A little IKEA madness... or maybe a lot?!

Readers of this blog will know I love making a rather diverse range of craft.  None of which really overlap (read: use the same supplies).  For instance as far a thread arts go... I only make temari, I don't do any other hand embroidery.  I make soap and bath bombs but not lotions and creams, I scrapbook and make cards (OK they are complimentary) but I don't do any other paper-craft.  And so the list goes on.... 

Unfortunately my little house is full to the brim of crafting supplies from pearl beads to perle cotton, pliers, glass grinders and sheets of decorative glass to decorative punches, glitter and scissors.  Today when I was out and about, my wonderful husband surprised me by converting our spare room (read: room known as the guest room but actually used as a place where we have just put stuff we don't know where else to store) into a craft room.  I arrived home to find a table set up with my sewing machine atop and all my plastic boxes of fabrics and papers placed against one wall.  I am so excited because I can now have a clean dining table and leave my UFO's set up for short periods of time when they can't be immediately completed.

Every time I visit our local IKEA store I promise myself to NOT make any purchases... I don't know why I bother with this ritual as I never keep my promise.  On my last 3 visits I have purchased items that I have classified under the heading 'essential temari purchases'.  These items were as follows:

IKEA Stockholm Bowl - looks great filled with temari and is often featured in my blog images. This lives either on top of the coffee table or on top of the Alex unit featured below.

Alex wide drawer unit - loads of storage space and keeps my thread/yarn/book stash perfectly and I love, love, love the casters and the wide white surface is great for setting my temari up for photographing.

Kvart Floor Lamp - fitted with cool white bulb for my regular stitching all nighters and also helpful for lighting photos when used in conjuction with my sons lamp which is the table top version of this lamp.

Alex 9 drawer upright unit - Fab for keeping my books and various threads used for classes etc.  Also the new home for my latest temari purchase.

Bladet 45cm tall hand-blown vase: a lovely big vessel for displaying my temari.  It has a 25cm diameter. I also purchased a glass candle platter to place on top to keep out the dust.  I dumped in a random selection of temari in loads of different sizes to see how it might look.  Now I want to work on colour themes which I can change with the seasons.

Now that I have an entire room dedicated to crafty pursuits I might even look for another wall unit so I can be even more organised.  I guess I will be back to IKEA soon because this is the unit I am thinking of. It is from the Expedit range.

I am working at the 3rd round (of how many I don't yet know) on my HHG challenge ball which I hope to have completed and on this blog in the next few days.