Inside the Studio: Fabric Storage

I have had a few people ask me about how I store things in my studio room to make my life easier. So, I'm going to do a mini series on it, including what I paid and how I saved money.

Today, we are going to look at my fabric storage area:

Look at that beauty! I scored this bookshelf from Craigslist for only $20! You can hardly beat that deal. It keeps all of my fabric nice and pretty, easy to see, but also keeps the dust off. So many amazing things all in one. I have my cotton solids, cotton prints, and my fusible fabric on the top; flannels and fleece on the second shelf; knits, special occasion, and home decor on the third shelf; and PUL, felt, and miscellaneous fabric on the bottom shelf.

I must admit, having all of my fabric in view like that shows me how much I have really accumulated over the last year or so. Well, technically this isn't all of my fabric, but it is about 90% of it. I have some upstairs still - much to my husband's dismay.

There's a look at the top of my pretty bookshelf. I paid $1 for each of the clear containers, from Dollar Tree. Sometimes I have seen the clear shoe boxes at Mernards or Walmart for 11/$10. I spray painted the outside of mine to give them more color and wrote in dry erase marker on the outside of them. I love the ease of the boxes and being able to get them down. I really need to buy more to put the rest of my holiday prints in.

I try to keep it all really simple, so that it's easy for me. I'm afraid to get too fancy with it or else I'll get confused and have to go through a hundred things to get one thing. No way - I'm too lazy for that crap. And that is why I have my fabric set up the way it is. How do you organize your fabric? Does it work well for you or do you hate it? I had mine in drawers for a long time and hated it with a passion. It was so difficult to find anything. Glad to be done with that! NEVER. AGIAN.

Cheap DIY Closet Doubler AKA Clothes Rod

So, today's post is a very interesting looking contraption that is very handy and actually works quite well. While doing updates to the place we are currently staying at, I decided I wanted to add shelves to our tiny closet to make more room for our things and for the baby's stuff. Four issues:
1.) The amount of clothes we had hanging in our closet made it impossible to add shelves without the clothes being in the way.
2.) I didn't have any way to hang the clothes anywhere else.
3.) I didn't have the money to spend $20 for two closet doublers (one for my side, one for his).
4.) Most closet doublers are too long to effectively still allow enough room for my shelves.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's a picture of a closet doubler:

Could come in pretty handy, right? Like I said, I didn't want to spend the money and came up with my own version for real cheap. It looks real funky, but nobody looks in your closet except for you. So, it doesn't really matter, right? That's how I look at it. I seriously thought about taking a before picture, but was  too embarrassed by how cluttered and disorganized my closet was.  

Materials needed:

-Hot glue gun/glue

-Ribbon or yarn or strong string (2 pieces per clothes rod)

-Dowels, rods, or even strong sticks

-Scissors

I already had all of these items, so I didn't have to spend any money.  First thing is to measure how far down you want your clothes rod to be. Then, double that and add 6 inches. Cut your pieces of ribbon to this length.

Put a glob of hot glue on your rod. Then, wrap the middle of your ribbon around the end of the rod three times. Then put a dab more glue on and wrap the ribbon around one more time to help keep it in place.  

Should look something like this when you're done. 

Then, you get to tie it up. I went around my original rod two times before doing a double tie on it. 

And, finally, you get to hang clothes on it! Super simple and super cheap, right? That's why I love it. I got about one week of usage out of it before we started packing. And I didn't even get all of my shelves up! So, no full "After" picture. Grrr.... This is as good as it gets:

Sorry, we were in the middle of packing when I realized I hadn't got a picture. You can see where the other shelves were and how much room my clothes rods gave me! 

I will most likely do a new post at the beginning of the week, depending on how unpacking and setting up goes. Can't wait to share pictures of the new place!