crafty organization

I have been inspired to organize my sewing/craft/office space.  Sometimes I wonder why I bother, you know with the whole hopefully we-will-be-moving-soon thing going on around here.  I tried to ignore the urge...but it wouldn't go away.  Then, I read three blogs here, here and here and now I have fabric envy.

What I was doing was working fine for the space I have, but it wasn't pretty. 

I love to organize colors in rainbow order.  Does anyone else do that?  The shirts in my closet are even in "rainbow order".  It makes me happy.  I started with my thread.

and then moved on to my fabric.  This process took me a few days.  I needed the inexpensive foam board from The Dollar Tree...but we don't have one in town.  After two friends bought some (15 boards) for me..I finished.  To get your mini fabric bolts, cut your 20x30 foam board into four 10x14 pieces.  I just used my cutting mat and rotary cutter.  I used these large boards for my fabric with yardage over 3/4 of a yard.  The fabric that was less than a 3/4 yard went on comic book boards.  I found them on Amazon here.  I emptied out an old dresser for all of my blank shirts which really helped to organized the book shelf for the fabrics. 

my boys said my office looked like a fabric store.

Awesome! and...and...and...

Matt bought me a serger a few weeks ago!

Love it!

I'm clearly in love with green fabrics.  The problem with doing this, I realized I have A LOT of fabric and I love it!  I've also added five more fabrics since this picture.  Obsession?  No way, it is all for the love of sewing!  I have to have options for my customers! 

My fat quarters and large straps are in these baskets.  They need a little more organization but for now it works.  In the closet I have linen baskets that hold my buttons, small scraps, trimmings, elastic, etc.  I can't wait to have a bigger office...

In the midst of all the cutting and folding of fabric, I had a lot of orders to fill.  Here are a few of my recent projects.  I mailed of quite a few without taking pictures-like four Disney outfits and a few birthday shirts.

I had a customer ask me to do a chocolate chip cookie shirt.  The little "chips" are black rhinestones.  It's pretty cute and going into my store soon.  Here are few of my favorites...

Remember when I mentioned I was doing flip flop shirts for little birthday party?  Here they are!  The chenille is sewn at the edges and at the toe piece, leave the straps "open" like a real sandal.  I did ten of them and I can't wait to see pictures of the little Luau birthday party.

Easter orders...

This will also be a new item added to my store.  This customer has twin girls and she was planning a ladybug birthday party!  We combined two of my designs for her custom shirts!

Yesterday I sent of completed orders to Australia and the Netherlands.  It is very exciting to think that my little business has gone global!  Right now I am working on a big Disney World order for two local families!  One family ordered five Minnie Mouse skirt/shirt outfits and seven Mickey shirts.  It will be so fun to see a picture of them all together on vacation!  I just bought a ruffler foot for my sewing machine, and it is wonderful!  It will surely cut my time in half for sewing skirts!  I love being able to improve quality of my projects and productivity!

On a sad note, my desktop computer finally died.

I decided to finally pull all of my work off and put it on the external drive...and it died in the process.

Talk about panic attack.

I was sure nine years of pictures, files and documents were lost forever.

Thankfully, I have a computer savy friend that saved the day.  I borrowed her adapter to hook up to my internal drives to the laptop.  It was kind of fun to open up the old computer and take it apart.  Everything was still there and now safely on the external drive.

The relief was overwhelming, I totally cried!

It has been a very busy few weeks up in my sewing room.  I am so thankful that I have business to keep me busy (busier)! Time to go work on those Disney orders! 

We are so excited to have my little brother here for a visit for his spring break!  My kids haven't seen him for two and a half years, so we have a lot of catching up to do!!  I forsee a lot of laughs, teasing, Nerf wars and staying up late in the next few days!