Crib Meets Craft: Closet Reveal

There are lots of tell tale signs that you’re a crafter. Like when you find adhesive squares in your bed – and it’s no big deal. Or when you always have glitter specks on your face. Or when the transaction history on your credit card looks like this: Michael’s. Michael’s. Joanns. Container Store. Container Store. Joanns. Hobby Lobby. Container Store. Michael’s…you get the idea.

The last of these is true for me, especially since I started tackling Crib Meets Craft. If you’ve been following the #cribmeetscraft hashtag on Instagram, you’ve seen peeks of this process over the last few months.  I’ve taken “nesting” to a whole new level which means I’ve spent lots of time organizing and labeling and neatly putting things in their perfect place. Hallelujah for my new best friends at The Container Store who helped me through every step of my Crib Meets Craft closet organization project.

With a baby on the way, I knew I had to tackle every nook and cranny of my craft space and make it functional for me and the little sugarbooger. This meant giving some much needed attention the sad, disaster of a closet that had long gone neglected. Before The Container Store swooped in to save the day, the closet looked like a rat’s nest. Like the inside of Oscar the Grouch’s trash can. Like the …well…how’s about I just show you.

If you have eyeballs, you can see what a joke this place was. Sort of like I released a pack of feral cats inside… then closed the doors…well maybe not that bad..but certainly not good. Not good at all. And certainly not functional. Here’s what wasn’t working for me:

1. See that folding door? It totally got in the way. With space at such a premium, that door was a big problem. Even when it was open, it took up about 4″ of space in the closet opening which meant I couldn’t fully open the plastic drawers inside.

2. The hanging bar was another problem. It was the perfect height for hanging clothing but when it came to storing boxes and supplies on the shelf portion, it was a little unstable.

3. Ugly boxes galore! This is what happens when you have too many supplies and too few places to store them. Things end up being stored in cardboard boxes and stashed wherever they’ll fit. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with cardboard boxes, but when you love pretty things the way I love pretty things …cardboard boxes are just not cool.

4. Stacks on stacks on stacks. This was probably the biggest problem. Here’s the thing: once you stack more than 2-3 boxes on top of each other, the configuration becomes pretty non-functional. If you need to grab a box, you have to move the other ones…and sometimes they topple over…and then you get annoyed…and then you avoid putting things back where they belong because it’s such a pain…so everything ends up in a huge mess.

5. Nowhere to store my props! If you’ve read the blog for a while, you know how much I love to style photos with seasonal props. Those props need a home and in this previous set up, their home was the floor. They often got in the way and made it impossible to close the door all the way. See the problem?!

6. On the other side of the closet is where I stored the baby stuff, including the world’s most adorable seersucker suit which I purchased at Macy’s for $6…but I digress. This closet bar was also a problem for baby clothes because it left a ton of empty space below.

7. Stacks of more boxes! Argh. See #4.

8. Too many baby toys jammed into too little space and waaaay too disorganized!

I established the problems…so the next step was to take all my measurements to The Container Store where the Elfa geniuses worked their magic and designed a way more awesome space that would work for all of my needs. It took about an hour to design the entire space, including the time they spent helping me decide on which storage drawers and boxes would be best. I was beyond impressed with the patience and knowledge of the staff at my local store. They thought of EVERYTHING and had a solution for every snag.

With the space designed, I had our friendly handyman remove the previous closet rod, patch the holes and paint the interior of the closet in a fun shade of blue.

The last phase was installation which was offered by The Container Store! Thank goodness…because Lord knows this pregnant lady had no business trying to tackle that task! They came over and installed all the shelving and drawers in the matter of 90 minutes. It was like watching magic happen.

Now for the fun part…the after!

The final closet space includes a varied collection of Elfa shelving and drawers that are functional for baby supplies as well as for crafting supplies. Let’s take the grand tour, shall we?

The left side of the closet is dedicated to crafting with a shelf that holds all of my large electronic supplies like my printer, Cricut Explore and my sewing machine. I love that my Cricut has a permanent home and can be used without moving it to another spot. For this shelf, I used the Elfa 16″ deep white melamine solid shelving.

On the shelves above the electronics, I’ve organized my ribbon, envelopes, felt, stickers, adhesives, inkpads, letterpress supplies…and more! It’s pretty unbelievable how much stuff can be stored in the Clear Shirt Drawers and Clear Shoe Drawers.  I was especially excited when I realized that I could store fifteen HUGE spools of ribbon in just one of the Clear Shirt Drawers. The dividers make it easy to keep the ribbon spools in place and all I have to do is pull out the drawer from it’s base to snip off a length of ribbon.

In addition to the clear drawers, I also used Stockholm Magazine Files and Stockholm Photo Storage Boxes to keep things in place. I really love that everything has a home. It doesn’t hurt that these also come in pretty colors. The large Stockholm Desktop File is another great solution for storing cardstock.

Not wanting to leave an ounce of unused space, I decided to make the most of the wall behind my sewing machine and Cricut Explore machine. Luckily, if you wander around The Container Store, you will find a solution for everything. That’s exactly what happened here.

Urbio Magnetic Modular System  can be used in approximately 7 bajillion ways. The magnetic wall plates screw directly into your wall and there are several different containers that you can choose from for storing your goods. For my set up, I chose the Wide Mouth and Shorty containers for holding pens, scissors and notebooks. I love that the containers can be pulled off of the wall plate for me to bring over to my workspace.

The Elfa Drawer units are by far the biggest storage solution in this closet. For my closet space, I have a total of six free standing units on wheels; three on each side of the closet. The Elfa Custom Drawer Planner was really helpful in figuring out which size drawer units I should get.

By having the drawer units on casters, I’m able to have another workspace, which I love! I frequently pull out the middle drawer unit and use the white melamine top for trimming cardstock or cutting ribbon.

On one of the drawer units, I added a Gift Wrap Organizer, which is the perfect spot for organizing those large photo props that used to live on the closet floor. Also, whenever I need to wrap a gift, the cart pulls out and provides a great work surface for cutting paper and wrapping up gifts. I have a feeling this will be super useful with the upcoming holiday season!

Now let’s take a peek on the baby side of the Crib Meets Craft closet.

The Oskar Boxes are incredibly roomy and have given me a great place to store baby clothes that he won’t be able to wear for a while. The boxes are also perfect for all those Martha Stewart paints that I seem to be hoarding!

Thankfully, the Elfa system allowed me to add a closet rod to this side of the closet even though I didn’t need one on the crafting side. The addition of the closet rod is seamless and it looks like it’s totally belongs there!

On the baby side of the closet, I have the exact same drawer units which pull out on casters. It’s a great place to fold up baby clothes and each of the drawers has plenty of room for all those baby necessities like diapers, hats, socks and shoes.

Looking back at those “before” photos, it’s hard to believe that this closet had so much useable space! The amount of supplies that I’ve been able to organize has freed up a ton of space in the nursery so that we can make room for baby! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this makeover and I’d especially love to hear about your own organizational needs! Will you be using any of these ideas for your own space?

A huge thank you to The Container Store as well as the amazing team at the Hallandale Beach location for their help and support in making this project happen. I’ve been a long time lover of The Container Store and could not be happier to share my thoughts and opinions with you. If you are looking to revamp your own space, you may just wanna swoop in on your local store while they are offering 25% off all Elfa Shelving. Even if you’re not in the market to makeover an entire room or closet, there are plenty of smaller organizational solutions that can make your life a whole lot easier! The sale will end on October 19th, so you still have a few days to save. This post has been sponsored by the kind folks at