Scrap to Craft- Compact Craft Desk Oraganized

An unmanaged corner in an otherwise neat room always pricks the eyes, whether it is at your office or at home. More often we just go past that filthy looking, overcrowded area thinking someday we will arrange it well. The same happened to my craft area. I kept on adding things onto it and it quietly handled. My craft area was actually an unused single bed where I used to keep all my craft supplies and crafted items crowded over each other. But when the other day, my relatives called up saying they were going to visit us for a week long stay I had to clean up that bed immediately. All this while I never cared about it. And so I decided to do a small D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) and store all my craft supplies, creations to a single desk.

We had our TV stand, which was no longer in use since we mounted our TV onto the living room wall. So I thought that to use the bed I need to use this unused TV stand as my craft desk. And hence began the journey of Scrap to Craft Collage of a Craft Desk.

I searched my stash and found few entertainment magazines piling up. It was time for them to come out of the hiatus and meet a new friend, my craft desk. So I planned to make this friendship a long one by making a collage for the desk cover. And what better way than to use the beautiful faces of the Hindi Film Industry to add to the aesthetics of my desk.

I assure you that you will be using all unused items at your home for this craft. So let's begin. :)

Step 1: Materials Used

- Old Newspapers

- Old entertainment magazines

- Cello-tape

- Glue and Scissors

- Used File containers

- Old storage containers / Tiffin Boxes

- Cardboard courier boxes

- Paper Glasses

- Used Cold Drink bottles

- Home Delivery food containers

- Toilet Paper Rolls

- Chips containers

Step 2: Making the Collage

Cut a newspaper to the size of your desk such that it covers up entirely.

Surf through the entertainment magazines and cut out the Bollywood faces.

Arrange the cut outs onto the newspaper in manner that it entirely covers up the newspaper.

Then stick the pieces with glue onto the newspaper exactly where you had positioned.

Once that it done, allow the collage to dry and then fix the collage to the desk with Cello-tape, properly on all four sides.

Step 3: Organizing the Craft Supplies

Storage for Ribbons/Ball Chains/Laces - Make a slit on one of the open sides of the toilet paper rolls. Then wind the ball chains/ribbons etc. on the roll and push the end of the ball chains/ribbons in that slit.

Storage for paints/paper punches - Remove the lids and use the home delivery food containers to store the paints and paper punches

Storage for colour pencils - Use long chips container or paper glasses to hold all coloured pencils and sketch pens.

Storage for larger size ribbons/scrapbook decorations - Use the file storing container to store large size ribbons, card-stocks or scrapbook decorations.

Step 4: Still Organizing Craft Supplies

Storage for Rhinestones- Again you can use home delivery small food containers for storing rhinestones. I used my small soup containers I had saved from the fast food junction near my home. I also used old coke bottles and cut them half. Then slit the 6 dent marking , particularly coke bottles have, upto the certain length the dent is marked ( Do not cut through the dent till the bottom of the bottle. Then it will be of no use ). Those 6 sections served as flaps to close the mouth of the half cut bottle.. It then formed a container as well.

Storage for craft tools - You can used large sized paper glasses to store scissors,single punch machine, craft knife, stapler etc. I actually crafted a tool stand from newspaper and painted it with bright colours. Then I drew some Warli art on it.

Storage for beads - You can use your unused tiffin boxes or storage boxes from your kitchen to store beads.

Storage for stamps and Inkpads - Use the cardboard courier boxes. Cut out the closing flaps from all four sides to have a open upper side and store all your stamps and inkpads in that.

Rememberall the lids that you must have removed earlier in the process to store sketch pens, coloured pencils or paint, do not throw them away. You can use those lids as your paint or glue palette.

Step 5: Finally Done

Then position every item as per your desire. Since I used a TV stand I placed more frequently used items on the desk and other stored items in the compartments below. ( Please refer the image )

Then I placed the craft desk beside my bed to a corner.

I also had few photographs which were lying without an album. So I hung those just above the craft desk for a complete look.

And this is how my cute craft corner looks. More neat, beautiful and compact. Every item that I need is at one place and I do not have to search under a pile of things. :)

I am sorry [:(] I could not click photos of the messy craft bed as I had to clean up the bed urgently.

DIY is always interesting and educative. It is a fun way of learning to do things by ourselves. And through this particular DIY, we can definitely teach ourselves and kids around us that, not just charity but cleanliness also begins at home. One thing I learnt during this DIY was that creating a collage is not an easy task at all. It is about matching the right pieces together in such a way that it will look like a collage yet it should not look odd.

You can also use the storage ideas for your study table or desk you use more often and it's messy now. Use all those items which you were thinking of throwing away a few days ago. Make a collage of your favourite things or persons or places.

Keep it small and crafty ! :)