excuse the ridiculous photos… one of these days I’ll remember to take photos sometime before midnight so that I’ll actually have natural light.