The inspiration behind the Something Turquoise Craft Room!
Jen Causey-Kidder
Jen Causey-Kidder August 10, 2015

#STcraftroom / Part One / Planning

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It is with extreme pleasure that I’m finally able to share my craft room + blog office journey with you this week! This labor of love has been in the works for 8+ months so when I say FINALLY, I really mean it. Each day I’ll be sharing a different aspect of how I built my dream work space, including tips, advice and inspiration culminating in a video on Friday spanning the last 5 months. I’ve had the honor of partnering with some of my most favorite craft brands during this process and in celebration, they’re all sponsoring HUGE giveaways this week, 11 total! From a giant bundle of Fiskars tools to a piece of Martha Stewart Craft Space Furniture and even a Cricut Air, there are some killer prizes coming your way! Enter at the bottom of each post. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask as I’ll jump at the chance to discuss anything about my space!

#STcraftroom - Part One - Planning

My Inspiration

I’m sure you’re aware that turquoise is my favorite color, but what you might not know is that I’m obsessed with the way navy blue and copper look paired with all shades of turquoise – that being said the color palette was an incredibly easy decision. I’m deeply connected to the beach + ocean so that was the second element that had to have a huge presence in my space. Throughout the entire design process I had three specific words that kept me focused on what my space needed to be:

  • Functional. This is a work space. It’s an absolute dream come true that my hobby of crafting is now what I do for work, but that meant my space had to be functional. Right off the bat I needed to decide where my computer would be, where we would shoot DIY’s and how I would display all my decor elements for ease during shoots. I designed every aspect of this space to fit how I wanted to work in it.
  • Accesible. Having all my favorite crafting tools at my finger tips and all of my supplies organized by category/craft was important to me. I wanted to have a place for everything so that not only would working be easy – but clean up would be too. When I’m shooting my work space looks like a tornado hit it, so I was mindful about imagining what clean up was going to look like. You’ll get to see more of what accessibility means to me in the coming days.
  • Beautiful. Every element that I brought into the room had to be beautiful in my eyes. Since I spend the majority of my time (60+ hours a week) in this space, I wanted to be surrounded by things that I felt were exceptionally beautiful and inspiring. If I didn’t LOVE it, it didn’t come into the space.
The inspiration behind the Something Turquoise Craft Room!

The Empty Room:

As soon as I walked into this space, I knew it would make the ideal craft room + blog office! It’s 128 square feet with tons of natural light and gorgeous windows. At night when all is quiet, I can actually hear the waves breaking on shore right down the street – what more could I ask for! Since I shoot my DIY’s in this room – the first decision that we had to make was that the wall with the door/closet had the best lighting, so that was the ideal spot in the room for shooting.

The biggest draw backs to the room are the 1930’s walls that aren’t flush (and are a nightmare to drill into) and the gorgeous windows that I love actually open inwards, making furniture positioning a little tricky.

The empty, Something Turquoise craft room

Step One: Building A Pinterest Board

When me and the hubs decided that in 2015 we needed to move into a bigger home so that both of us could have our own offices, I started a Pinterest board called Blog Office + Craft Room and packed it full of all my favorite ideas for a small, crafty space by the beach. To find images that would inspire me on Pinterest, I used search terms like:

  • small craft space
  • awesome craft space
  • unique craft room
  • craft organization (this is a great one!)
  • blog office
  • beach office
  • small office spaces
  • beach house decor

At first, I pinned anything and everything I liked – no matter what it was. Since this spanned a few months, I also left myself little notes in the comment area, to remind myself why I had pinned that image. After I had about 100 or so pins, I started to clean up the board by deleting the pins that I wasn’t in LOVE with. After we found our new home and I knew what my space was like, I refined the board even more leaving me with a uniquely curated collection of ideas. This process was incredibly helpful for me and was fun at the same time!

The craft room started with a board on Pinterest!

DIY Painted Glass Door Knobs:

Over the course of this week, you’ll find quite a few details I’ve created that directly correlate with images I pinned on Pinterest for inspiration, but these painted glass door knobs are my absolute favorite! Having a turquoise door knob for my space was a must, so I literally searched the internet for hours to find one that resembled the blue one pictured here. When my search totally failed I thought “I wonder if I can just paint the back or the sides of a new, cheap glass knob?”. Turns out the answer is yes! Here I used a paint pouncer to gently dab Martha Stewart Crafts satin paint in Caribbean Blue, all around the sides of this inexpensive knob set. I did two coats total and let each one dry for about 2 hours. After 72 hours I ended up spray painting the gold hardware copper to match the rest of the hardware in my room. I’m seriously obsessed with my turquoise knobs and just LOVE seeing them everyday!

DIY Gorgeous Colored Glass Door Knobs for super cheap!

Step Two: Shopping!

Shopping is the FUN part! It’s also fun sticking to a budget. I allotted myself a specific amount for each element and was able to stay exactly $127 under budget. When you give yourself an exact amount to spend – it’s like a challenge to make things work and it’s incredibly rewarding when you do. Plus that extra little cash at the end was a super happy bonus!

Since I created a lot of custom elements for my space, a huge trip to Home Depot was in order. From Behr paint to gas pipe and peg board… I made a list, checked it twice and had a blast filling up my cart. Trips to JoAnn’s, Paper Source, Home Goods, and Target were also needed along with loads of online Etsy and Amazon shopping – so much in fact my UPS guy asked if I was going to go broke soon, lol!

Choosing my Behr paint!

My Paint Colors

In my previous job, I was a hair dresser and had a small salon in which I painted the walls bright turquoise. The only problem with that was it was really difficult to bring in decor elements in varying shades of turquoise – since there was SO much turquoise already on the walls. For this space I knew I wanted that to be different. My decor elements and craft supplies were going to be incredibly colorful, so I chose a very light, almost neutral turquoise shade for my walls called Crystalline Falls from the Behr Marquee line. I’m SO glad I did because it ended being the perfect shade to stand up to the other, intense colors in my room. Key Largo and Snowfall White are my accent colors.

I’ll be talking all about my painting experience and my gallery wall in tomorrows feature!

The Behr paint colors that I choose.
Shopping for my craft room at Home Depot

iPhone Snaps:

Here are a few pics from my phone during my planning process.1. My measuring tools were my best friends. I actually just kept the tapes in my purse at all times! 2. This was the day we got the keys. 3. SO thrilled to find this awesome shark at Home Goods – it’s the perfect focal point for my gallery wall. 4. The video process begins, and we had to document where the tripod was sitting for the shot. 5. Material for my curtains! 6. I copper gilded all my outlet covers and they are stunning!

iPhone snaps of Jen planning her craft room!

What Real Life Looked Like:

I’ve been working on my craft room since the day we moved into our new home on March 1st… and this was the reality of what my work life looked like for WAY tooooooo long. I actually took this panoramic picture just for me, to remember how hard it was and that all good things are worth the wait – because it’s so easy to forget. I decided to share it with you since I feel like nowadays, we are all so focused on the perfectly styled life – it’s refreshing to see some truth. It was incredibly difficult for me to be creative in a mess like this, but I just kept my eyes on the crafty prize!

Yieks! What a mess!

Craft Room Credits:

Special thanks to Fiskars and JoAnn Stores for partnering with us on this project!

Photography: Something Turquoise // Statement necklace: DIY on Something Turquoise // Custom pencils: The Carbon Crusader via Etsy // Clipboard: DIY-ed with Krylon Copper Spray Paint and Krylon Oxford Blue Spray Paint // Scissors: Fiskars // Gutermann threads: JoAnn // Aqua muslin ribbon: Afloral // Martha Stewart Crafts Glitter, Paint brush, and Rust Metallic Paint: Martha Stewart Crafts // Aqua ring box: The Mrs Box // wooden mermaid: tiny gift shop in Cape Cod // Paint Colors; Key Largo, Crystalline Falls, and Snowfall White: Behr Marquee


All images copyright of SomethingTurquoise.comĀ®. If you’d like to share these images, please do! Guidelines: only 1-2 images can be shared at one time, in their original format, with a direct link to this exact post including that express credit for the image and idea is given to “Something Turquoise”.


This is only part one, don’t miss the other four:


Craft Room Partners:

joann-fiskars

I have partnered with the brands listed above to create this craft space. All expressed opinions and experiences are my own.


#stcraftroom sweepstakes!


My favorite craft brands will be sponsoring giveaways all week long and today I have some truly amazing prizes for you! First up, is Fiskars, they are graciously granting one very lucky ST reader an ENORMOUS stash of tools: scissors, punches, stamps and even a paper trimmer – valued at $350! These items would be an amazing addition to any craft room or DIY bride tool bag! Our second prize of the day is a whopping $150 gift card to JoAnn Stores – how awesome is that?! No matter if you are a crafter or DIY bride – that gift card will come in handy for craft supplies of all kinds! Good luck to all who enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Use the individual Rafflecopter Widgets above to enter. All contests end on Friday, 8/21/15 at midnight, PST. Winners chosen at random. Winners will be contacted via the email address that they provide to the Rafflecopter Widget. If the winner doesn’t respond to our contact email by 8/26/15 at midnight, another winner will be chosen. Winners will be announced here within this blog post no later than 8/31/15. Only one #stcraftroom sweepstakes winner per household. Readers are allowed to enter to win all 11 prizes, but can only win once during the Sweepstakes period. Available to US residents only. Must be at least 18 years old to enter. Click here to read the official rules for the $350 Fiskars Tool Bundle prize. Click here to read the official rules for the $150 JoAnn Stores Gift Card prize.


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