I haven't done a lot of crafting lately due to being busy at school. We had Back to School night for our son last Monday and my own was this past Thursday, so there hasn't been a lot of free time to do crafty stuff. So what I've been up to mostly is dreaming about IKEA.
You see, I haven't lived anywhere near an IKEA for 99.9% of my life. In fact, I had never heard of that place before 2007 or so. It was around that time that I began looking for better alternatives to store my ever-growing collection of scrapbooks and scrapbooking supplies. The scrapbook pages I was making (and still make occasionally) are 12" x 12" in size. The scrapbooks themselves are probably around 13" x 13". That means they cannot fit on standard shelves.
In vain, I purchased bookshelves at Wal-Mart, Target, and Lowe's, thinking I could put the scrapbooks on the bottom shelf and the supplies on the other shelves. Each and every bookshelf I purchased bowed under the weight of paper and punches and a myriad of other tools. I also had a hard time finding enough pieces that corresponded to one another, so my room typically ended up looking like a jumbled mess.
It was around late 2007 that I finally took to the internet to figure out how other scrapbookers stored their supplies. Time and time again, people with wonderful scrapbook rooms said their shelves were called Expedit and they came from IKEA.
This is what they look like:
http://www.ikea.com/ms/media/seorange/20134/20134_Expedit_PE364466.jpg
I got excited because I wanted to go to the nearest IKEA to get these marvelous shelves. To my great consternation, I discovered that the nearest IKEA store was nearly 8 hours away by car! That is something like 550 miles! I couldn't even order online because to get stuff delivered to my home, it would cost over $300, which was more than the cost of the shelves themselves!
How could my discombobulated room compare with this:
http://www.twotwentyone.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/craft-room-ikea-expedit.jpg
So in the summer of 2007, I taught summer enrichment to earn extra money and then we drove all the way to Bloomington, Minnesota--almost 8 hours-- just to get Expedit shelves at IKEA. We made a fun long weekend trip out of by going to the Mall of America and the Water Park of America while we were there. It turned out to be a wonderful mini-vacation. I had a phone that didn't take great photos back then, but here are a few pics:
You see, I haven't lived anywhere near an IKEA for 99.9% of my life. In fact, I had never heard of that place before 2007 or so. It was around that time that I began looking for better alternatives to store my ever-growing collection of scrapbooks and scrapbooking supplies. The scrapbook pages I was making (and still make occasionally) are 12" x 12" in size. The scrapbooks themselves are probably around 13" x 13". That means they cannot fit on standard shelves.
In vain, I purchased bookshelves at Wal-Mart, Target, and Lowe's, thinking I could put the scrapbooks on the bottom shelf and the supplies on the other shelves. Each and every bookshelf I purchased bowed under the weight of paper and punches and a myriad of other tools. I also had a hard time finding enough pieces that corresponded to one another, so my room typically ended up looking like a jumbled mess.
It was around late 2007 that I finally took to the internet to figure out how other scrapbookers stored their supplies. Time and time again, people with wonderful scrapbook rooms said their shelves were called Expedit and they came from IKEA.
This is what they look like:
I got excited because I wanted to go to the nearest IKEA to get these marvelous shelves. To my great consternation, I discovered that the nearest IKEA store was nearly 8 hours away by car! That is something like 550 miles! I couldn't even order online because to get stuff delivered to my home, it would cost over $300, which was more than the cost of the shelves themselves!
How could my discombobulated room compare with this:
So in the summer of 2007, I taught summer enrichment to earn extra money and then we drove all the way to Bloomington, Minnesota--almost 8 hours-- just to get Expedit shelves at IKEA. We made a fun long weekend trip out of by going to the Mall of America and the Water Park of America while we were there. It turned out to be a wonderful mini-vacation. I had a phone that didn't take great photos back then, but here are a few pics:
I loved the experience of shopping at IKEA and eating in their restaurant, as did the kids.
We bought 5x5 and 2x4 Expedit shelves, as well as three Billy bookshelves. Oh, and some stuffed animals, and a super cute heart pillow with arms!
We even got some adorable pics at a rest stop in Iowa on the way home.
When we got home, I couldn't wait to get my Expedit shelves in my scrapbook room! It was hard work putting all the shelves together, but it was totally worth it! Well, Chris may not agree with me because it took him forever to put them together at first.
Then we ended up moving the shelves a couple of times because my scrapbook/craft rooms changed locations in our house. Here is a nice of view of them when I was in a tidy phase of my life. (This phase did not last long!)
Pretty, huh?
Well, check back next week because there is MORE TO COME IN THIS CONTINUING SAGA...
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