Since I did a craft room walkthrough last year, I decided this time to take photos instead. You can see the older video here if you'd like. 

I shared these photos for March Meet the Maker (which has been a lot of fun, I might make a compilation blog post at the end of it all). But I wanted to go a bit more in depth about what is in my craft room and why. 

Pretty much everything in my craft room is from Ikea. I always offer a word of advice for anyone shopping at Ikea: Go into it with the understand that you aren't buying forever furniture. For me, that's perfect for a craft room. I know I'm hard on my furniture and if I slip up and cut the tabletop or burn it with a hot glue gun, I'd rather damage a $40 table than a $200 table. 

My entire craft room is only 8x10 feet so I had to plan every inch before I moved in to make sure I could fit everything I needed to work. I store all my finished plushies in sealed totes on my three season porch and I store larger items in cupboards in my front room (mostly photography items). 

I have a Pinterest board where I'm always gathering inspiration. One day I'd love to have a HUGE craft room! 

So let's start at the station I refer to as "the command center"!

You'd think the command center might be the sewing machine, but actually I do a large chunk of my work from here. I do pretty much everything that isn't sewing or cutting from here including printing shipping labels, editing photos, checking emails, updating social media, creating new images, packaging orders, and everything else in between. 

The shelves, desks, and small bookshelf on the left are all from Ikea. We actually cut the corner desk with a saw to fit around the giant old radiator. I was worried about the computer being so close, but the radiator in here doesn't actually get that hot. Most days it's just slightly warm to the touch. I like to stick my feet in it to get warm. 

The whiteboard is magnetic and came from Office Max, I use it to stick cards, magnets, and other little bits of inspiration. I also write reminders to myself and stick important things on there like my convention schedule that I don't want to forget. The white printer stand is from Amazon. My printer is a Cannon mg7720. I got it because of the wireless capabilities as well as the built in scanner, but it also makes beautiful prints. I must confess, I never buy name brand ink. I always purchase it here and I've had great results plus it lasts longer than the name brand. 

On the left of the computer is my Cintiq 13hd. Not sure how I'd live without it at this point it's a life saver. 

One of the best investments for my business has been my DYMO 4XL label writer. That's the little black thing up on the doll chair. If you have a small business, do yourself a favor and get one of these. No ink to worry about and no paper jams is a blessing, it takes seconds with no fuss to print a label. Plus if you buy the labels from Amazon you're going to spend less than if you buy label paper for a standard printer. I did the math before purchasing it, I was spending 13c a label when you factor in ink and paper costs for my regular printer, assuming it even printed right. The DYMO costs me about 2c a print. 

For headphones, I splurged and got these two years ago. They still work fantastically. I got them because they are comfortable for extended wear and wireless and, the best part, the battery can be replaced with a secondary one that is charged in the station that plugs into the computer. So there's NEVER any downtown to wait for the battery to re-charge after it dies like I had with other headphones. Plus they are noise cancelling which helps keep me focused and the audio is great. I listen to audiobooks mainly, but also podcasts and TV shows so having good headphones I can wear around the craft room is amazing. 

And, of course, I've got lots of of plushies from other artists, my espeon collection, a few things I've made, and lots and lots of plants! My favorite here is my aloe because it's grown so much over the year or two I've had it and it's incredibly useful when I get a sunburn (which I do, often, since I'm so pale). 

This is the windows next to my command center. I've filled them with succulents, plants, figurines from other artists, etc. There are crystals in the window and when the sun shines in it makes rainbows everywhere. It's absolutely my happy place. The succulents are a bit leggy since they don't get enough light (notice how close the neighbors house is), but in a way I think I like them more this way. 

On the right side of the room is my cutting station. I attached couch legs to the bottom of the table. Because I'm short, this raises it to a comfortable height for me to cut while I stand.

There's a post here about all my books, I like to keep relevant sewing books in easy reach. 

I have a video run down of many of my tools here if you'd like to see more specifics. 

My current cutting mat is an Alvin brand self healing mat, but it's not my favorite. I prefer the Fiskars brand mats because they have a bit harder surface. Specifically this one because (of course) it's purple!

I have a large metal print up of my cat, Smokey, who passed away in September (I've also got his ashes in an urn on my printer stand). After 12 years with him I miss him terribly, but it helps to see his big eyes every day. 

Under the desk I've made a spot for my pup, Perseus, to sleep. He isn't allowed in here if the birds are out of their cage, but if they are calmly hanging out inside their cages I let him come in and lay with me while I work. 

We take lots of breaks to potty or play during the day, he's an active boy and he keeps me moving!

Continuing to move to the right, I've got this tall Ikea Alex set of drawers. The top half are all for patterns storage and little things like cut pieces waiting to be sewn. On top I generally keep my camera and accessories in the bowl (when I'm not using them like I am for these photos!) and plants. I grow new little succulents in the black pot. 

The bottom half is all bird supplies, toys, etc. 

I attached a thread organizer and a power strip to the side with some heavy duty double sided tape and I also hang my minky swatch sets here.

In this corner of the room is the birbs! Tequila Sunrise the Jenday Conure, Mica the Cockatiel, and Lemon Drop the cockatiel! You can learn more about them here. One day I'd love to have a much bigger space for them, but for now we make the most of it. 

The biggest question I get is how I keep them from getting into things. Mostly, they just don't care about anything else in the room. They play with their toys in the cages, climb around, and forage for food that I hide in their foraging toys. I do my best to keep their cages interesting and provide mental stimulation that keeps them from wanting to get into trouble elsewhere. When they do come out, they mostly sit on my shoulder or the desk with me. 

Under their cage goes their food, a blanket to cover them, and a TON of cleaning supplies. Three birds in a space this small means tons of cleaning every day, but it's worth it. 

Finally we get to the sewing desk and fabric wall! I keep all my fabric folded onto 12x12 chipboard which fits perfectly in the Kallax shelves and I try to keep it sorted by color that matches my swatches so I can easily identify the colors if I need to. I simply fold the fabric over the chipboard and use corsage pins to pin it in place and keep it from unraveling. This way I can just grab the color I need without everything coming unfolded and I can easily slide it back in place on the shelf. It also looks great! 

The sewing machine is a Pfaff Performance 5.0. My favorite feature of the Pfaffs is the IDT system which functions as a built in walking foot, but it has a lot of automated processes that speed up the sewing process for me. 

Of course I also added a nerdy sticker to it. I try to avoid plastering my belongings in stickers, but with this I couldn't resist. It's just too perfect and matches the purple accent I used throughout my room (I spray painted pots, clip lamps, storage doors, etc to all match and tie things together, but this sticker just happened to be the right shade). 

To the right I have my older machine, a Brother SE400, which was the machine I started machine sewing my plushies on. Prior to that, I was hand sewing them because my vintage machines I owned were too slow and frustrating to use. 

You can also see some of the awesome rainbows from my window crystals!

The storage unit it sits on is on wheels so when it's not in use I can slide it under any desk in my sewing room to save space. 



So there you have it! That's the latest from the BeeZeeArt craft room. I hope you all enjoyed seeing where I work. It's my favorite place in the house and, given the amount of time I spend in there, it has to be! 

Let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them or to name specific artists for some of the plushies and artwork around. There's just too many to name in this one blog post, it would be forever long!

**Note, this post contains affiliate links! When you click on them and purchase something, I may make a small portion of that purchase as a commission. This doesn't cost you anything extra. I am not being paid by any of these companies to promote their products or anything like that, these are genuinely products I like and use regularly which I purchased on my own.